| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/28/2006 11:01:29 PM | I have to admit upon reading this article I busted out laughing.
Felons on probation and homeless men have filled some of the poultry jobs left by illegal Mexican laborers deported in raids two months ago
Additionally, 16 men from the Garden City Rescue Mission in Augusta have come to work in the plant. Several from the mission have become shift leaders, said Lavond Reynolds, director of men's housing for the mission.
• The company raised starting wages by about 40 cents and now offers attendance bonuses to new hires. Before, it took a year to be eligible for the extra pay. (Starting base pay is $6 an hour; most workers earn more through bonuses and overtime.)
• The company is spending more on hiring and training as turnover is high among new employees.
This company which last time I checked broke the law in employing over 700 illegal aliens doesn't like the idea of hiring less than the average upstanding citizen. I have no warm-fuzzy for felons but they too need a new start. I can't begin express my sorrow at how this company has to now hire Americans, offer a decent wage, and maybe even benefits. Am I missing something here. I've worked for companies like this, and am always amazed by how eager they are to maximize profits using illegals. What do you think? | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/28/2006 11:14:45 PM | To be honest, I think it's disgusting. It happens a lot in Canada as well, if a bunch of illegals are deported or removed for some reason, then a company actually has to start hiring legal citizens and immigrants and treat them like human beings, God forbid. Profit is always going to be a priority over offering a decent living wage and benefits in our consumer driven society, and it doesn't surprise me that this company can't even keep ex-felons on a job when they have been so used to hiring people and paying them almost nothing and generally treating them like dirt. What legal citizen or immigrant would put up that? That's why corporations and companies who exist for profit at any cost are so eager to hire illegals in the first place. It makes better financial sense for them if they don't have to think about humans as anything other than slaves, and only illegals can be slaves for these companies, if just for a short time. But obviously it all gets found out and then the company can't continue with their corrupt policies. I say it's a good thing this happened.
I think only with more situations like this will North Americans (and people in other industrialized countries with a lot of immigration) come to realize exactly what illegal immigrants have to put up with, and just how much of our economy is actually dependent on them. Products and services will no longer be available as widely and cheaply I'm sure, but if this is what it takes for average people to realize what's happening in the world, then I say burst the bubble! | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 1:04:15 AM | Took the words right out of my mouth indinita. Apparently the capitolists of today have forgotten what Henry Ford did. He was one money mad profiteer. He was building trucks for the German army during ww2 in plants he owned in Spain. Money was everything to him. Yet in 1909 I believe it was he paid his workers a dollar a day. Like 5 times the average wage for unskilled labor. Why? He wanted his workers to be able to buy his product. A word of wisdom to profit at any cost companies today perhaps?
One thing about homeless ppl they all have in commen whether on drugs booze or crazy is none have a job. And some places in US like south cicago have close to 40 percent unemployment rate. You offer jobs at decent wages and ppl will do them.
Sorry to rant but as it was a poultry slaughterhouse thought id add this. 25 yrs ago meat packing was one of the most unionized and highest paid of the so called unskilled labor. Then they broke the unions and cut labor costs to a 1/5 of what they had paid. Any one remember meat prices dropping? Pure profit. And for all you Republicans out there. Ive worked in a slaughterhouse and unskilled or not you deserve a good wage. Its bloody smelly and hard physical labor. Taking advantage of ppl with little choice in jobs is down right evil. | |
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yna6
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Joined: 5/2/2004
Msg: 4 | |
| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 7:27:55 AM | Meat packing in Quebec still pays high...as long as it is not small animals. Poultry...about 9 an hour, pigs, etc, getting up into 20+ an hour. Both still bloody smelly dirty jobs. But, size matters I guess.
Maple Leaf cut their union, and the union made a huge ad campaign to keep Canadian jobs with a half decent wage. It did nothing to keep the comany from moving their plant to where labour was cheaper....so I no longer buy Maple Leaf products.
Minimum wage is different from a living wage. Perhaps within a 10 mile radius of the city, there should be a certain wage level, and outside make it a living wage. Even Unemployment benefits need adjusting...big difference between city living and rural living...you always pay more in a rural setting for almost anything. Rent is about the same price. Food, gas, utilities, etc are a bit higher in rural settings. Yet the benefits do not reflect that.
Gov't turns a blind eye to rural problems unless it involves natives.
We've had bad water for years...a bit of gov't help did nothing to clean it up. Do we get water trucked in at gov't expense, such as native communities do? No. Nor will we see this. We tried to build a better clean up and filtration system...didn't work...water still has contaminants.
If a company offers a large chunck of change to the gov't here, they do what they want. Huge pig farms here routinly have poisoned waterways, etc, overcrwded their stock pens, etc, all with the gov't blessings. Complaints are made against these farms, nothing gets done because of the money changing hands. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 8:37:01 AM | ^^^^^This is an interesting and valid point. Most people don't stop and think "Hmmm.. This company has extremely unethical business practices, do I want to give my dollar vote to support them?" No, it's just buy whatever is the cheapest or has the best value, without thinking about farther reaching consequences of what happens when you support companies or corporations like this. Most people don't even take a mental note in their mind of which companies are related to or owned by who and what kind of policies they hold, or what kind of business history they have. People really have to educate themselves and open their eyes about what is going on, on a everyday basis, for any of this to actually change. And yes, governments all over the world are bought out, and no one even has a chance to protest or do or change anything, because often the knowledge is suppressed and not that easy to prove, even when it may be obvious to everybody living in a community close to company with unethical practices. It really makes me sick.
I must say so though, that I've worked with quite a few First Nations communities (both in and out of reserves), and water issues with Natives are much more complex than that. But that's another story, another thread. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 11:37:02 AM | You said that the pay was raised by about 40 cents, that is not much of a change from what the pay was to start with, so my question..... why didn't the felons and homeless work at these place before? That fact that homeless men would not take a job for only $6.00 an hour says a lot about us as a nation. Too bad there are so many people that think they are too good to work, being homeless and all... I would think $6 an hour is better than nothing an hour and sleeping under a bridge. 
Yes you were right, a person who has been to jail needs someone to give them the chance to start over.
I just had a funny thought. In central Ohio you have to pass a background check before almost any company around here will hire you. These background checks in many cases include credit report checks (where your credit score can be used against you). What is a poor homeless man and felon to do? I am just trying to be funny.... | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 12:14:52 PM | Hmmmm.... it's not like you're going to get a printout of an illegal's work or arrest history either. But then, you can fire them or mistreat them as much as you want and never get into trouble... maybe even beat them to death and nobody will know...
Nothing against illegals, but I hate to see anyone out of work... especially when they want to work and all they want is to make a decent living. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 12:33:14 PM | Just because some one is homeless or has broken the law it doesnt mean that they do not deserve a second chance.
They are citizens of the country and deserve to be offered the jobs that illegals have been doing. Yes it is disgusting how illegals take jobs for less money than an average citizen needs to survive. If it wasn't for illegals coming and working for less than a decent wage maybe some of these people might not have been homeless or committed a felony in the first place. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 12:52:44 PM |
If it wasn't for illegals coming and working for less than a decent wage maybe some of these people might not have been homeless or committed a felony in the first place.
an excellent point!
I can't blame illegals for this, since it's an "us vs. them" situation. I can't blame a person for not passing up a chance to survive.... but...
Squeezing wages for citizens takes them out of the job market and makes them seek ways to make a living by "other means". Sounds like a very reasonable theory to me. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 12:58:50 PM | | what are you talking about......blaming immigrants, illegal or otherwise for a person being a felon or homeless? In Ohio the min wage was just voted up from 5.75 per hour. That is .25 cents less an hour than the $6.oo an hour the homeless person would not take until after being raised to 6.40 and being offered a bonus. There are a lot of people that are homeless because of Self-inflicted situations such as alcoholism and drug abuse. The felon has no one to blame but them self for doing whatever that got them into jail in the first place. Oh, and while we are playing the blame game, the company is the bad guy for hiring a person with out papers, the person working for $6 / hr to feed thier family (when even the homeless person had put thier nose up to it) is just doing what they have to do to survive. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 11/29/2006 1:19:29 PM | I don't get why some people think Illegals are cheap labor, I'll be very honest, when we have got into a crunch and needed a couple people to finish a construction clean up job, we headed down to the local labor street and picked up a couple, couldn't really say if they were legal or not as we didn't bother asking, but we payed these guys around 15 an hour, and if they worked good, we brought them back for multiple days.
So they don't all work for 25 cents an hour, just so you know. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 8/4/2007 4:02:46 AM |
This company which last time I checked broke the law in employing over 700 illegal aliens doesn't like the idea of hiring less than the average upstanding citizen. I have no warm-fuzzy for felons but they too need a new start. I can't begin express my sorrow at how this company has to now hire Americans, offer a decent wage, and maybe even benefits. Am I missing something here. I've worked for companies like this, and am always amazed by how eager they are to maximize profits using illegals. What do you think?
Sounds like more of those jobs that Americans reportedly don't want to do. I have yet to hear on a single company that has had to close down after immigration raids. Would that not be the case if they really could not hire legal residents?
I recently was in the market for a new job. There were quite a few places I visited that all I saw were hispanics working. Oh course the companies weren't hiring, but yet I wonder was I just the wrong shade when I walked in the door. Hmm... | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 8/4/2007 4:08:39 AM |
I don't get why some people think Illegals are cheap labor, I'll be very honest, when we have got into a crunch and needed a couple people to finish a construction clean up job, we headed down to the local labor street and picked up a couple, couldn't really say if they were legal or not as we didn't bother asking, but we payed these guys around 15 an hour, and if they worked good, we brought them back for multiple days.
So they don't all work for 25 cents an hour, just so you know.
I have to agree with this poster. Many of the illegals aren't making chump change, especially if they have a skill. While I still think it is wrong to hire them, one thing they do have that many Americans don't is a strong work ethic.
They aren't riding around in new pick up trucks while making $5 per hour. Many of them get paid quite well. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 8/4/2007 8:53:57 AM |
Minimum wage is different from a living wage. Perhaps within a 10 mile radius of the city, there should be a certain wage level, and outside make it a living wage. Even Unemployment benefits need adjusting...big difference between city living and rural living...you always pay more in a rural setting for almost anything. Rent is about the same price. Food, gas, utilities, etc are a bit higher in rural settings. Yet the benefits do not reflect that.
In the US, a few municipalities and even some states legislate a higher minimum wage. In Maryland, for example, it varies by county. | |
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| Company forced to hire ex-cons and homeless after immigration raid
Posted: 8/4/2007 11:51:46 AM | Fookin' States...always way ahead of dumbo Quebec. Here you get crap pay for jobs that pay well anywhere else, then, get dumped by all gov't services if you get hurt on the job! they really stink here. No wonder there are so many street people in htis province...they create more and more of them daily!
Ah well....someday, maybe, I will be able to live in the States...but it won't be in the near future. | |
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