John Ehinger and Tone Deafness From The Huntsville Times On Cinram Importing Foreign Workers ::

Ehinger wrote a piece in Sunday's paper and some points bear refuting;

Immigration - in whatever form, legal or otherwise, temporary or permanent - is a hot-button topic. The present situation pleases no one. Still, even a modicum of intellectual honesty should force Americans to recognize that valid concerns are one thing and irrational xenophobia is another.

Huntsville is home to a packaging plant of Canada's Cinram International Inc. The firm, which packages DVDs and CDs for consumers to purchase, also operates two other plants in the United States.

I would wonder just how the local builders who primarily employ foreign labor would feel about Ehringer's statement about the "present situation pleases no one". They certainly benefit from the cheap labor and they have no incentive to check the legal status of those employees. I also wonder just how many of these employees are classified as "contract labor", but let's progress a bit more into Ehinger's op-ed:

So Cinram has looked abroad. Its current plans are to bring in about 800 temporary workers from Jamaica and 550 from other countries. Some are already here. They'll work at Cinram's northeast Huntsville plant in 12-hour shifts for $8 an hour. The company has made living arrangements for the workers. Their jobs will last through the season of the highest demand and then they'll go home.

But a chorus of critics has rushed forth. They say Cinram should not bring in foreign workers. They say the pay is too low. They say the community will have to bear the cost of health care and education. They say Cinram should have built a plant in, say, Jamaica, if that's where the labor pool is.

First, Cinram was unable to find local workers. That comes as no surprise. Huntsville's unemployment rate has fallen to 2.3 percent. It's hard to find people to fill any low-end jobs.

True, $8 an hour is not much, but it's still higher than the minimum wage. If Cinram's critics are serious on that point, they'll join groups asking the Alabama Leghislature to increase the minimum wage in this state.

Ehinger's points here do nothing more than to serve to infuriate me more regarding his position and I have added some bolded emphasis on some of my key points. Madison county's unemployment rate is stated at 2.3%. I think it's probably a bit higher than that, but let's not quibble. Given the population that would indicate somewhere between 5 and 6 thousand unemployed locally. I have a hard time believing that Cinram could not fill these jobs locally.

Will these imported workers be leaches on the health care system? I don't care! If they need medical care while they work here then they should have access to it. Nothing in any of the articles I have read have mentioned benefits other than that the company will be providing housing and, on this matter, I wonder who is footing the bill for housing.

This entire thing stinks to high heaven and I'm ashamed of our local politicians for allowing it to happen and I reserve my highest disdain for The Huntsville Times which I have long felt is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the local establishment!

I'll have more to say about this later!