Posted by
California Gentry on Saturday, November 25, 2006 7:15:50 PM
Prior to the Philistine infitada the Israeli agricultural sector relied heavily on cheap Arab labour.
The near-universal argument put forward by many politicians and agricultural corporations was that
the Arabs were doing work that Israeli Jews simple would not do. (Sound familiar, anyone?)
After the infitada started it became apparent at last that maybe the Israelis shouldn't be depending on Arabs.
That might be the no duh moment of the millennium. The next step was the importation of cheap Polish labourers.
Of course they were filling jobs that Israelis simply would not do. The
Israeli agricultural sector was dependent on cheap labour so it was
said. It did not take too long to realise that the second solution
would not work either.
Finally they gave in and decided that Israeli workers might be needed to do those jobs. The result was... It worked!
Israeli Jews filled the jobs!!! Agricultural employers raised wages and made some progress on mechanisation.
Simple put... Once wages became reasonable Israelis filled agricultural jobs. Yes, food prices did go up.
So did wages. The two ended up balancing each other. Israel is now
independent of cheap labour for its lower-wage jobs. If it works in
Israel it would work here. Most jobs now being filled by illegal aliens
and temporary workers from
Latin America were being filled by people who did not have much
education. They wanted to work but illegals undercut their wages so
much it no longer was worthwhile. It would be better for society as a
whole to put our own people to work and solve many of our own
problems rather than importing people from another country and only
increasing our share of problems.