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Originally Posted by Rodney
As for poor workers not wanting to form unions, one of the few places where unions are doing well are in lower-income industrial facilities. They fight not for higher wages but better working conditions. It's difficult because union organizers don't have the access to industrial facilities that they had 30 years ago. More of those "new laws which protect us."
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I didn't say poor workers, I said illegal ones. I don't disagree that ignoring laws is nothing to be complacent about. Where are the people to enforce the labor laws? Where is the INS? Not where they need to be all the time. But I'd be willing to bet that an illegal immigrant worker would be more concerned about the INS showing up than figuring how to organize a union to fight for better conditions.
What I am saying about law-breaking workers is more of a positive (as in descriptive) statement rather than a normative one. I don't think that poor immigrants
should be exploited, illegal or not, but I don't think unions are going to solve their problems if all the illegal ones are going to be afraid to join a union anyway. This discussion is about unions, not solutions for exploited illegal workers.