I really tried to be angry but ended up thoughtful

[angrycarpenter]

As you can tell from my code name I am A carpenter with 25 years on the job. I am an expert woodworker as well a very proficient builder.

Recently I have learned that I may be laid off by the new year.

I have already looked and there little in the way of residential building going on. The only jobs left around here are low paying.

Is this how conservatives are made, being personally hurt by Illegal immigration? Latino labor has turned my hard learned trade into a cheap commodity where my next job may mean a $5 pay cut. The housing slowdown has made the local construction business grind to a halt.

Many in my position would be sitting here cursing the people who bought the biggest house that they could just barely afford and are now losing them thereby causing the housing slump that will put me out of work.

I could be stomping back and forth cursing the immigrants who came here looking for a better life only to become wage slaves. Their willingness to work for peanuts putting a big squeeze on the wages that I can get When I find another job.

Instead I will put the blame squarely where it belongs, on the greedy bankers selling ruinous loans to a lot of people who clearly could not afford them. On the large builders who brought immigrant labor in to build mini mansions by the thousands where more modest houses would have been affordable even during recession.

Can't forget the Insurance companies. Workers comp has gone up at a much greater rate than can be sustained without having a negative effect on wages, driving them down to the point that the only alternative is to hire Mexican labor just to stay in business.

I actually found myself angrily wishing the illegal immigrants would be sent home so that my job would be worth something again, is that the thoughts of a progressive? After a reality check where I reasoned that it was not really fair to blame them, it got me to thinking. If enough people get put out of work then the idea of rounding them up and sending them back will gain momentum. Hitler blamed the jews for the ruined state of Germany's' economy. The conservatives have the mexicans.

Soon we may all have to choose sides in how this mass expulsion will happen. Will you blame the Wal-mart business model that has screwed the American worker out of a future and have some sympathy. Or will you blame the poorest most helpless population this country has known since the end of slavery and removal of native-americans. Don't let THEM victimize the mexicans for the short sighted business practices of banks/builders/insurance companies.

Anyway wish me luck cause I am going to need it.

[Lars39]

1. Best wishes,angrycarpenter.

Very insightful.

[mntleo2]

2. Building Is Booming In Seattle

...I do not know where you are living right now, and maybe it is not going to last a whole lot longer, but there houses and condos springing up like mushrooms here. If you are in the carpenter's union, you might check with our local union here located in downtown Seattle (I used to belong to it), here is their website: http://www.carpenters131.org/. Here is an article in Seattle Times about the housing market: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homevalues2007/2003714481_homevalues20.html. Here is an article from out other paper the Seattle Post Intelligencer: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/333067_housing26.html.

We are feeling the mortgage crunch here in that it is harder to buy a home, to qualify for a loan and few of them are affordable to the average person, but they are still selling and they are still being built. As a matter of fact I was just displaced from some affordable housing that forced me to move out of Seattle and into a suburb as I am low income because they were replacing the duplex I lived in with 5 townhomes. It is happening all over Seattle.

The Times article will give you some projections as to what the market is going to look like in the future and I suspect the union hall will also give you some insider's look into what you could expect for employment if you moved here.

UPDATE: While looking on some other sites just out of curiosity, I also found some work that Sound Transit is doing for millwork with the King county Building and Trades Council here: http://www.seattlebuildingtrades.org/indexcouncil.php These are listings of bids for projects and the name of the contractors doing them and these companies also may be worth contacting to see if they would be interested in your work.

Hope this helps.

Cat In Seattle.

[angrycarpenter]

4. I live in florida

I would freeze to death in early fall and it is a little far to commute.

[mntleo2]

5. LOL! Yeah that would be a l-o-n-g commute all right!

...still there is work here and I am so sorry you are so far away because I suspect your would find something here. But I also super understand needing to live where your family, friends and infrastructure are also located.

Cat

[renie408]

3. We are in your same boat.

My husband works in construction and we have been holding on for a promised job that *might* have evaporated. I am trying not to get too freaked out, but it is scary.

Good luck to you. You are right about people victimizing hispanics.