Glendora, CA 91741

July 6, 2007

Elaine L. Chao

Secretary of Labor

U.S. Department of Labor

200 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20210

Dear Secretary Chao:      Re: The Unwashed American Worker

At first review, your comments reported in Parade magazine were shocking, - but not all that not surprising. When considering that President Bush sometimes picks top officials who can be relied upon to act more like trained seals, than by their commitments to enhancing the welfare of this nation, it’s little wonder that you have so much contempt for American workers.

For the past several years you’ve remained frozen in servitude as President Bush uttered the most outrageous non-sequiturs, - beginning with his “Willing Workers” fantasy. A” willing worker” is generally a desperately poor unskilled individual from a third-world country seeking almost any kind of work. A “willing employer” is generally a mercenary and conniving firm or individual offering employment to willing workers at non-living wages and terrible working conditions. In short, “willing employers” are American employers who won’t hire unskilled American workers because they can hire “willing employees” at a fraction of the cost. This is a marriage made-in-hell, on the backs of innocent American workers and taxpayers.

Then came the President’s call for hundreds-of-thousands of annual “guest workers”, despite the fact that there isn’t a scintilla of evidence as to their economic necessity; -  with the exception of widespread avarice among seedy American employers to pay the lowest possible wages to whomever will accept them, legal or otherwise. Further, the only protection unskilled American workers will have against illegal alien encroachments under S-1639 are affidavits from the same dirtbag employers who’ve been violating our immigration laws for decades.

And how about your reverence for H-1B visas? The evidence is uncontestable that the H-1B program is primarily used to import low-wage workers, with entry-level technical skills. H-1B  workers are lower-skilled workers who make no special contribution to the American economy, hired by dirtbag employers who are deliberately understating worker skills in order to justify paying them lower salaries.

Then there’s the looming AgJOBS legislation. At last look, this allows 850,000 seasonal agricultural workers (and approximately 2 million family members) to remain in this country for 6 years, providing they devote a minimum of 16% of their time to agriculture. After that, they get a Green Card. This means that 84% of these agricultural worker’s time, when not harvesting crops, can be spent working in restaurants, car washes, etc, displacing unskilled Americans & high school kids from the work place. No one in your department ever considered what percent of grower’s expenses are labor-related, (10-18%) and what would harvester wage increases amount to in the prices of finished goods. MY God!, hire American workers at decent wages.

Once again, the DOL remained at rigid, lock-step attention, concentrating more upon saluting the Commander-in-Chief than in promulgating programs that benefit American workers.

Abraham Lincoln nailed it when he said, “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but can't fool all the people all the time.”

Sincerely,

Michael Scott