OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2016
OUR VIEW
Workplaces change, but
labor makes world go ’round
M
any Americans still do work on
assembly lines, in ofices and in
ields. But many do not. The ofice
is an ever-evolving concept.
When Labor Day was born in 1883, the
holiday was a big deal for workers. And that
was an America rife with large factories and
their assembly lines. In ways we can hardly
imagine, industrialists including Henry Ford
and Thomas Edison introduced innova-
tions and new techniques that transformed
an essentially agrarian society into an urban
one.
Compare old photographs of workers
from a century ago with people today and it
becomes apparent that Americans ourselves
have changed in amazing ways, growing
both upward and in circumference. Today,
even the poorest among us are better fed and
far more advantaged than average citizens
were at the start of modern labor movement.
Positive changes don’t occur sponta-
neously. Individual men and women, work-
ing with intelligence and tenacity, deserve
our gratitude for incrementally making the
USA a nation which, for all its laws, is still
the wonder of our age.
While all manner of things have changed,
the idea of honoring labor remains an honor-
able aspect of this nation. Ultimately, those
toiling in anonymity are far more worthy
of our thanks than the famous captains of
industry. Our families exist because of the
labor of our parents and grandparents.
ere on the Lower Columbia River, the
Columbia River Fishermen’s Protec-
tive Union was perhaps the most visible of
several active organizations that struggled
to level the scales of economic and politi-
cal power on behalf of laborers. It wasn’t
unusual for multiple men to die each sea-
son in the small, open ishing boats of that
era. Meanwhile, ishermen vied with salmon
packers over a penny or two per pound for
the big Chinook that were the foundation of
our economy.
The power of local companies and work-
ers ebbed and lowed over the years. In bad
times like the 1930s, many companies failed
and the jobs they provided disappeared.
Firms that survived were often the ones with
the best long-term partnerships with isher-
men and canning workers. These companies
looked after employees and their employees
returned the favor.
This collaboration between labor and cap-
ital in bringing about success is still robust
in places like the communities of the Lower
Columbia. The owners of companies on the
scale that prosper here understand that good
workers are absolutely indispensable. And
workers here are close enough to the front
lines of capitalism to seldom take their jobs
for granted.
These partnerships between employ-
ers and employees are at risk in the giant
corporations that wield so much power in
the nation beyond our cherished coast. The
thought of companies transferring their real
or symbolic headquarters to foreign nations
in order to deprive the U.S. of tax revenue
should revolt us all. Citizenship — whether
by individuals or corporations — is a two-
way street. Those who prosper thanks to the
advantages created by our great nation must
H
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Tyler Neale, assembly mechanic at Lektro Inc., works to assemble an airplane tug.
Aviation Survival Technician Darren Hicks
prepares his rescue swimmer equipment
before being lowered into the ocean.
Coast Guard Aviation Maintenance Technician Chelsea Stark hoists rope back into
the helicopter while completing training exercises off the coast of Tillamook. During
the training flight, the four-person helicopter crew practiced rescue training exercises.
in turn be willing to help pay for it. Corpo-
rations that enjoy the protections of Amer-
ican laws, such as the patent on EpiPens,
shouldn’t wiggle out of tax obligations by
moving their symbolic legal residence to
another nation.
ur economy has been transformed in
recent decades. Economic recovery has
been uneven, delivering far more wealth to a
few, while most Americans work within the
context of a globalized labor market that tends
to keep wages down. This is creating feel-
ings of anger and insecurity that are relected
O
in this year’s presidential politics. Whoever is
elected must take steps to address these con-
cerns. Even so, working conditions and job
fairness are a quantum leap better than they
were in our grandparents’ time. All Americans
living today still beneit from the transforma-
tions in labor laws and attitudes that came to
permeate 20th-century society.
Although you don’t have to look far to
uncover derogatory attitudes toward unions,
the fair-employment initiatives that were led
by organized labor groups are key to every-
thing from minimum wages, bars on child
labor, safe working conditions, employer-pro-
vided health insurance and a host of other
things we take for granted.
In good times, some Americans consider
labor rights and organizations to be sort of
expensive extravagances. But even as the
overall economy continues to improve, it
still behooves Americans and our leaders to
empower labor in ways that ensure future eco-
nomic health, and a balance of power between
corporations and everyday citizens.
Families struggle to pay for the edu-
cation children require for the technologi-
cally demanding jobs of the future. Health
care, once one of the near-certainties of mid-
dle-class employment, remains a source
of worry even after implementation of the
Affordable Care Act. Personal wealth still is
far from recovered to what it was before the
Great Recession. For all these reasons and
more, it’s important we always pay atten-
tion to the details of working life. The victo-
ries of the past can leak away when we’re not
watching.
The only immigration solution: enforcement, legalization
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
ASHINGTON — The one
great service of Donald
Trump’s extended peregri-
nations on immigration policy is to
have demonstrated how, in the end,
there’s only one place to go.
You can rail for a year about the
squishy soft, weak-kneed and stupid
politicians who have opened our bor-
ders to the wretched
refuse of Mexico.
You can promise to
round them up —
the refuse, that is,
not the politicians
(they’re next) —
and deport them. And that may win
you a plurality of Republican pri-
mary votes.
But eventually you have to let
it go. For all his incendiary lan-
guage and clanging contradictions,
Trump did exactly that in Phoenix
on Wednesday. His “deportation task
force” will be hunting ... criminal
aliens. Isn’t that the enforcement pri-
W
ority of President Obama, heretofore
excoriated as the ultimate immigra-
tion patsy?
And what happens to the non-
criminal illegal immigrants? On
that, Trump punted. Their “appropri-
ate disposition” will be considered
“in several years when we have …
ended illegal immigration for good.”
Everyone knows what that means:
One way or another, they will be
allowed to stay.
The solution
Trump’s retreat points the way to
the only serious solution: enforce-
ment plus legalization. The required
enforcement measures are well
known — from a national E-Ver-
ify system that makes it just about
impossible to work if you are here
illegally, to intensiied border patrol
and high-tech tracking.
The one provision that, thanks to
Trump, gets the most attention is a
border wall. It’s hard to understand
the opposition. It’s the most vener-
able and reliable way to keep peo-
ple out. The triple fence outside San
Diego led to a 90 percent reduction
in iniltration. Israel’s border fence
with the West Bank has produced a
similar decline in terror attacks into
Israel.
The main objection is symbolic.
Walls, we are told, denote prisons.
But only if they are built to keep
people in, not if they are for keep-
ing outsiders out. City walls, going
back to Jericho, are there for protec-
tion. Even holier-than-thou Euro-
peans have conceded the point as
one country after another — Hun-
gary, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Austria,
Greece, Spain, why even Norway
— has started building border fences
to stem the tide of Middle Eastern
refugees.
Legalization
The other part of the immigration
bargain is legalization. What do you
do with the 11 million already here?
In theory, you could do nothing. The
problem ultimately solves itself as
the generation of the desert — those
who crossed the border originally —
is eventually replaced by its Ameri-
can-born children who are automati-
cally legal and landed.
But formal legalization is a
political necessity. It gets buy-in
from Democrats who for whatever
reason — self-styled humanitarian-
ism or bare-knuckled partisanship
— have no interest in real border
enforcement. Legalization is the
quid pro quo. If they want to bring
the immigrants “out of the shad-
ows,” they must endorse serious
enforcement.
Such a grand bargain could and
would command a vast national con-
sensus. The American public will
accept today’s illegal immigrants if it
is convinced that this will be the last
such cohort.
This was the premise of the 1986
Reagan amnesty. It legalized almost
3 million immigrants. Because it
never enforced the border, however,
three has become 11.
And that’s why the Gang of Eight
failed. They too got the sequencing
wrong. The left insisted on legaliza-
tion irst. The Gang’s Republicans
ultimately acquiesced because they
igured, correctly, this was the best
deal they could get in an era of Dem-
ocratic control.
The problem is that legalization
is essentially irreversible and would
have gone into effect on Day One.
Enforcement was a mere promise.
Hence the emerging Republican
consensus, now that Trump has aban-
doned mass deportation: a heavy and
detailed concentration on enforce-
ment, leaving the question of what
happens to those already here either
unspoken (Trump on Wednesday) or
to be treated “case by case” (Trump
last week).
The Trump detour into — and
retreat from — deportation has
proved salutary. Even the bluster-
ing tough guy had to dismiss it with
“we’re not looking to hurt people.”
The ultimate national consensus,
however, lies one step further down
the road. Why leave legalization for
some future discussion? Get it done.
Once the river of illegal immigration
has been demonstrably and securely
reduced to a trickle, the country will
readily exercise its natural magna-
nimity and legalize.
So why not agree now? Say it
and sign it. To get, you have to give.
That’s the art of the deal, is it not?
DAVID F. PERO, Editor & Publisher
• LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
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