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Comment by mistrial9 | Hacker News Reader

I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the parent post here, and add, that in the construction industry in California over the last thirty+ years, the pressure on middle-tier contractors combined with human nature, made a blatant game of taking away the pay from anyone who could not defend themselves in a transaction. That sometimes is the workers, sometimes the suppliers of materials, sometimes the contract holder.. Theft escalated and wages stayed stagnant or actually fell. "Illegal" labor is ordinary and expected.

I would welcome some case studies from the commentors here, because "reasons" given in comments are not explaining what I have seen with my own eyes.

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> "Illegal" labor is ordinary and expected.

I agree with your entire comment, but I want to emphasize the part about illegal labor.

There are entire industries built on the back of illegal labor, and I think many otherwise informed Americans are not aware of this.

We have some fairly substantial mismatches between our labor market and our immigration policies.

Before someone says “just don’t use illegal labor”, please realize that this means that you will be out of business due to a lack of competitiveness since literally everyone else in your line of business does it.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, maybe it’s just better off staying like it is — the market is clearing. On the other hand, I kind of wish proper enforcement of the laws would happen. This would force these companies to pay wages that legal workers would take. This, of course, would require them to raise their prices to the end user, but it would give legal laborers more... of something... definitely money, definitely rights, and maybe a bigger piece of the pie.

I don’t work in any of these fields, but I know people who do. I would love to hear from HNers who have first hand experience.

> many otherwise informed Americans

It also has to do with conversation venue. Think how many HN commenters work for companies like Uber/Lyft, just for one example.

There are entire industries built on the back of illegal labor, and I think many otherwise informed Americans are not aware of this.

Indeed. The game though, is a big reason for hiring people illegally is to keep costs down. Because illegal workers area afraid to complain and will work for less.

Now, when the average moron finds that there are lots of illegals in industry X, or in the country as a whole, they get up in arms about the illegals, support a crackdown but the crackdown doesn't remove the illegals but makes them more afraid, reinforcing the whole system. So the typical ideology of this country makes accomplices of people to the racket when sun light is (selectively) shed on the situation.

It's funny that China runs their on the same legal/illegal division of labor but in China the "illegals" are internal to China, people from the countryside who don't have official permission to be in the city.

To point out a particular example... One can hire various masons at various prices who would be capable of laying a flat brick or CMU wall. As soon as you require skilled masonry, of real natural stone or in walls or columns with interesting shapes and orientations? Now you're hiring Mexicans or Central Americans. At any price.

One can imagine the several decades of law enforcement that would be required to change this situation, but it is an open question whether it would be a good thing overall.

Theoretically, these businesses are already priced to maximize profit. So it could be that increased wages increases the cost to the consumer. It could also mean lower profits for the business if they've already priced at the max their customers are willing to pay.

Uncracked illegal labor is just a tax incentive. Tax incentivizing construction is not crazy.

Could you say a bit more about the game being played here? No need to spill any secrets, but I'd love some "for example" items to understand it better.

Maybe CA is different, so YMMV, but im NY the game is unions, and filling the site with so many workers, due to union regulations, that they can't even work from each other. So there is a lot of waiting, which of course is billable. Now on top of all this the workers might be working illegally. And who actually compares on-site events and crew numbers/sizes with invoices? Well, if you don't want trouble, you don't.

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