Immigration remains an unsolved and unspoken issue for packagers

Packagers across America continue to be plagued by a lack of a coherent immigration policy, yet immigration remains the unspoken issue of the ongoing presidential contest. With an electorate that is largely uninformed and using old paradigms to form opinions and draw conclusions, this is a topic that is apparently too hot for our would-be national leaders to discuss.

American jobs and our economy are at risk, not because of too many undocumented immigrants, but because of closing our doors to more immigrants, documented or not. Processing and packaging plants are already idle or will become idle because workers aren't available to operate them. As a result, packaging material suppliers will loose orders for containers that are no longer needed by plants that are idle; and packaging machinery supplies will loose opportunities to sell new machines to plants that no longer exist.

In my own state, Pennsylvania's largest tomato producer chose not to plant a crop in 2008 due to lack of workers to pick it. As a result, a lot of packaging of tomato products never took place. I've found that the quality of the tomatoes in the subs that I buy most days for lunch is at an all-time low. In neighboring Maryland, seafood companies are faced with closing down, not for lack of a catch but for lack of seasonal workers. A natural resource economist at the University of Maryland has shown that for every guest worker employed in the seafood processing and packing industry, 2.5 American jobs are created or saved. This month, workers and business owners alike, joined in rallies to implore Congress to enact another band aid to save their jobs and their businesses by renewing the H2B returning worker exemption.

Where possible packagers, farmers and others are resorting to technology to help solve their labor shortages, but this has met with mixed results. In some cases, machines just aren't able to maintain the quality required, for example in picking lump crab meet or cutting up chickens. But robots are being used where unskilled guest workers were once employed to milk cows, pull weeds, and package a variety of meats, vegetables and processed foods.

These machinery solutions may highlight another weak spot in our immigration policy. Our shortage of technically skilled workers makes it more difficult to successfully apply automation. While our immigration policies limit our ability to bring skilled workers into the US, foreign companies are finding new ways to attract Americans with technical skills. Machine and technology companies are offering Americans the opportunity to work in Europe to alleviate technical skills shortages there. European companies are hiring American and other foreign workers to fill jobs in their native countries that would previously have been filled by European expatriates. All of this places increasing burdens on American companies that must compete for scarce technical talent.

The bottom line is clear to me. While emphasizing and improving technical education at home, we need comprehensive reform of our immigration policies. We need to make it easier to be a legal immigrant than it is to be an illegal immigrant. And we need to invite skilled and unskilled workers to contribute to our society as our immigrant ancestors have done.

Since nothing positive is accomplished short of leadership, we need to find and elect leaders who aren't afraid to deal with tough issues and resolve them. We should expect the silence that exists around the topic of immigration to come to an end now.

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Comments Amen Posted by: Dan Ginty on September 29, 2008 you are right on. We have the same issue in Canada, and what's even more insulting is we get the brightest wanting to come here, and then make them take menial jobs while they wait for some self regulated group to allow them to work. We are squandering an opportunity of a life time, and not taking advantage of other countries paying for their training. Shame. Posted by: Robert Hattin on September 29, 2008 I think if we had an organized policy enabling the demand for immigrant labor to be legally met, the system would be largely self-policing. That's because if the demand were being met by legal immigrants, illegals wouldn't be able to find jobs. And legal immigrants would probably also tend to disapprove of any illegal compatriots. Posted by: Steve on September 29, 2008 There are already plenty of unskilled people in this country. If we would pay them what it takes to attract them to the jobs, there would be no shortage. Isn't that what the law of supply and demand is all about? With respect to skilled workers, the same logic applies. If we would pay engineers what they are worth, we wouldn't have all the young people going to college to become real estate brokers. Posted by: Paul Sager on September 29, 2008 This quote says it all: "We need to make it easier to be a legal immigrant than it is to be an illegal immigrant." We need to crack down on illegals but at the same time we need to make it easier to be legal and pay taxes instead of support the huge underground economy where nobody pays taxes for services which creates a huge strain on our infrastructure, especially on our healthcare system. Posted by: Glenn Whiteside on September 29, 2008 Dear Mr. Campbell: We should end all immigration. 300 million people is enough. We do not need 60-100 million more third grade illiterates in our country, which we will immediately start rewarding with entitlements. We need to force people off welfare here, train them, then move them to where the jobs are. Posted by: Jed A. Peeler on September 29, 2008 Politics are better left to political websites. While I agree that ILLEGAL immigration could be affecting some businesses, they are the ones who decided long ago to buck the LEGAL system and use ILLEGAL labor to enhance the bottom line. I choose to get my political information from other sources and cannot support a non-neutral forum. Please remove me from your mailing list. Posted by: George Herring on September 30, 2008 The premise that we need more undocumented workers in this country to enhance the corps income is LUDICROUS. We have more than enough workers. REMOVE ME FROM YOUR MAILING LIST. Posted by: Chris Camps on September 30, 2008 Well written! I am a immigrant and have pursued higher education in Packaging science in US. With excellent education and resources in US, I was able give significant contribution in Packaging research. I ended up with a good dream job which was going well until I was kicked out of H1-B visa lottery. This has to end, qualifications should not be treated on Lotto. Posted by: PE on October 16, 2008 Post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)