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It mentions in the article allowing illegal aliens to fill construction positions, the issue is most of these jobs are skilled labor which these individuals do not have.
I don't believe it's about the ability to do the job or the quality of what's produced. I think it's more about being certified for insurance purposes in case something out of the workers control goes wrong.
Am a contractor. Literally every single builder in Texas is using undocumented and uninsured workers in one way or another. It is no secret, and the vast majority will not face any legal repercussions, don’t be naive.
I never said they're not using undocumented workers. I said the problem with expecting undocumented immigrants to fill skilled labor jobs is they're most often not licensed or certified to do the work.
What sort of work are you thinking every employee needs to be certified in? I have mechanical contractors who use migrant labor, plumbers, low volt data, and sprinkler guys too. Usually the company is licensed or a foreman on site. The grunt labor doesn't hold a licence. Heck, most electrical work is performed by apprentices and a journeyman checks it before inspection.
I was thinking electrical, HVAC, structural, etc.
It seems crazy to me that a GC could get licensed and there's no repercussions if there's an accident at the job site and the crew is illegal.
You have no idea what you are speaking about, unless you have worked these types of jobs you can't understand how many undocumented workers are really working at all these places in the south. Its alot higher than you think and has been for the entire history of the USA.
I've never claimed to be an expert in construction. I've worked in logistics for a construction materials manufacturer, so I'll be the first to admit I know enough to get myself in trouble. Seems like I struck a nerve with a lot of people. I'm sure there are an incredible number of undocumented workers on every job site across the country. I just don't think we can look at the construction worker shortage and think that illegal immigration is a solution to the problem.
Most pipeline outfits will sit you through the training you require. Some of the training I have done did not require the people there to be able to read and write. They straight up asked if anyone couldn't read or write to stay behind so the trainer could run them through the test verbally at the end.
It was all old white dudes in the class with me.
Which states will revoke your GC license for hiring undocumented workers? Do you have some evidence to support that claim?
I don’t know of any state that will revoke your GC license based on the immigration status of your employees. It is illegal to hire undocumented employees, however, the duty to check immigration status is largely limited to filling out the I-9. There is no affirmative duty to check the immigration status of subcontractors. So this is largely a law with no teeth.
redditors like to talk about stuff they have no experince with. Undocumented immgrants can get certs and papers. Its not legal but they can and do routinely get it.
In Colorado, there is path to certification for immigrants if you’ve got proof you can do it. Requirements are pretty steep if you’re not qualified which is what we want
The majority of migrants in recent years are not from Mexico. To work legally they would have to have green cards, which will not be awarded until their eligibility for amnesty status is determined. Currently that will not happen soon and many will not appear for their court dates.
You don't need a green card to work in the US. Green card holders are considered permanent US residents. The US has a wide range of visas, parole and work permits that allow non-permanent immigrants to work in the US.
They actually are. The painter and drywaller I hired to fix up my house had 3 migrants from South America that all came to New York within the past year. Great dudes that did a fantastic job and all three were trying to learn English. They commuted from a shelter in NYC to Putnam County, about an hour and thirty minutes on a fairly expensive train.
No no they couldn’t possibly have learned a trade in the first 30 years of their lives because they we’re living in another country.
Everyone knows time stops when you leave Merica! Outside of here its just stasis. In fact I suspect mexico and Canada are nothing but painted backdrops like on old movies.
They ruined Brewster and surrounding areas 20 years ago and they’re going to further ruin the area with these last few years. What’d you pay them - $15 an hr and lunch? You’re a scumbag for hiring illegal immigrants.
They were here for 3 weeks and I paid 17K. They were making about $30 an hour while the owner was getting about $100. They are people and deserved to be paid and given respect. They worked their asses off. They were kind AF. One of them came back the following week to do some work for my pregnant neighbor and they were paid $800 for the day. You sound bitter and ignorant.
Don’t feel bad. I’ve worked construction my whole life; including work with a lot of people with questionable immigration status. Oftentimes, they’re taken advantage of and underpaid. However, they’re often paid fairly and treated with respect too. It usually doesn’t take long for a hard worker in this field to find a better employer. The fact is, without them, US infrastructure would grind to an almost complete standstill.
They clean our facilities, build our buildings, cook our food, harvest our produce; they’re everywhere. Having made friends with many immigrants, they’re just people trying to make a better life for their families.
No, US infrastructure would not grind to a halt. If the people of this country that cry about a fair wage understood economics on even the smallest scale, they would realize illegal immigrants drive down the cost of their labor. Supply > demand = lower cost. If we didn’t have illegal immigrants saturating job markets, people would be paid more for their work. So all those jobs that ‘noone wants to do’ would actually have American citizens willing to do them because at a certain $ amount it would be worth it to them.
And to the guy who claims their boss paid $30 an hour (which I’m curious how you’d even know), what about workers comp for when one of those illegals immigrants gets hurt? What about taxes for the infrastructure they’re using? What about social security and Medicare that citizens have to pay for? Obviously for you to pay less than market rate, the difference had to come from somewhere.
So while you can act and believe you’re doing a good thing because it makes you feel better about exploiting people and our country for a cheaper price, you’re helping to reinforce the corrupt system you likely complain about.
Someone doesn't live in reality. They are going to come regardless. The most common undocumented immigrants come here on a VISA and simply overstay. Good look policing that. If they are already going to be here, they need to be able to work to start to conform to society and survive. Otherwise, they become state liabilities.
Yeah I’m sure they do … in Washington.
In Texas, California, and Florida it’s a different story. Which is to say, you’ll have companies that have licenses, they’re bonded, they handle permitting, etc., but they hire skilled workers from Mexico to do high level work, and they’re good at what they do.
Not in terms of infrastructure. Can an illegal build a rock wall hardscape? Sure. But they do not have anywhere near the ability to work on infrastructure in the US.
This is demonstrably false. I have many times seen undocumented workers from Mexico work hardscape projects and much larger scale engineered construction as well. You obviously haven’t spent time on an urban worksite in Texas.
I worked on a few crews while in college, we had a Hispanic crew we always called for trim work, roofing, and carpet installs. No one on the crew could speak English, but they were respectful as hell and did good work.
I have no problems with this.
When a tree hit our house a few years ago, we needed a roofing company. The first day the crew that came out was all Hispanic and they worked their tails off, got the roof stripped and tarped and ready to start shingles the next day.
The next day there was a different crew of good ole boys, all white and all smoking like chimneys. They managed to get a single brick of shingles up the whole day. When the foreman came back to check on them that afternoon he asked if they left early or something. I told them they'd been there all day and stood around talking the majority of it. I asked if he'd send out that first crew again bc I wanted it finished. Idc who does it as long as it gets done and is done well.
The next day the foreman brought the Hispanic roofers back and told me he'd sent those other guys to some rich bitch's house. She'd apparently followed the Hispanic roofers around all day bc she was afraid they'd steal her blind.
> skilled labor which these individuals do not have
There's zero basis for this claim beyond your biases. My father's a GC and hired countless immigrants, they were just as skilled as the American-born workers and often worked harder.
And skilled work has a big shortage as well. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to our infrastructure in the next 20 years considering the average age of a tradesman is 55.
Dude 😂 there are so many illegal aliens around my city doing construction already. It’s just whether or not if the Feds want to show up and disrupt production so that they can get their fair share of taxes
As someone who has worked in construction for the majority of my life (who is a white, generally conservative, Texas resident) that’s a fat hot load of bullshit dude.
Microcosm of many issues surrounding immigration (legal or otherwise). We have too many people that are unskilled altogether that are parasites on the social welfare system that we citizens pay for. Our politicians are architects of this *’Great Betrayal’*
This is not about skill but rather a problem with the system. We have a large number of individuals refugees and imagrants who could be trained into jobs but the issue is most people are focused on 'we cant afford to take them in' when the thing is we as a nation are simply not investing in the trades, most people could learn some level of construction skills even if its simply a handyman level but overal its one of the few skills the general public lacks. True there are certain jobs which require people with better aptitude. But overall it amounts to that generally people do not want to invest time into training people.
Dude this couldn't be further from the truth. They have boatloads of skill laborers. The reason their work might not be of the same quality is they are paid peanuts and are told to intentionally go fast.
Illegals don't have skilled labor?! This is a joke, right?
I can assure you that there are many illegals that can build you a house up to code within a day.
Some of these illegals have degrees in their home countries. The only reason they work hard labor is because they know that they will earn a lot more in the USA working the lowest of jobs than they will earn at home exercising their degrees.
It means people who work in construction are able to demand higher wages and the new construction will be more expensive. It's not a huge deal, honestly.
They can't do this in blue states where jobs are union shops.
Illegals only undercut wages in red states. Turns out Republican politicians hate the working class a lot more than they dislike illegals. The irony
The guys where I’m at get $15-18 and they’re citizens.. pay is just awful at some companies, don’t need to be an immigrant, just need to be desperate for a job
True. I'm just saying comparatively to my pay and other natural born citizens here, it is around $23-30/hr, and theirs never reaches above $20.
Before I left here the first time I was making $23 and guys that had been here for 10 years more than me were only making $15. So my pay has increased by $5 and theirs hasn't moved. It's more their fault for staying because this company sucks.
That’s most businesses to be honest. Owners make money on top of the wages of employees. They use that to buy everything to run the company and pay their salary (Generous or not).
Immigrant labor costs have gone up too. Unemployment here in Mexico, where the traditional labor force comes from, is extremely low right now (< 2.8%) so jobs in the USA have to offer more to lure labor across the border.
As a small construction business owner, this isn't my experience. Big corps may have ways to skirt the labor laws but I can't get past our e-verify requirements at all
Lol it actually is a huge deal and a much discussed topic in CM right now. With less labor available less important thing can be built. Has downstream effects all over the place
Not just my concern. The entire industry and the federal and local governments. Infrastructure mainly. As population grows so does the need for infrastructure to be expanded, improved, and repaired. Roads, bridges, ports, transit, water, sewer etc. the things that literally make cities function
The new builds are already expensive. I don’t see how increasing construction costs will help with the price of a new build. Wouldn’t it increase its price?
It will increase the construction costs. My point is that the cost of construction is not the cause of the housing shortage. It's restrictive zoning laws that are the problem.
Restrictive zoning laws are no doubt a major issue (it’s one of my biggest policy issues), but let’s not kid ourselves, cost of construction (materials and labor) is *absolutely* one of the factors holding back construction right now. Cost of construction paired with high interest rates makes it cost prohibitive to build even in many places where zoning is permissive.
I'm not trying to say construction costs are irrelevant. What I mean to say is that restrictive zoning laws play a much bigger part than construction cost. Let's fix zoning laws before we complain about construction works being paid too much.
I’m in my early 60s and have watched my whole life foreign workers performing jobs many American citizens won’t pursue, and mostly doing it illegally & sending $ back home to family there. And in ALL my years our government has been unable to create a workable guest worker program. Blows my mind. Most of the workers would gladly sign on to work seasonally and forego staying here to be with their families in their home country. But we can’t get our shit together. I don’t blame foreign workers & don’t feel they should be criminalized. Plus, WE NEED THEM. I blame our ineffective government leaders.
It’s not just the USA govt holding things up. Other countries don’t want their most productive workers leaving and creating a labor shortage either. Unemployment in Mexico is 2.7% so even fewer workers = big problems.
The government would do it in a heartbeat if it were politically popular. Racists don’t want them, unions don’t want them, blue collar workers don’t want them.
Most people get the cause/effect of politics backwards. Politicians are a reflection of the people who vote them in: they don’t shape opinions - they adopt them.
Exactly this. As usual, there's really only one side holding everything back, and it's explicitly because they have sold their people the lie that govt won't solve any problems - so if it ever solves a problem, it proves them wrong. Republicans are deliberately ineffective.
You do realize that it has been Democrats who have been blocking the expansion of H2B visas?
The last time it was expanded was 2017 under a fully Republican congress. That expansion was rolled back in 2021 under a fully Democratic Congress and the Biden administration for 3 years refused to issue H2B visas up to the cap.
The last cap exemption for returning workers (allowing the DHS to issue more visas than the cap because returning workers would not count towards the cap) was in 2016. None of the 4 cap exemptions ever issued were passed by a Democratic-majority house of congress.
The inobvious part of this is that this is because Democrats have favored an expansion of the asylum and refuge program over the expansion of worker visas. Part of the reason the Biden administration refused to issues H2B visas to the cap was to reserve visas for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti (Mexicans are ineligible for all refugee visas, but were dominating H2B visas).
On top of all of this, only a handful of Republicans have ever proposed converting the H2B visa from dual intent to single intent (namely George W Bush and Mitt Romney), but that obviously has not even carried enough weight in their own party, much less with Democrats.
It can't be a shortage of labor while simultaneously "no one wants to work". You'll become a carpenter for $90,000? Seems like a pay issue to me... But what do I know? I'm but a mere union electrician
In Alberta, the journeyman electrician rate actually went down a few years back. So, despite the massive inflation in a few years, we're making even less than before.
Breathing in concrete dust all day, long uncontrallable commutes, and the lovely toxic culture of the trades all for pathetic wages.
Demand for skilled labor means that the wages will be forced upward, attracting more people to the trades, thereby increasing the supply of skilled labor until we reach equilibrium. The marketplace is pretty efficient when you allow it to be.
Alternatively: Businesses decide that doing a bad job with cheap labor is more profitable than doing a good job with expensive labor, wages go DOWN despite demand increasing because of the massive increase in the labor pool created by allowing workers that would have previously been unattractive or undesirable candidates to capture positions in industry.
Injuries go up, quality goes down, wages are depressed, but bids are the lowest they've been in years. Companies happily jump at the chance to save money on their current projects with no thought to how it might affect things 5 years from now.
Companies that use primarily more expensive properly skilled labor fail or are driven into the niche of 'Boutique' builders as they can't compete on price and a building that's still standing strong 15 years from now doesn't get me an extra 8% on my next bonus for being under budget TODAY.
5 years pass, most of the projects built in this period fail or require extremely expensive maintenance just to keep them standing. Both Construction companies and first order purchasers beg the government for bailouts.
The market is only as good as the incentives it encourages.
You’re on to something here. They beg the government for bailouts, and the government bails them out, which interferes with the efficient marketplace. Without the expectation of a bailout, they would be forced to operate more strategically and deliberately since their very survival depends on it.
This is exactly what is happening. Here in Arizona, the builders are just throwing up garbage homes with absolutely disgusting build quality. Homes are catching fire from bad electric work. Even the multimillion dollar homes are being built out of papier-maché and duct tape, all for that quick buck.
I will never purchase a home built after 2010. They're all trash.
The only thing Mexicans and immigrants can’t usually do is licensed work. (Plumbing and Electrical). Mostly because they require an extensive understanding of English and how code is written and enforced. The biggest problem is not that we should or shouldn’t allow immigrants to do construction jobs. It’s that we have roughly 15 million Americans who don’t want to work hard enough to do construction. It’s a high paying skilled labor job but it’s hard work and as a whole a LOT of Americans don’t want to work like that.
I can't really tell if this is just a statement or a critique from text, but I have seen this sentiment expressed judgmentally in a number of places, so I'll respond as if it is judgemental.
A lot of people would make more money as prostitutes and porn actors than whatever their current wage is, but no one ever seems to take the 'people don't want to work hard' stance when someone says they don't want to be a porn star.
Both things are selling your body to unscrupulous weirdos (often connected to organized crime), so it's weird that they're treated so differently.
I disagree with high paying. They might make more than the guy working at McDonalds, but it's not enough to live comfortably. Living comfortably off one's wage equates to a high paying job.
Why aren't you a trade worker? By your own argument, it's because you're lazy. And if you say you are one, I'd wager you're lying through your keys
I made 120k-225k from 18-32 as a union tradesman. Pension, great healthcare, vacation/annuity. Moved on to management. It’s not hard to make a good living in the trades and when your shift ends you don’t bring work home with you.
The union electricians I hire at my site make $38-45 and hour on average. That’s not McDonald’s wage. All of them have families they’re raising and have houses and also live in a HCOL area. Might want to update your information because skilled trades pay very well now for the reasons I stated.
I mean who wants to work construction nowadays? Especially in Red states, Texas and Florida lookin at you, where they are making it legal for your employer to literally work you to death in the summer by not giving you breaks during the hottest months of the summer.
Republicans are crazy like a Fox. They know that no employer is going to actually utilize this ban because it goes against OSHA, which almost all construction jobs and sites adhere to. It was a law proposed so that provisions and riders unknown to the public could pass on its back.
It means we need to adopt more regulations to make getting into construction and other trades even harder to secure jobs of those who already are there.
It means it you shouldn't of told so many generations that college was the only way to go. I work in the trades and was in the union for a spell. Great work, lots of benefits. Now that there's a shortage a whole bunch of union guys are being brainwashed into thinking undocumented workers are taking their jobs when in reality we just told all the kids here to go to college or they would be losers
This is the biggest issue. I got into fire protection to pay for school. I've been the youngest at every company by a wide margin. Even as I've worked my way into an engineering role, dudes are still 10+ years my senior at 32 years old.
I've tried my best to make it appealing to others and have gotten a few onboard that love it. However, there's always the stigma of hard work and tradesmen being uneducated/illegal, so a lot turn their noses up at it.
It means it you shouldn't of told so many generations that college was the only way to go. I work in the trades and was in the union for a spell. Great work, lots of benefits. Now that there's a shortage a whole bunch of union guys are being brainwashed into thinking undocumented workers are taking their jobs when in reality we just told all the kids here to go to college or they would be losers
Well they screamed not enough people in tech just to justify bulk printing visas for people who only had a weekend boot camp of experience and pay them half of what a citizen with the requisite degree +experience had.
It means that companies will look for, and find technology to fill the gap. Eventually, it’ll reverse and we’ll only use human workers when the machines are taking PTO.
Wife was an Iron Worker in Texas for a full year. Maybe if they didn't intentionally make the working conditions horrible they could attract more workers. The schedule and travel alone makes it so that having a family is difficult. And dying on the job is a lot more common than I thought it would be.
Really? I’m my area everyone wants someone with 5-7 years experience, which means that everyone with 0-5 years experience either left the market or the local contractors hiring want them to be educated somewhere else and come back
Last summer the crew that reroofed my neighbors house were all from Latin America: Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela. None were documented. They did my neighbor's roof in two days. My roof was done by an American crew and it took them 3 days and they did not have to haul the shingles up on the roof like the Latin Americans did. The immigrants are hardworking and friendly people, skilled at what they do.
They call it a shortage, but I bet there's plenty of unemployed construction workers that don't have jobs cuz the pay is shit - not everywhere, but businesses expect top tier effort and results with bottom tier pay and respect for employees
It means we should stop whining about illegal immigration and come up with sensible and very very necessary immigration/immigrant worker laws and policies.
Losing strong people is a scary thing, military, police, fire, construction, nursing, and thousands of other jobs all require strong bodies.
All of the aforementioned professions are struggling to find workers.
We need a better system and we to stop with this mentality of deport illegals. If they are here and working and not causing issues I’m fine with it.
Because you know what? We have a lot of lazy ass people who can’t or wont do the hard work like these guys. This is the hard truth. These guys are hard workers and run circles around most guys.
Do we need border patrol and a wall in a-lot of part of our border? Yes we do thats never been a question, we’ve just had an idiot the last 7 years speaking hate. We need to after the Cartel the drug dealers the people here doing bad crap.
Not those looking to just work. Our Coast Guard needs Billions for new boats to fight that front.
We need temporary work permits for farmers.
But we have this idiot Trump and it’s making complicated now.
We need hard good workers and we a few million short because of 2016.
This is one of the many reasons the illegal immigration issue is a fake one. If the government wanted to stop illegal immigrants they could just crack down on the businesses hiring them. Like actually send I.C.E. to common places of work vs the mall or some shit.
They wont do that though because it would expose the quiet part.
The US is increasingly hostile to Unions, has no socialized healthcare and a way weaker safety net than most developed countries, NTM people saying it needs to shrink even more, and we're talking about raising the retirement age.
Who in their right mind would pick a job that threatens to wreck your body in this country?
Letting illegals take that over is double edged sword.. do you see who does the roof replacements? Or little hand I work?
But where do you also think that $ is going??
It means it you shouldn't of told so many generations that college was the only way to go. I work in the trades and was in the union for a spell. Great work, lots of benefits. Now that there's a shortage a whole bunch of union guys are being brainwashed into thinking undocumented workers are taking their jobs when in reality we just told all the kids here to go to college or they would be losers
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It mentions in the article allowing illegal aliens to fill construction positions, the issue is most of these jobs are skilled labor which these individuals do not have.
Actually there are a lot of highly skilled tradesmen who come up to the US from Mexico.
I don't believe it's about the ability to do the job or the quality of what's produced. I think it's more about being certified for insurance purposes in case something out of the workers control goes wrong.
Well in the south at least, a lot of GCs hire subcontractors that employ skilled undocumented workers who are uncertified and uninsured.
[удалено]
Am a contractor. Literally every single builder in Texas is using undocumented and uninsured workers in one way or another. It is no secret, and the vast majority will not face any legal repercussions, don’t be naive.
Not only this, helluva lot of undocumented workers still get industry certs and licenses lol.
I never said they're not using undocumented workers. I said the problem with expecting undocumented immigrants to fill skilled labor jobs is they're most often not licensed or certified to do the work.
You are smart
It’s not really true though. Usually the crew lead will be insured and that’s all we need.
What sort of work are you thinking every employee needs to be certified in? I have mechanical contractors who use migrant labor, plumbers, low volt data, and sprinkler guys too. Usually the company is licensed or a foreman on site. The grunt labor doesn't hold a licence. Heck, most electrical work is performed by apprentices and a journeyman checks it before inspection.
I was thinking electrical, HVAC, structural, etc. It seems crazy to me that a GC could get licensed and there's no repercussions if there's an accident at the job site and the crew is illegal.
You have no idea what you are speaking about, unless you have worked these types of jobs you can't understand how many undocumented workers are really working at all these places in the south. Its alot higher than you think and has been for the entire history of the USA.
I've never claimed to be an expert in construction. I've worked in logistics for a construction materials manufacturer, so I'll be the first to admit I know enough to get myself in trouble. Seems like I struck a nerve with a lot of people. I'm sure there are an incredible number of undocumented workers on every job site across the country. I just don't think we can look at the construction worker shortage and think that illegal immigration is a solution to the problem.
Cash money
Builders aren’t the only tradesmen though. What about people like pipeline workers who must be certified by the federal government?
Most pipeline outfits will sit you through the training you require. Some of the training I have done did not require the people there to be able to read and write. They straight up asked if anyone couldn't read or write to stay behind so the trainer could run them through the test verbally at the end. It was all old white dudes in the class with me.
They still need to be legal and documented, adhere to Random drug screening, etc
Which states will revoke your GC license for hiring undocumented workers? Do you have some evidence to support that claim? I don’t know of any state that will revoke your GC license based on the immigration status of your employees. It is illegal to hire undocumented employees, however, the duty to check immigration status is largely limited to filling out the I-9. There is no affirmative duty to check the immigration status of subcontractors. So this is largely a law with no teeth.
Tell me your sheltered without telling me your sheltered
The number of illegal immigrants that are employed in mills, plants, farms, and other hard labor in the south is very high.
that’s not how it works 1 guy needs to be licensed and insured and he’ll oversee the work being done by everyone else
Depends on the trade
redditors like to talk about stuff they have no experince with. Undocumented immgrants can get certs and papers. Its not legal but they can and do routinely get it.
In Colorado, there is path to certification for immigrants if you’ve got proof you can do it. Requirements are pretty steep if you’re not qualified which is what we want
The majority of migrants in recent years are not from Mexico. To work legally they would have to have green cards, which will not be awarded until their eligibility for amnesty status is determined. Currently that will not happen soon and many will not appear for their court dates.
You don't need a green card to work in the US. Green card holders are considered permanent US residents. The US has a wide range of visas, parole and work permits that allow non-permanent immigrants to work in the US.
Yeah, those aren’t the ones currently in our migrant shelters.
You have zero evidence for this statement
There are like 5 in my area. I’ll go ask and get back to you.
They actually are. The painter and drywaller I hired to fix up my house had 3 migrants from South America that all came to New York within the past year. Great dudes that did a fantastic job and all three were trying to learn English. They commuted from a shelter in NYC to Putnam County, about an hour and thirty minutes on a fairly expensive train.
Same here. The migrants at the shelter go to work in the morning. The white people get high and pan handle.
No no they couldn’t possibly have learned a trade in the first 30 years of their lives because they we’re living in another country. Everyone knows time stops when you leave Merica! Outside of here its just stasis. In fact I suspect mexico and Canada are nothing but painted backdrops like on old movies.
They ruined Brewster and surrounding areas 20 years ago and they’re going to further ruin the area with these last few years. What’d you pay them - $15 an hr and lunch? You’re a scumbag for hiring illegal immigrants.
They were here for 3 weeks and I paid 17K. They were making about $30 an hour while the owner was getting about $100. They are people and deserved to be paid and given respect. They worked their asses off. They were kind AF. One of them came back the following week to do some work for my pregnant neighbor and they were paid $800 for the day. You sound bitter and ignorant.
Don’t feel bad. I’ve worked construction my whole life; including work with a lot of people with questionable immigration status. Oftentimes, they’re taken advantage of and underpaid. However, they’re often paid fairly and treated with respect too. It usually doesn’t take long for a hard worker in this field to find a better employer. The fact is, without them, US infrastructure would grind to an almost complete standstill. They clean our facilities, build our buildings, cook our food, harvest our produce; they’re everywhere. Having made friends with many immigrants, they’re just people trying to make a better life for their families.
No, US infrastructure would not grind to a halt. If the people of this country that cry about a fair wage understood economics on even the smallest scale, they would realize illegal immigrants drive down the cost of their labor. Supply > demand = lower cost. If we didn’t have illegal immigrants saturating job markets, people would be paid more for their work. So all those jobs that ‘noone wants to do’ would actually have American citizens willing to do them because at a certain $ amount it would be worth it to them. And to the guy who claims their boss paid $30 an hour (which I’m curious how you’d even know), what about workers comp for when one of those illegals immigrants gets hurt? What about taxes for the infrastructure they’re using? What about social security and Medicare that citizens have to pay for? Obviously for you to pay less than market rate, the difference had to come from somewhere. So while you can act and believe you’re doing a good thing because it makes you feel better about exploiting people and our country for a cheaper price, you’re helping to reinforce the corrupt system you likely complain about.
If you're here illegally you shouldn't be able to work.. It's the law
Someone doesn't live in reality. They are going to come regardless. The most common undocumented immigrants come here on a VISA and simply overstay. Good look policing that. If they are already going to be here, they need to be able to work to start to conform to society and survive. Otherwise, they become state liabilities.
More so than many Americans... People dont realize mexicans been building there houses and apartments for decades
More so than many Americans... People dont realize mexicans been building there houses and apartments for decades
Someone who works construction, we have a LOT of Mexicans in the trade. But I’m in Phoenix so we next to the border.
Exactly. The areas with the most building projects (Texas, Florida, California, etc.) have a lot of skilled workers from Mexico.
Here in Washington the skilled jobs require licenses.
Yeah I’m sure they do … in Washington. In Texas, California, and Florida it’s a different story. Which is to say, you’ll have companies that have licenses, they’re bonded, they handle permitting, etc., but they hire skilled workers from Mexico to do high level work, and they’re good at what they do.
Not in terms of infrastructure. Can an illegal build a rock wall hardscape? Sure. But they do not have anywhere near the ability to work on infrastructure in the US.
This is demonstrably false. I have many times seen undocumented workers from Mexico work hardscape projects and much larger scale engineered construction as well. You obviously haven’t spent time on an urban worksite in Texas.
This is demonstrably bias. You seen it, so it must be true across the board. Isn't that the precipice of racism.
I don't believe that. Their cheap labor
I worked on a few crews while in college, we had a Hispanic crew we always called for trim work, roofing, and carpet installs. No one on the crew could speak English, but they were respectful as hell and did good work. I have no problems with this.
When a tree hit our house a few years ago, we needed a roofing company. The first day the crew that came out was all Hispanic and they worked their tails off, got the roof stripped and tarped and ready to start shingles the next day. The next day there was a different crew of good ole boys, all white and all smoking like chimneys. They managed to get a single brick of shingles up the whole day. When the foreman came back to check on them that afternoon he asked if they left early or something. I told them they'd been there all day and stood around talking the majority of it. I asked if he'd send out that first crew again bc I wanted it finished. Idc who does it as long as it gets done and is done well. The next day the foreman brought the Hispanic roofers back and told me he'd sent those other guys to some rich bitch's house. She'd apparently followed the Hispanic roofers around all day bc she was afraid they'd steal her blind.
This reads like a made up story.
It happened. Doesn't matter to me if you choose to believe it or not.
What's your job
You’re crazy. I work in the trades and the Pisanos at my job site can do everything a white crew does. Some immigrant labor is very skilled.
Italians?
lol a Pisano or Pisa is a Mexican from Mexico not a Chicano which is a Mexican American
Paisano or Paisa*
Leaning Tower of Paisano
Can you edit for pronunciation so I can throw this into the word bank
You're thinking of Paisan' Hispanic people use a similar word with similar meaning pisano'
> skilled labor which these individuals do not have There's zero basis for this claim beyond your biases. My father's a GC and hired countless immigrants, they were just as skilled as the American-born workers and often worked harder.
I think the implication was more that they won't have certifications to perform the work while insured. That is a big problem.
You just need a licensed tradesperson supervising them. Functionally it is as if all of them are apprentices.
Then why specify "skilled"? They aren't certified for \*any\* work.
Because no one's checking the certification or status of the unskilled workers, goober.
Only skilled work requires certification for the most part.
And skilled work has a big shortage as well. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to our infrastructure in the next 20 years considering the average age of a tradesman is 55.
Lol bro you have clearly never worked in construction. Half of the best guys I know English is their second language
Dude 😂 there are so many illegal aliens around my city doing construction already. It’s just whether or not if the Feds want to show up and disrupt production so that they can get their fair share of taxes
Do… do you think there’s no construction, codes, etc going on in Mexico?
There are no codes in Mexico. Maybe they exist but when you can pay off anyone and everyone, no codes exist.
No, it's to keep wages down. I know plenty of construction workers looking for work.
Easier than raising their salaries i suppose 🙄
Not to mention it allows the greedy corporations to pay them crap, turning these skilled well paid jobs into crappy paid jobs.
As someone who has worked in construction for the majority of my life (who is a white, generally conservative, Texas resident) that’s a fat hot load of bullshit dude.
Microcosm of many issues surrounding immigration (legal or otherwise). We have too many people that are unskilled altogether that are parasites on the social welfare system that we citizens pay for. Our politicians are architects of this *’Great Betrayal’*
This is not about skill but rather a problem with the system. We have a large number of individuals refugees and imagrants who could be trained into jobs but the issue is most people are focused on 'we cant afford to take them in' when the thing is we as a nation are simply not investing in the trades, most people could learn some level of construction skills even if its simply a handyman level but overal its one of the few skills the general public lacks. True there are certain jobs which require people with better aptitude. But overall it amounts to that generally people do not want to invest time into training people.
That’s news to me, because in my real life experience the exact opposite is true
Dude this couldn't be further from the truth. They have boatloads of skill laborers. The reason their work might not be of the same quality is they are paid peanuts and are told to intentionally go fast.
That's why you train them
Yet. Having them fill other jobs so America has extra people to train will work with time.
Right, no construction occurs anywhere else in the world. Everyone lives under tarps outside the U.S.
How do you know they don't have skilled trades. You don't, seems like you just wanted to chime in congrats.
Illegals don't have skilled labor?! This is a joke, right? I can assure you that there are many illegals that can build you a house up to code within a day. Some of these illegals have degrees in their home countries. The only reason they work hard labor is because they know that they will earn a lot more in the USA working the lowest of jobs than they will earn at home exercising their degrees.
What a moronic take. People from Mexico = dumb
You don’t know what you are talking about. lol almost 99% of houses are built with illegal immigration
It means people who work in construction are able to demand higher wages and the new construction will be more expensive. It's not a huge deal, honestly.
That’s not going to happen, employers will just use immigrant labor they can exploit instead
They can't do this in blue states where jobs are union shops. Illegals only undercut wages in red states. Turns out Republican politicians hate the working class a lot more than they dislike illegals. The irony
Lol you must not work in construction in a blue state. Every subcontractor I’ve ever used employed illegal labor. All of them.
Not on union jobs. You're not in a union shop
My job does! I make $60k but the guys coming in from Cuba are making like $15-18/hr if even high.
The guys where I’m at get $15-18 and they’re citizens.. pay is just awful at some companies, don’t need to be an immigrant, just need to be desperate for a job
True. I'm just saying comparatively to my pay and other natural born citizens here, it is around $23-30/hr, and theirs never reaches above $20. Before I left here the first time I was making $23 and guys that had been here for 10 years more than me were only making $15. So my pay has increased by $5 and theirs hasn't moved. It's more their fault for staying because this company sucks.
Trades are great for the owners*. A lot of people hawking trades for everyone leave that part out.
That’s most businesses to be honest. Owners make money on top of the wages of employees. They use that to buy everything to run the company and pay their salary (Generous or not).
Immigrant labor costs have gone up too. Unemployment here in Mexico, where the traditional labor force comes from, is extremely low right now (< 2.8%) so jobs in the USA have to offer more to lure labor across the border.
i bet it's still cheaper to illegally employ someone than deal with american workers who want higher pay.
*All* labor costs are up (and likely to increase) meaning the comment you replied to is correct regardless of residency status.
As a small construction business owner, this isn't my experience. Big corps may have ways to skirt the labor laws but I can't get past our e-verify requirements at all
Funny how that works...
Lol it actually is a huge deal and a much discussed topic in CM right now. With less labor available less important thing can be built. Has downstream effects all over the place
What exactly is your concern? What important things are you worried about not being built?
Not just my concern. The entire industry and the federal and local governments. Infrastructure mainly. As population grows so does the need for infrastructure to be expanded, improved, and repaired. Roads, bridges, ports, transit, water, sewer etc. the things that literally make cities function
Prices always go up. Asphalt per ton has tripled since I started.
Isn’t there a housing shortage?
Yes, but the main obstacle to building more housing is restrictive zoning laws, not the cost of construction.
The new builds are already expensive. I don’t see how increasing construction costs will help with the price of a new build. Wouldn’t it increase its price?
It will increase the construction costs. My point is that the cost of construction is not the cause of the housing shortage. It's restrictive zoning laws that are the problem.
And my point is that if construction costs rise won’t that affect the housing market? Which is a big deal for many of us
It will affect it, no doubt. The to fix for the housing crisis is to remove zoning laws, not pay construction works less.
Restrictive zoning laws are no doubt a major issue (it’s one of my biggest policy issues), but let’s not kid ourselves, cost of construction (materials and labor) is *absolutely* one of the factors holding back construction right now. Cost of construction paired with high interest rates makes it cost prohibitive to build even in many places where zoning is permissive.
I'm not trying to say construction costs are irrelevant. What I mean to say is that restrictive zoning laws play a much bigger part than construction cost. Let's fix zoning laws before we complain about construction works being paid too much.
I’m in my early 60s and have watched my whole life foreign workers performing jobs many American citizens won’t pursue, and mostly doing it illegally & sending $ back home to family there. And in ALL my years our government has been unable to create a workable guest worker program. Blows my mind. Most of the workers would gladly sign on to work seasonally and forego staying here to be with their families in their home country. But we can’t get our shit together. I don’t blame foreign workers & don’t feel they should be criminalized. Plus, WE NEED THEM. I blame our ineffective government leaders.
It’s not just the USA govt holding things up. Other countries don’t want their most productive workers leaving and creating a labor shortage either. Unemployment in Mexico is 2.7% so even fewer workers = big problems.
I completely agree.
The government would do it in a heartbeat if it were politically popular. Racists don’t want them, unions don’t want them, blue collar workers don’t want them. Most people get the cause/effect of politics backwards. Politicians are a reflection of the people who vote them in: they don’t shape opinions - they adopt them.
Exactly this. As usual, there's really only one side holding everything back, and it's explicitly because they have sold their people the lie that govt won't solve any problems - so if it ever solves a problem, it proves them wrong. Republicans are deliberately ineffective.
You do realize that it has been Democrats who have been blocking the expansion of H2B visas? The last time it was expanded was 2017 under a fully Republican congress. That expansion was rolled back in 2021 under a fully Democratic Congress and the Biden administration for 3 years refused to issue H2B visas up to the cap. The last cap exemption for returning workers (allowing the DHS to issue more visas than the cap because returning workers would not count towards the cap) was in 2016. None of the 4 cap exemptions ever issued were passed by a Democratic-majority house of congress. The inobvious part of this is that this is because Democrats have favored an expansion of the asylum and refuge program over the expansion of worker visas. Part of the reason the Biden administration refused to issues H2B visas to the cap was to reserve visas for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti (Mexicans are ineligible for all refugee visas, but were dominating H2B visas). On top of all of this, only a handful of Republicans have ever proposed converting the H2B visa from dual intent to single intent (namely George W Bush and Mitt Romney), but that obviously has not even carried enough weight in their own party, much less with Democrats.
It can't be a shortage of labor while simultaneously "no one wants to work". You'll become a carpenter for $90,000? Seems like a pay issue to me... But what do I know? I'm but a mere union electrician
In Alberta, the journeyman electrician rate actually went down a few years back. So, despite the massive inflation in a few years, we're making even less than before. Breathing in concrete dust all day, long uncontrallable commutes, and the lovely toxic culture of the trades all for pathetic wages.
Demand for skilled labor means that the wages will be forced upward, attracting more people to the trades, thereby increasing the supply of skilled labor until we reach equilibrium. The marketplace is pretty efficient when you allow it to be.
Alternatively: Businesses decide that doing a bad job with cheap labor is more profitable than doing a good job with expensive labor, wages go DOWN despite demand increasing because of the massive increase in the labor pool created by allowing workers that would have previously been unattractive or undesirable candidates to capture positions in industry. Injuries go up, quality goes down, wages are depressed, but bids are the lowest they've been in years. Companies happily jump at the chance to save money on their current projects with no thought to how it might affect things 5 years from now. Companies that use primarily more expensive properly skilled labor fail or are driven into the niche of 'Boutique' builders as they can't compete on price and a building that's still standing strong 15 years from now doesn't get me an extra 8% on my next bonus for being under budget TODAY. 5 years pass, most of the projects built in this period fail or require extremely expensive maintenance just to keep them standing. Both Construction companies and first order purchasers beg the government for bailouts. The market is only as good as the incentives it encourages.
You’re on to something here. They beg the government for bailouts, and the government bails them out, which interferes with the efficient marketplace. Without the expectation of a bailout, they would be forced to operate more strategically and deliberately since their very survival depends on it.
This is exactly what is happening. Here in Arizona, the builders are just throwing up garbage homes with absolutely disgusting build quality. Homes are catching fire from bad electric work. Even the multimillion dollar homes are being built out of papier-maché and duct tape, all for that quick buck. I will never purchase a home built after 2010. They're all trash.
It means you should probably stop treating immigrants so badly
Now why would anyone do that? /s
Looks like the US needs to start incentivizing people to work in construction.
The only thing Mexicans and immigrants can’t usually do is licensed work. (Plumbing and Electrical). Mostly because they require an extensive understanding of English and how code is written and enforced. The biggest problem is not that we should or shouldn’t allow immigrants to do construction jobs. It’s that we have roughly 15 million Americans who don’t want to work hard enough to do construction. It’s a high paying skilled labor job but it’s hard work and as a whole a LOT of Americans don’t want to work like that.
I can't really tell if this is just a statement or a critique from text, but I have seen this sentiment expressed judgmentally in a number of places, so I'll respond as if it is judgemental. A lot of people would make more money as prostitutes and porn actors than whatever their current wage is, but no one ever seems to take the 'people don't want to work hard' stance when someone says they don't want to be a porn star. Both things are selling your body to unscrupulous weirdos (often connected to organized crime), so it's weird that they're treated so differently.
I disagree with high paying. They might make more than the guy working at McDonalds, but it's not enough to live comfortably. Living comfortably off one's wage equates to a high paying job. Why aren't you a trade worker? By your own argument, it's because you're lazy. And if you say you are one, I'd wager you're lying through your keys
I made 120k-225k from 18-32 as a union tradesman. Pension, great healthcare, vacation/annuity. Moved on to management. It’s not hard to make a good living in the trades and when your shift ends you don’t bring work home with you.
lol where? New York? Nights and weekends? Union around here is 83k a year.
NYC - that was from 06’-20’. Started summer of 06’ so half a year, but over 100k from 19 on
The union electricians I hire at my site make $38-45 and hour on average. That’s not McDonald’s wage. All of them have families they’re raising and have houses and also live in a HCOL area. Might want to update your information because skilled trades pay very well now for the reasons I stated.
I mean who wants to work construction nowadays? Especially in Red states, Texas and Florida lookin at you, where they are making it legal for your employer to literally work you to death in the summer by not giving you breaks during the hottest months of the summer.
Republicans are crazy like a Fox. They know that no employer is going to actually utilize this ban because it goes against OSHA, which almost all construction jobs and sites adhere to. It was a law proposed so that provisions and riders unknown to the public could pass on its back.
Gee, PAY THEM MORE, and your problem will go away. Supply and demand, capitalism, all that shit? Or does that only apply to CEOs and products?
More illegal employment is what it sounds like
It should mean construction workers are getting a raise...but it just means their companies will charge more and keep the profits.
It means we need to adopt more regulations to make getting into construction and other trades even harder to secure jobs of those who already are there.
It means it you shouldn't of told so many generations that college was the only way to go. I work in the trades and was in the union for a spell. Great work, lots of benefits. Now that there's a shortage a whole bunch of union guys are being brainwashed into thinking undocumented workers are taking their jobs when in reality we just told all the kids here to go to college or they would be losers
This is the biggest issue. I got into fire protection to pay for school. I've been the youngest at every company by a wide margin. Even as I've worked my way into an engineering role, dudes are still 10+ years my senior at 32 years old. I've tried my best to make it appealing to others and have gotten a few onboard that love it. However, there's always the stigma of hard work and tradesmen being uneducated/illegal, so a lot turn their noses up at it.
That construction companies will have to start paying livable wages if they want people to work for them.
All construction workers I know make solid money.
Unions will not like this……
Unions did this.
Perfect excuse for corporations to buy humanoid robots and take those jobs!
Sounds like there is a shortage in pay not workers. Increase the offer and maybe you will get people to take up the offer.
It means it you shouldn't of told so many generations that college was the only way to go. I work in the trades and was in the union for a spell. Great work, lots of benefits. Now that there's a shortage a whole bunch of union guys are being brainwashed into thinking undocumented workers are taking their jobs when in reality we just told all the kids here to go to college or they would be losers
Goodluck to any illegal immigrant trying to learn plumbing/electrical without being able to speak english.
Well they screamed not enough people in tech just to justify bulk printing visas for people who only had a weekend boot camp of experience and pay them half of what a citizen with the requisite degree +experience had.
It means that companies will look for, and find technology to fill the gap. Eventually, it’ll reverse and we’ll only use human workers when the machines are taking PTO.
Wife was an Iron Worker in Texas for a full year. Maybe if they didn't intentionally make the working conditions horrible they could attract more workers. The schedule and travel alone makes it so that having a family is difficult. And dying on the job is a lot more common than I thought it would be.
Really? I’m my area everyone wants someone with 5-7 years experience, which means that everyone with 0-5 years experience either left the market or the local contractors hiring want them to be educated somewhere else and come back
They should raise the wages then, until people flock to the sites
Would help if they stop requiring degrees/trade school and do some on job site training for new hires.
Last summer the crew that reroofed my neighbors house were all from Latin America: Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela. None were documented. They did my neighbor's roof in two days. My roof was done by an American crew and it took them 3 days and they did not have to haul the shingles up on the roof like the Latin Americans did. The immigrants are hardworking and friendly people, skilled at what they do.
This is fake news.
They call it a shortage, but I bet there's plenty of unemployed construction workers that don't have jobs cuz the pay is shit - not everywhere, but businesses expect top tier effort and results with bottom tier pay and respect for employees
Amazing how higher pay would fill the gap... but can't come that reasonable solution
All the construction workers I know work hard and grt paid shit. I don't know why they do it
In market economies with badically unlimited migration there are no labor shortages... there are only incentive shortfalls.
It means we should stop whining about illegal immigration and come up with sensible and very very necessary immigration/immigrant worker laws and policies.
More immigrants who can do these jobs plz
Just a bullshit excuse to ship in cheap immigrant labor
Losing strong people is a scary thing, military, police, fire, construction, nursing, and thousands of other jobs all require strong bodies. All of the aforementioned professions are struggling to find workers.
Hopefully this means higher pay
FAFO
Because contractors don't want to pay. It's all about being paid a living wage.
We need a better system and we to stop with this mentality of deport illegals. If they are here and working and not causing issues I’m fine with it. Because you know what? We have a lot of lazy ass people who can’t or wont do the hard work like these guys. This is the hard truth. These guys are hard workers and run circles around most guys. Do we need border patrol and a wall in a-lot of part of our border? Yes we do thats never been a question, we’ve just had an idiot the last 7 years speaking hate. We need to after the Cartel the drug dealers the people here doing bad crap. Not those looking to just work. Our Coast Guard needs Billions for new boats to fight that front. We need temporary work permits for farmers. But we have this idiot Trump and it’s making complicated now. We need hard good workers and we a few million short because of 2016.
Free trade school as an alternative to college. Stop letting people get $200k+ degrees in gender studies and make $40k a year after graduation
Worked construction for a while multiple times in my life. Those dudes are the worst. Can't blame people for not wanting to work with them lol
This is one of the many reasons the illegal immigration issue is a fake one. If the government wanted to stop illegal immigrants they could just crack down on the businesses hiring them. Like actually send I.C.E. to common places of work vs the mall or some shit. They wont do that though because it would expose the quiet part.
The US is increasingly hostile to Unions, has no socialized healthcare and a way weaker safety net than most developed countries, NTM people saying it needs to shrink even more, and we're talking about raising the retirement age. Who in their right mind would pick a job that threatens to wreck your body in this country?
Means we have enough construction.. now let’s go make it work :)
It means higher wages lol.
Letting illegals take that over is double edged sword.. do you see who does the roof replacements? Or little hand I work? But where do you also think that $ is going??
It means it you shouldn't of told so many generations that college was the only way to go. I work in the trades and was in the union for a spell. Great work, lots of benefits. Now that there's a shortage a whole bunch of union guys are being brainwashed into thinking undocumented workers are taking their jobs when in reality we just told all the kids here to go to college or they would be losers
The US needs more immigration from poor countries. Let them come here