Foreign students can continue to work in U.S. seafood processing plants this summer under the State Department's J-1 visa program, Alaska's senators announced Friday.
Here's a press release from Sen. Mark Begich, and a statement from Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Here in Kodiak this is a joke. All this does is give the processors access to indentured servants which help them to hold down wages.
ReplyDeleteThe resident Filipino/Hispanic processing workers say there are more than enough local workers to fill the need.
Nothing like access to third world labor!
Oh good! We don't have to hire our own residents and pay a decent wage, plus...we get tax breaks and get to abuse them in ways that a U.S. citizen would never put up with. I wonder why our country is going to hell in a handbasket? Oh wells, see you in Maui!
ReplyDeleteThe Dillingham Commission...then you can importt a few more Coolies, it works the same in every cannery, up and down the coast for hundred's of years.
ReplyDeletehttp://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/dillingham.html
Sen Murkowski admits she based
ReplyDeleteher support on what processors told
her. To bad she didn't ask the people
that pay her salary and she says she represents, The Alaskans who's jobs are being taken.
Somehow I don't think the people posting here are ready to jump on the slime line for minimum wage. Ask the farmers in the south who let produce rot on the vine how they made out without migrant labor. We are all immigrants.
ReplyDeleteWow, way to go Murkowski Begih helping industry to hire Foreign workers. Ahhh the republican jobs plan. What a pair of two face lieing hypocrites Lisa and Mark. We'll just have to see how much it cost those companies in campaign donations to get away with screwing Americans out of those jobs so they could keep their profits up. What a loser move from our senators, giving away American jobs... Pathetic.
ReplyDeleteWe are all immigrants blah blah blah. If americans were offered fair wages for their labor, decent living conditions they would take those jobs in nano seconds. Toting the bullshit line Americans won't do those jobs is pure horse shit, it''s corporate greed and the little fisherman who wants his cut of pie so bad he'll step on a foreign worker or two if it means a few more bucks in his pocket. Pure greed.
ReplyDeleteYou same whiners will complain about high retail prices next...
ReplyDeleteGood morning ChuckyB.
ReplyDeleteThe fisheries pay scale is something else - extremely high at the top for administrators and extremely low at the bottom for the line workers. The inbetween guys are just happy to have a job.
ReplyDeleteThe Kodiak Filipino/American Association has come out in vocal opposition to this. This is striking as the processing workers ALWAYS do what their bosses want politically.
ReplyDeleteThe J1 visa workers don't get medicare or Social security deducted from their wages and so can be paid less.
This is cheap labor for the processors and nothing more. No labor shortage here.
ahhh sooooo no more iron chink wink wink!!!!
ReplyDelete"Alaskans place the highest priority
ReplyDeleteon hiring state residents."
Where are you from Lisa?
A shame both Lisa and Mark have bought the BS from the processors. They only want to pay minimum wage so, of course, they'll "only" be able to get foreigners to take the jobs. For that work and conditions, the pay should be well above minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteWant an easy, risk-free job where you can go home at night? Go flip a fucking burger. That's worth minimum wage.
But, of course, these processing jobs are NOT like that and it's a shame that the processors are still given free passes to import their labor force and pay slave wages.
Talking BS about the "overtime" making it worth it is just that: bullshit.
The Mexicans and the Filipinos are there because they or their forbears were willing to work for less than the midwestern Americans who worked the canneries before them. If there were no minimum wage and no immigration restrictions those fish processors would be working for a dollar a day. Some day the same pressures will come to the boat crews.
ReplyDeleteCorrupt Bastard and Bastardette Club. Congrats processors, good stealing for another summer, whew.
ReplyDeleteMuy Bien, Cerote!
ReplyDeleteAriba, Cerote, necicito verde!!!
Besides minimum wage, they have
ReplyDeleteto finish the season or pay for
their room,board and airfare.
With Murkowskis support.
definition of servitude.
The state of a person who is subjected, voluntarily or involuntarily, to another person as a servant. A charge or burden resting upon one estate for the benefit or advantage of another
If any of you are salmon fishermen, especially in areas without an extremely large, resident work force, I suggest that you get a grip on reality!! Get rid of these workers WHO COME TO WORK VOLUNTARILY AND QUITE GLADLY and you can proportionally pick the limit you will be on for deliveries. Even in Kodiak that easily has the largest resident workforce, there are not enough workers to process during the peak fisheries at all of the plants......period. If all of you unrealistic and uninformed critics can figure out how to bet the USA kids to do this work, then you have your solution......good luck with that!! Oh ya, we just pay them alot more. Havbe you figured out where that extra pay will come from yet?
ReplyDeleteSeems like you same folks find fault with or see a conspiracy behiond every bush with every subject that comes by. why not try ldoing some research first? see what the rest of the US seafood industry is doing and what their needs are. Try just once to loose your self centered and unrealistic take on things and help rather than tear down everyones efferts to make your business better!!
Roger on that!!!
ReplyDeleteSo let me get this straight. The processors vehemently oppose the repeal of the J-1 student visa, but then conjure up all sorts of reasons to limit foreign processor activity in AK waters?
ReplyDeleteF D R came up with the civilian conservation corps in 1933 to fight unemployment,why can't one of the
ReplyDeleteAlaskan Senators make him or herself famous by creating a job program to
employ 10,000 Americans in Alaska's
canneries.
Maybe the inspiring wage can come from your fat-assed "compensation" packages, bonuses, retreats and retirement perks, etc... oh that's right, they're too stupid to deserve what you all reap double or triple of. If you try to tell me that processor management doesn't get overpaid, how come there is such an abnormally low turnover rate? I guess it pays well if you get on the inside and learn the "secrets". You guy's are truly pathetic about hoarding the profits and payscale distributions! Make sure that you get medical/dental/vision, retirement, christmas bonus... the rest can order from the dollar meal list at McDonalds.
ReplyDeleteBTW....The Filet O' Fish is Icicles main bread and butter!...Evidence yearly, at their Christmas Party....
ReplyDeleteTeddy Roosevelt coined the phrase "Square Deal" in the early 1900's "to describe his domestic agenda emphasizing that the average citizen would get a fair share." Revisit his policies and reinact them!
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