Immigrants ARE NOT TAKING JOBS: But Outsourcing and Automation Are!
While popular politicians scapegoat immigrants, the level of automation and outsourcing that has gripped our economy since the mid-1980s are not being examined in the press at all.
When I was a girl in the 1980s, I distinctly remember my mother pulling up to a service station in Centreville, Mississippi. It looked much like the one above. It was rather small, there were candy and other unhealthy snacks just inside the door, an advertisement for Goodyear tires just outside the door, and a man sitting on a milk crate somewhere along the front. When my mother pulled up to the pump, she never left her car. She would tell the milk crate man, “Give me a full tank of unleaded please.” Then, she would give him some money. He would pump her gas, check the air pressure in her tires, and clean her windshield. Sometimes, he would check her oil with a light colored rag, and tell her that she only had so many miles on that oil change. These exchanges were always pleasant. They were the start of a trip, normally to Natchez, McComb, or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and we COULD NOT leave without a word of caution and a joke from the milk crate man at the gas station.
By the time I received my permit in the 1990s, the milk crate man was gone, the gas station was closed, and all of the gas pumps had card readers. Before I set off to college, I had to learn how to use the card reader safely (there were scammers and skimmers waiting to take any little money I had in the bank), I had to pump my own gas, the dirty windshield wiper was God knows where, and not only was the milk crate man gone, but the only greeting I got came from the card reader asking me if I were a Kroger customer. If I were, that involved more card reading activity.
When outsourcing and animation began to grip our economy and put it in a choke-hold some time around the mid-1990s, there were many reasons given for this at first. Of all of the garbeldy-gook I heard was this one thing: outsourcing and animation may cut jobs, but it saves companies a tremendous amount of money. Payroll is normally the largest expense for any company. The use of outsourcing and automation cuts the bottom line. Period.
Since the 1980s, I have seen the prices of EVERYTHING explode: gas, coffee, eggs, butter, clothing, detergent…even hair products (and I use plenty of hair products)! Before my mother and I went somewhere, the gas, which was pumped by a human being, was not even a dollar a gallon. Today, to find gasoline under three dollars per gallon is a small miracle. During the Bush II presidency, the local news began to broadcast which stations had the cheapest gas. At one point, the report caused a major traffic jam, because hundreds of drivers pulled into a lone gas station with regular gas for under two dollars.
If companies are slashing jobs in order to save money, why are prices steadily rising? The level of human-to-human contact has been reduced DRASTICALLY, but the level of prices have increased on just about everything except VCRs, 8-track machines, and huge televisions. If companies have virtually moved the textile industry to Asia in order to save money, why are the prices of women’s, children’s, and men’s clothing steadily climbing? If we can now order coffee through a drive-thru and have to wait in interminable lines for one cup of joe in a paper cup instead of sitting at a formica counter and drinking from a real cup, where are the savings? If we cannot get a human being on the telephone for simple customer service, why haven’t our service fees been waived? Very seldom do I get a human being on the phone, and I am surprised when I get one. AT&T is arrogant enough to charge money if a human being takes a bill payment; thereby, they force all customers to use an frustrating automated system in order to simply pay bills. Yet, their prices have risen seemingly every month. WHERE ARE THE SAVINGS?!!! Surely, the savings that these companies routinely report are not being passed on to me, the customer. Or you, the reader of this blog.
Meanwhile, our wages are stagnant. Our grocery and gas bills increase. And politicians yell about immigrants harming our economy. Many Americans are frustrated at the seeming lack of progress we are making. For the first time in our country’s history, a generation of young people is expected to live shorter and less fuller lives than our parents. In some parts of the country, even purchasing a home is out of the question as a bloated real estate market pushes prices higher and still higher.
The jobs that our parents once-held are gone and are not coming back — regardless of what any politician promises. It seems the opportunities to get a real stake-hold in life that our parents once had. It seems that if the retirement age is 66, we won’t be able to retire until 80. Between student loans for ourselves, late mortgage purchases, possibly private school for our children to compensate for a crumbling public system, and rising healthcare costs, life seems pretty dismal for those of us who are Apollo kids. In my classroom, a new generation of college students even say that the American Dream is a bigger, more disappointing lie than the existence of Santa Claus.
Meanwhile, everyone is looking for someone to blame for the state of things…
Enter the politicians with a handy scapegoat: immigrants. Immigrants did not take away elevator operators — buttons did. Immigrants did not force AT&T to go to an automated system — corporate greed did. Immigrants did not take away my milk crate man — card readers did. Immigrants did not close the Carter’s factory in my hometown (a factory that supported nine other small towns for years) — outsourcing did. Immigrants did not even close the Georgia Pacific in the neighboring town of Gloster, Mississippi (a factory that supported at least ten small towns between Gloster and East and West Feliciana parishes of Louisiana) — the Koch brothers did. Corporate greed, outsourcing, and automation have taken and taken from the American economy, but not immigrants.
As time goes on, I wonder about the milk crate man, outsourcing, and the explosion of TWO space craft shuttles in front of our faces on live television. One of the most traumatizing things that we Apollos kids have experienced is automation. And to date, while people scream about immigrants, no one has explained where the savings are and the milk crate man went.
As always, if you like this article, clap back (press the hands) or enroll in my class. This comes from Comp I, believe it or not.
