The Chicken Trail: Following Workers, Migrants, and Corporations Across the Americas by Kathleen C. Schwartzman

Author:Kathleen C. Schwartzman [Schwartzman, Kathleen C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Globalization, Labor & Industrial Relations, Social Science, Political Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9780801468056
Google: __2tDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2013-01-08T07:02:02+00:00

Conclusion

Some scholars are already persuaded that immigrants have a negative consequence for low-skilled native workers.9 My goal is to demonstrate the negative impact of immigration under certain circumstances, in certain industries, and at certain historical moments. I believe that the poultry industry—newer to Taylorism, located in a historically antiunion South, and facing two major crises—meets those conditions. I have evaluated the two most-cited explanations for ethnic succession—“jobs that nobody wants” and “need for additional labor”—and have argued instead that the real explanation was labor-management conflict.

In reference to low-skilled native workers, some authors cite another justification, namely that employers prefer not to hire blacks. Research confirms that “employers often take race and ethnicity quite explicitly into account in hiring decisions” (Waldinger 1997, 366). Statistical discrimination means using race as a proxy for productivity. Such “employer preference” explanations tend to focus on the human capital traits of work ethic, readiness for work, discipline, and adherence to work schedules. Waldinger cites employer rankings of groups on work ethic: whites were ranked most favorably and blacks least. Although, he adds, some employers were critical of white workers—always complaining that “they feel that they should not be doing this type of work [furniture] because they are Americans” (1997, 376). In their interviews with managers, Moss and Tilly found that black men were viewed as lacking “soft skills”—particularly motivation and ability to interact well with customers and coworkers (1996).

Soft skills are not needed on the chicken line, but numerous researchers conclude that discrimination generally is based on productivity and work readiness arguments (Enchautegui 1998; Kirschenman and Neckerman 1991; Moss and Tilly 1996; Waldinger 1997). Waldinger argues that Hispanic immigrants lacked access to alternative sources of employment or income, were willing to work hard long hours, are not litigious, were less likely to have baby sitter problems, and don’t have attitude problem of entitlement (1997, 376–79). When faced with a choice, given the industry’s high rates of absenteeism and turnover, employers expressed a preference for immigrant workers. We should acknowledge that some African American (and other) workers may fall short in work ethic, readiness for work, and work discipline. But then we should also ask—what were the incentive structures and subcultural influences that generated those behavioral profiles in the first instance? This is part of my “American Dilemma” perspective—how did we become a nation of jobs that “nobody wants”?

In short, immigrant hiring (ethnic displacement) provided a way to resolve the labor conflict without compromising the surplus value extracted from the production process. For immigrant hiring, the mid-1990s was a watershed. Employers were not passively “faced with a choice” of workers; they created that choice by the early active and intentional recruitment of immigrant workers. Ethnic succession was ethnic displacement. This completes the “demand” or “pull” side of the migration story. However, recruitment and subsequent chain migration could not have been so successful without corresponding transformations in, and “pushes” from Mexico.

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