It’s nice to get back to basics once in a while and write about the things that compelled me to start this blog in the first place.
Sunday’s Janesville Gazette ran an article about the Federal government's drive to finally begin enforcing employment rules employers were obligated to follow but ignored in their quest to hire cheaper and cheaper labor.
The article Somebody is going to pay was an explanation of the potential consequences from the expected rule enforcement on employers of illegal immigrants and contained commentary and opinion supporting a business-only view without regard to national or social security issues. Not a problem if presented in the op-ed section of the newspaper, but unfortunately the Gazette pasted this as frontpage headlines of the local news section. The journalist was then able to morph an obviously one-sided opinion piece loaded with conjecture, assumptions and warnings into a news event targeting primarily consumers and local employers.
Participants in the story also were allowed to stray by mixing definitions and issues of illegal immigration in with legally documented workers.
I’m not taking anything away from the supporting cast but every perspective and opinion offered fell in line with a no-amnesty, pro-temporary worker visa policy as the solution to the problem when there are alternatives. How they can reconcile the importance and high value manual labor brings to the economy with poverty level pay is difficult to understand. If our economy must rely on millions of poverty wage undocumented workers in order to survive – then we have a failed economy. That is the real story here.
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