December 11, 2005
Americans Still Aren't Rushing to Take Some Jobs
By Ruben
Navarrette Jr.
SAN DIEGO
-- The minute I saw the harrowing video of the scaffold caught
up in high winds and crashing into a Denver office building 12
stories above the ground -- with two terrified window washers
hanging on for dear life -- I just knew that when the time came
to get the men's statements, we'd need a translator who spoke
Spanish.
Maybe it's
because Denver is one of those U.S. cities with a substantial
immigrant population, both legal and illegal. Or because this
looked precisely like the type of job that immigrant-bashers insist
that Americans are eager to do -- dirty, distasteful and sometimes
dangerous.
Maybe it
was because of what I saw one afternoon a couple of years ago
outside the 72-story Bank of America Plaza building in downtown
Dallas. Coming back from lunch, I noticed what seemed to be two
Mexican immigrant men getting instructions from a third man through
an interpreter. The two men were tied to a harness and had cleaning
supplies. It was obvious that they were window washers, and that
they were headed straight up.
As I walked
away, I remember thinking that this episode was positive proof
of two things -- that immigrants will do just about anything,
and that I'm no immigrant. Washing windows while dangling 70 stories
off the ground? Not me. No thanks. Not at any price.
Still, someone
has to do those jobs. That's where immigrants come in. The fact
that a lot of Americans -- like me -- won't go anywhere near this
kind of work swings open the door of opportunity for people such
as Oscar Gonzalez and Hector Estrada, the two men who were nearly
killed on that scaffold in Denver.
In news
reports, I couldn't find any mention of whether these two men
are in the country legally, but it was pretty clear from their
interviews with local television stations that they are foreign-born.
It's also
clear that Americans have become -- because of a work ethic that
diminishes from one generation to the next -- much more dependent
on people like this than our pride will allow us to admit.
That's part
of the honest discussion over immigration that Americans need
to be having -- where we talk candidly about how we got to this
point and admit that this is a problem of our making.
Don't count
on Congress to lead the way. Democrats are convinced that the
immigration issue will hurt Republicans, so they're just trying
to stay out of the way. Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to manage
a split between those who want to beef up enforcement before broaching
the thorny subject of guest workers, and those who want to deal
with all the issues at once.
This week,
the House will have a floor debate over an enforcement-only bill
proposed by Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner,
R-Wis.
This isn't
a good sign. It would be a disaster if, after all the hand-wringing
over immigration reform, all we were left with was yet another
bill that talked about building new fences and dispatching more
border guards. There's nothing wrong with doing those things,
but if that's all we do, we won't have done much to stop illegal
immigration. Something must be done about the estimated 11 million
illegal immigrants who are already here, and about the employers
who thumb their noses at the law.
It's still
not clear whether Bob Popp Building Services -- the company identified
by Denver news media outlets as being at the center of the near
tragic window-washing incident -- is one of those employers and
whether the workers it hired are here illegally. The company is
cooperating with federal workplace safety investigators. Gonzalez
and Estrada insist that they were not warned about the possibility
that they'd encounter high winds that day, and that their calls
for help were ignored by their supervisor. (The 911 call came
from someone within the office building.) The workers told a Denver
newspaper that they were offered raises if they would sign a form
agreeing not to talk about the incident.
The company
says ``these are false allegations.'' But it is looking for replacements.
Gonzalez and Estrada quit.
Say, there
may be an opportunity for those who like to complain that immigrants
-- legal and illegal -- take jobs away from Americans. Work conditions
can be life-threatening, but the pay is decent: $11.50 an hour.
Not everyone
at once. Don't crowd. The line forms to the right.
©
2005, The San Diego Union-Tribune
