“An Economist“ writes

I have long had doubts about the SEIU. Frankly, it has struck me as a phony union, more devoted to promoting Open Borders than actually helping workers. It would appear that there is some substance to my skepticism.

From the article “Who Killed the Immigration Bill, and Who Wants it to Come Back?” PoliticalAffairs.net, [David Bacon, June 13, 2007]

“Yet instead of raising wage and benefits to attract workers, or paying more taxes to improve education and training in working class communities, employers held that only huge guest worker programs could meet their labor needs. In an joint oped piece for Politico.com, Thomas Donahue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (one of two unions that supported the tradeoff bills) stated that “we need legislation that will create a carefully monitored essential worker program,” and called it “a system that provides U.S. businesses with the workers it needs.”"

And from “The Working Class Is Not Stupid About Immigration” By Froma Harrop, May 22, 2007

“The SEIU covers many of the very people who take these jobs. It seems curious that the union does not mind adding another half million workers a year to compete with its own members. Its Website contends that America has a shortage of 10 million workers and that “nearly half of all jobs created from now until 2012 will be held by workers with a high school diploma or less.”

Duh–but don’t worker shortages cause wages to rise? The wages of “workers with a high school diploma or less” have been crashing through the floor. Or hasn’t the SEIU noticed that its contract “victories” are not that fabulous?

It’s hard to believe that the SEIU’s leaders are dumb. Rather, they ignore the law of supply and demand to cover another agenda. Thus, one can’t be sure whether the SEIU aspires to be a union representing workers or an arm of the National Council of La Raza, a group that claims to further the interests of Hispanics–and does a lousy job of it.”

And from “Choosing Sides on Immigration” By Froma Harrop, June 05, 2007

“And it’s true that recent “victories” in unionizing low-skilled workers have produced paltry gains. For example, the Service Employees International Union managed to organize janitors in Los Angeles, but Briggs notes, “at wages way below what they were back in the 1970s.” The strange part is that Los Angeles’ janitors were highly unionized (and mostly African-American) until the ’70s, when a surge in illegal immigration destroyed their bargaining power.

The union last year organized janitors in Houston. For all these efforts, this largely Hispanic workforce saw its pay rise from a pitiful $5.25 an hour to a pathetic $6.25–which is lower than the minimum wage in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Wages in the contract’s later years will barely exceed the new federal minimum.”

Is the SEIU a front for “La Raza”?

Mickey Kaus writes: “Fox is reporting an imminent agreement – significantly including Sen. Reid — to grease the skids for passage of the Senate immigration bill via a Fool-the-Yahoos addition of $4.4 billion in enforcement spending.”
ABC reports:

“The officials who described the emerging plan did so on condition of anonymity, saying the negotiations had been conducted in private.”

Well, that’s a huge surprise!

By the way, ABC’s caption reads:

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., second from left, discusses immigration reform legislation during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 14 2007. From left are, Los Angeles radio host Eddie “El Piolin” Sotelo, Kennedy, Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.

The excellent blogger who calles himself The Audacious Epigone has a devastating post about the current attempt to purge Frances Semler, a 73-year old grandmother recently appointed as one of Kansas City, Missouri’s Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners, because she is a member of the local MinuteMen chapter. Councilwoman Beth Gottstein is quoted referring to the Minutemen:

This is one step from the KKK (Ku Klux Klan). My world is totally rocked by this. We fight this every day. I am grieving for my friends in the Hispanic community.

You have to read Epigone’s full post to plumb the full depths of hypocrisy, incipient totalitarianism and farce - Semler was appointed by Democratic Mayor Mark Funkhouser as part of a new, allegedly “representative” , i.e. not white male, board. Helpfully, Epigone supplies emails and phone numbers for the six Council Members leading the attack on Semler.

I recently wrote that, as a long-time observer of the patriotic immigration reform movement, I am deeply impressed by the remarkable numbers of ordinary Americans now spontaneously getting involved in selfless local action across the country. Semler’s story reminds us that they can pay a real price.

As a soldier in the Texas Army National Guard myself, it’s no honor to learn that three of my fellow Texas Guardsmen (not of my unit, however) have been arrested for running an illegal alien smuggling ring.

The three guardsmen: Private First Class Jose Rodrigo Torres, Sergeant Julio Cesar Pacheco, and Sergeant Clarence Hodge, Jr., were all serving in Operation Jumpstart, the National Guard border deployment.

Even worse, the ring was using the Guard as a cover for the smuggling operation.

Torres was apprehended, in uniform, driving a van up Interstate 35. The van was rented by the National Guard, and Torres had 24 illegal aliens inside, taking them to San Antonio.

And when Torres had passed through a checkpoint, Hodge was working on that checkpoint and waved him through.

Pacheco was apparently the ringleader, and had been recruiting soldiers to participate in alien smuggling. So it’s likely that there were more Guardsmen than these three involved.

Read about it here .

What a shame.

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters has long been a calm voice in the wilderness, calling attention to immigration’s demographic time bomb and other idiocies that have been propelling California where no society has gone before. Monumental arrogance, stupidity and treachery in the immigration realm have combined to transform a paradise into a nightmarish slum in a single generation, particularly in those areas hardest hit. It’s hard to imagine how California can get much worse, but of course it can. And will.

As a series of new academic and economic studies indicate, the state could face a triple whammy, to wit:

• Because the state’s population continues to grow by at least 500,000 a year and its job base by perhaps 250,000, California always needs more workers; and,

• Baby boomers now make up about half of the state’s 15-plus million workers, and their retirement over the next couple of decades will sharply increase the demand side of the equation; but,

• Huge percentages of California’s teenage and 20-something population — especially nonwhites and those from immigrant families — are not receiving the educations they would need to fill the demand.
[Dan Walters: California may face triple blow, Sacramento Bee 6/11/07]

Statistics show that the state is less successful than it used to be in turning out capable, educated young workers, as indicated by the recent Public Policy Institute of California paper referenced by Walters: Can California Import Enough College Graduates to Meet Workforce Needs? Of course, employers appreciate the invisible Please Exploit Me sign that foreign job applicants wear to interviews.

As reported here a couple months back, the education failure to teach diverse kiddies is so extreme that the loony legislators of Sacramexico want to double the amount spent, from $66 billion annually to $1.5 trillion.

The high school graduation rate statewide in 2006 was only 67 percent, a 10-year low, which reflected the newly instituted exit exam’s effect of showing how much social promotion has been going on.

The upshot is that decades of importing poverty, particularly the world’s most unsuccessful immigrant group (Mexicans), is having its predicted effect of disintegrating the social fabric and creating economic stagnation.