Well, what do you know. The obvious has happened.

Fortunately, our friends at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) did not let the chance pass to make allow Jerry Kammer, a Senior Research Fellow at the Center to do an in depth review and report on the circumstances of the January 2007, raid by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on the Smithfield Plant in Tar Heel, N.C..

As Mr. Kammer reports, this raid “drastically changed the demographics of the plant, shifting from a mostly illegal Hispanic workforce to a legal African American workforce. The plant’s workers were able to unionize in the aftermath, something the previous workforce had failed to do twice prior to the raid.”

No neophyte summer intern, this reporter, before joining CIS was with Copley New Service where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006. He has covered immigration and border issues for more than 20 years.

The details are fascinating and can be read in full at “Immigration Raids at Smithfield: How an ICE Enforcement Action Boosted Union Organizing and the Employment of American Workers“. However, the summary of the sequence of events from Kammer gives us the picture of events before the unionization and insights into the varied reasons workers were able to solidify backing for the union.

Here’s this seminal story, from the CIC press release, which could with proper enforcement be repeated in many places all over the US. Please, Secretary Napolitano, take note.

1. The Smithfield Plant, represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), failed to unionize in both 1994 and 1997. An administrative law judge found that the company committed “egregious and pervasive violations of labor law” during the 1997 effort when it used the employees’ illegal status to threaten them.

2. After the initial attempts at unionizing, Smithfield and the UFCW engaged in a bitter dispute. The union launched a public relations campaign and picketed Smithfield customers. Smithfield, in return, filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against the union.

3. The ICE raid, which took place in January 2007, both purged the plant of illegal workers and forced the management to set procedures to check immigration status of future hires.

4. This raid opened the door for an American and legal immigrant workforce. After the raid, the Hispanic workforce dropped by approximately 1,000 workers and was replaced by mostly African American workers. Less than two years later, in December 2008, the new workforce voted for unionization.

Now I would think that this story would greatly please our new Administration and its Democratic Congress. Unemployment at almost 10%, sure to go higher, citizen employees with secure jobs (wasn’t that what this stimulus was supposed to do) spending, and joining the consumer engine which drives 70% of our economy. Great. Lets see it happen again, Secretary Napolitano!

Since last fall, our nation has lost millions of jobs. If anyone thinks the job situation isn’t critical, they might want to consider what Career Builder, the giant online place where people can go to look for job, has discovered.
Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com, is the largest in the U.S. with more than 23 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 31 million resumes.
Here are some of the “unconventional tactics job seekers have used” it reports to get potential employer attention.

“The search for employment is taking longer and is more competitive than it has been in past years,” said Jason Ferrara, senior career adviser at CareerBuilder. “To compensate, some candidates have turned to extreme tactics. While unusual job search antics may attract the attention of hiring managers, they need to be done with care and professionalism so that candidates are remembered for the right reasons.”

Some of the most memorable tactics identified by hiring managers include:

• Candidate sent a shoe with a resume to “get my foot in the door.”
• Candidate staged a sit-in in the lobby to get a meeting with a director.
• Candidate washed cars in the parking lot.
• Candidate sent a resume wrapped as a present and said his skills were a “gift to the company.”
• Candidate handed out resumes at stoplights.
• Candidate sent a cake designed as a business card with the candidate’s picture.
• Candidate went to the same barber as the Chairman of the Board and had the barber speak on his behalf.
• Candidate handed out personalized coffee cups.
• Candidate came dressed in a bunny suit because it was near Easter.
• Candidate told the receptionist he had an interview with the manager. When he met the manager, he confessed that he was driving by and decided to stop in on a chance.

[Employers Share the Most Unconventional Tactics Job Seekers Have Used to Get Their Attention in New CareerBuilder Survey]

When you stop laughing, think about this. The US is importing LEGALLY over 100,000 aliens on various work visas EVERY MONTH. There are at least 20 million illegal aliens in the US and at every turn it seems the Congress and the Obama Administration are talking about importing more, as they seek to ram another amnesty dubbed “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” down the throats of American citizens like those innovative, desperate ones above and many more of us who are underemployed or who have stopped looking because of the surfeit of alien labor and the real and urgent prospect that more will be authorized.

Well, if you are among the unemployed, Career Builder may be for you.

The Washington Post’s continuing bias against true, meaningful immigration reform runs throughout their editorial and news pages. Today, the Post finally ran my letter commenting on their racist remarks in that December 13 editorial–The Immigration Swamp, subtitled As the presidential campaign intensifies, so does the nativist ferocity.

You can read the letter here:Terms of the Immigration Debate Wednesday, December 19, 2007, and read what I said about it on VDARE.COM here: Democrat Says Open Borders Rhetoric Getting Desperate And Vicious.