American workers threatened by the highly skilled, low wages

MELISSA STEVEN PERSPECTIVES EDITOR MS727@CABRINI EDU

Every year the United States lets approximately 900,000 legal immigrants into this country. Members of the business community often want to bring workers from other countries to the United States because of superior skills. Workers in the United States often see foreign workers as a threat to their jobs.

“I am a strong believer in the free flow of labor and in the world economy,” Jim Quinn, a former vice president of Toyota in the United States and Europe and is now currently the director of fixed operations for Sloane Automotive group, said.

“Acompany has every right to go somewhere else to find a qualified person, as long as the reason to look elsewhere is not for diversity,” Joe Daly, a gas designer for a local gas and electric company, said. Daly has been in this line of work for 29 years.

Daly said that in some aspects of highly skilled jobs it is required that companies need to go overseas to find the appropriate person to do the job.

Quinn said that the more skills, training and education a person has, the more job security it brings. “Corporations having t o import their workers and knowledge is nothing new; they’ve been doing it for years.

The scientists who built the atomic bomb were immigrants and so were the people who started NASA,” Quinn said.

Employees, whether they are highly skilled or manual laborers, all are in competition with workers from other countries. Quinn also said that when unions began to form, it tended to make

American workers uncompetitive a nd complacent. “All people need to do is avoid complacency. You have to continually learn throughout your life and keep educating yourself to be the best person at your job,” Quinn said.

Companies seek workers overseas for two reasons: they are better educated or they work for less wages.

“I have a very skilled job. What I possess cannot be taught in college, because I’ve done it for almost 30 years. But they never cease to amaze me: they could probably find somebody to do it for cheaper,” Daly said.

Workers have to remember to upgrade skills constantly to avoid being replaced by workers from other countries. Quinn said, “I am not afraid of losing my job because I keep up with educating myself and learning new skills. If someone is better than me then it means I didn’t keep up with my skills.”

Lynsey McStravick, a junior accounting major, said, “Education and training systems in the U.S. need to improve so that we don’t need to go overseas for people.”

“I don’t necessarily agree with going to other countries for skilled workers. If they are better in Asia, then the United States needs to improve their education methods,” Stephan Baylor, a senior accounting major, said.

Immigration of workers to the United States does increase tension in the workforce. “I was once an immigrant in Brussels, Belgium where I worked for four years,” Quinn said, so he said he understands how people feel when they come to the United States for jobs.

Despite the negative opinions expressed by many Americans, workers from abroad contribute to the way the United States has been since its’earliest days. McStravick said, “Immigration adds to the diversity of the U.S. because that’s what we’re known for.”

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