[Marxism] Warehouse Workers Quit in Immigration Inquiry By NINA BERNSTEIN - FYI

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Louis writes,  "The article doesn't exactly make clear whether the company
had any culpability in the crackdown on its documented workers, but I will
assume the worst about these buzzards."

I won't dispute Louis's characterization of these bosses as "buzzards," but
what they did is what the Latino community and the undocumented workers
would have had them do -- give advance notice of a raid by la migra to their
workers so that those who are most vulnerable could get out of the way.

It is a strange and bizarre thing, but the truth is that, in a sense, the
INTERESTS of both bosses and workers OVERLAP. The workers, as a first,
minimum bedrock demand want to be able to work in the United States, i.e.,
to be EXPLOITED here, and quite often that is ALSO what the bosses seek,
including because such workers are much more EXPLOITABLE than "legal" ones,
but mostly because these are the ONLY exploitable workers available, given
the type of work and prevailing wages for that kind of work.

IF the bosses had a readily available pool of "legal" workers that could
replace immigrants with anywhere near the same costs or productivity, THEN
the interests would diverge. But the truth is that Amerikkka has made
honest, hard manual work both so denigrated AND underpaid there is simply NO
such labor force available EXCEPT for immigrant workers, who bring from
their native countries the decidedly quaint (by Amerikkkan standards) notion
that there is nobility and worth in manual labor.

In the United States, there is nobility and worth in the arbitrage of
derivatives from mortgage-backed securities, no matter WHAT the damage done
--this goes without saying-- to real people's lives, but even to the real
economy. Manipulation of data points in script-driven computer programs is
what it is all about. That you can't eat code, or drink java applets is
something that hasn't yet broken through the bourgeoisie's fascination with
blacked-out dots on a white background on a computer screen. 

Though the way things are going, they may soon come to appreciate the
difference between today's quote on pork belly futures contracts on the New
York Mercantile Exchange of the Chicago Board of Trade and the price of a
pack of bacon at the supermarket. But I digress.

Despite the astronomical unemployment rate in Black communities, especially
among the youth, young Blacks are not a labor force that can replace
immigrants, because they have been taught by white society that to work with
your hands in the fields is degrading. And Amerikkka makes this clear in the
sincerest possible way -- by paying someone at a McDonald's twice as much as
someone in the fields, and someone in an office several times as much. 

Add to that the reality that the legal status of most Blacks makes
"stooping" to "stoop labor" unnecessary to survive, and you've transformed
your most exploited and oppressed layer of the labor force into an
irreplaceable caste-like formation.

And, of course, that is the point of the ICE raids. They seek to inflict
PAIN on American capitalists who failed to rally to Bush's guest-worker
"immigration reform" plan with the central idea being, support transforming
this de-facto underclass into a de-jure underclass. Thereby giving W. a
political victory.

I think Bush --and the rest of the ruling class politicians who support a
"guest worker" solution, which is all of them except for the troglodyte
brigade lined up behind Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo-- are completely
mistaken. Transforming millions of people from a de-facto underclass into a
"legal" inferior status is just ASKING for trouble. 

Especially if you're counting on some scrap of paper to classify ONE member
of a family or community as inferior whereas OTHER members of the same
family or community are, by law, at least "officially" accorded the status
of honorary white people. 

It is said that, in the end, each class gets the leadership that it
deserves. And when you look at Fidel, on the one hand, and George W., on the
other, it gets real hard to argue against that proposition. I'm not saying,
like Fidel, love Fidel, revere Fidel. I'm saying, look at Fidel's record in
defying his enemies and compare it to W's record. The "guest worker"
stupidity is cut from the same cloth that has brought Amerikkka such
brilliant successes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And ONE of the reasons for it is PRECISELY because it drives BUZZARDS and
VICIOUS EXPLOITERS (pardon the redundancy) into an ALLIANCE with THE MOST
exploited and oppressed layer of the working people over the issue of
whether these workers have a RIGHT to be exploited. You'd have to be an
IDIOT, an ABSOLUTE MORON, to drive segments of YOUR OWN privileged,
capitalist base into an ALLIANCE with the most oppressed and exploited
layers of the working people.

Like I said, each class gets the leadership it deserves.

Joaquin



-----Original Message-----
From: marxism-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu
[mailto:marxism-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:55 PM
To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Warehouse Workers Quit in Immigration Inquiry By NINA
BERNSTEIN - FYI

Bonnie Weinstein wrote:
> Warehouse Workers Quit in Immigration Inquiry By NINA BERNSTEIN 
> December 13, 2007 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/nyregion/13fresh.html?ref=nyregion
> 
> Fresh Direct, the online grocery delivery operation that caters to 
> affluent and overworked New Yorkers, lost dozens of employees this 
> week after federal immigration officials notified the company that its 
> employee records were under investigation.

The article doesn't exactly make clear whether the company had any
culpability in the crackdown on its documented workers, but I will assume
the worst about these buzzards. While I am not exactly affluent (and not
really that overworked), I have been a customer of Fresh Direct for over a
year. I decided to dump them after discovering that the investment company
that launched it was run by Peter Ackerman, a sponsor of NGO subversion
worldwide:

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/peter-ackerman-billionaire-spon
sor-of-toxic-ngos/

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