DISQUS

The Colorado Independent: Immigration: NBC’s Spotlight on Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley

  • jadodd · 2 years ago
    Tired of
  • Leslie Robinson · 2 years ago
    What Should Be vs What Is You are correct that employers should be paying a living wage in the Roaring Fork Valley. Estimates are that would be $20 to $25 an hour for an entry level position. What should be and what is are unfortunately two different economic worlds.


    Increase the cost of building a house in the Roaring Fork Valley and naturally, the builder will increase the purchase price of that house. One might think there would be a ceiling to the value of that house, but as you are aware, the real estate market in Pitkin and Garfield County right now is defying all national trends. There is always an "elite" from California or Chicago willing to pay the price to live in the mountains.


    Thirty years ago, the "ski bums" (most with a college education) provided the necessary slave labor pool. I was one of them. At least there was still affordable housing although you had to commute from Silt, Rifle or Battlement Mesa. Even as a single female back then, I was able to purchase a home in Rifle working in a middle management position.


    Today, as you know, the oil and gas industry has impacted this down valley supply and cost of affordable housing. Rents in the Rifle area are just as high as those in Carbondale because a lot of the oil workers can afford to pay the inflated prices. Today, as a two income family now, we probably could not afford to buy the Rifle home we live in had we not purchased it 10 years ago.


    So in a way, the oil and gas development downvalley has increased the need for a growing immigrant workforce upvalley.


    Employers may be wrong to take advantage of the undocumented laborers, but this doesn't change the current situation: the immigrant workers are willing to work for less than a living wage while the Anglos are not. Immigrant workers are willing to live in "communes," but Anglos will not.


    You raised enough unique health care issues in the Roaring Fork region for a following article. But I will touch on one interesting observation: yes, immigrants do impact the low income health care providers. However, most notably in the Rifle area, it is the contracted oil and gas workers (all mostly Anglo and without health insurance) that are increasing medical costs, especially in our emergency rooms. Because the Rifle hospital is supported by a tax district, the locals are picking up the tab.


    Your paycheck and mine may be devalued by immigrant workers, but we are also subsidizing the labor costs in the richest industry in America: oil companies.

  • greenchiledem · 2 years ago
    I hear this all the time, but where's the proof? Your comment that

    virtually all construction contractors do not hire individuals as employees.  Instead, these people are hired as "independent contractors."



    is one I hear often, however, in my experience as an employer, it's an exception, not the rule. And it's not legal to do so. The biggest obstacle for employers in our area is finding employees who already have housing. Next is that we can no longer provide affordable health insurance for our workers and so that benefit has been cut or is too expensive for employees to sign-up for. Which is the reason for the busy free-clinics. As seen with the new oil industry workers.


    We need some serious social


  • jadodd · 2 years ago
    Proof Thirty years as a union and employee labor lawyer.  I have seen it all.


    By the way, what unions do you have collective bargaining agreements with? 

  • jadodd · 2 years ago
    When Did the Left Become Populated by Wimps "You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"


    George Bernard Shaw in Back To Methuselah.


    You state:


    "the immigrant workers are willing to work for less than a living wage while the Anglos are not. Immigrant workers are willing to live in "communes," but Anglos will not."


    Yes, and they are willing to cut the throats of their fellow "Anglo" workers.  We call these people SCABS.


    By the way, you played the race card first.  Who is the racist in this conversation?

  • Leslie Robinson · 2 years ago
    It Ain't Necessarily So You're right again. It is very difficult to discuss the immigration issue without name calling and questioning our current social mores.


    Methuselah? Isn't that the Rolling Stones new album?