SURVEY SAYS: Did the Immigration Protests Affect Your Workplace?
Perspectives vary on the size of the burden and/or contribution of workers (and their progeny) who are in this country illegally, and, like so many other things on Capitol Hill, proposals for reform seem far apart. A week ago, there were a number of demonstrations around the country – with some employers reportedly going so far as to close, either as a sign of solidarity with the protestors, or simply an acknowledgement of business realities.
This week, we asked readers what impact – if any – the protests had on their place of work.
You wouldn’t know it from the media coverage, but the vast (and I do mean VAST) majority of this week’s respondents saw no impact from the protests. No impact at work, no impact outside of work (other than, perhaps a “disruption” in news coverage). One respondent went so far as to note, “What protest?” The most commonly cited “impact” by those who otherwise cited no impact was – a less arduous commute (though whether that was the result of other drivers being at the protests, or other drivers staying home for fear of getting snarled up in the protests, or just a random occurrence, was impossible to discern).
There were some impacted areas, of course. Roughly 7% of this week’s respondents cited some impact. “Being at a manufacturing company that has a very large Latino population in production areas, we shut down all of our production (& directly affiliated) departments on Monday, and wisely so,” noted one. He went on to note that, “In retrospect, having learned of our Latinos’ plans, whether we had closed or not, we would have been missing a very significant % of our population in production areas, which would have created mayhem for those trying to keep it running and a powder keg of resentment/prejudice for Tuesday and beyond. Closing was a good idea, and most of our people were either elated or “okay” with it. Also, as a result, those affected departments are working 4×10’s to make up for lost production, and nobody seems to mind.”
Another noted that, “As a multi-site employer (approx. 60 sites) comprised of apartment communities and construction sites, we had very little disruption. One construction site closed because all the laborers asked for the day off. We had about 70%-80% of our subcontractors or their employees show up.”
One reader who noted that their location hadn’t really seen any impact said, “We experienced quite the opposite at another site that is 100% Hispanic in a predominately Hispanic area of SoCal. The staff were talking about the strike in front of the manager, who interestingly enough didn’t know about the strike. She sat them down and told them she wasn’t going to strike and she didn’t know why they would because ABC Company is a good company and has done nothing but treat her and all the employees fairly. They ended up working on Monday.”
Another said, “For our company, it was a non-event. Our business had a normal Monday sales day. We had one Hispanic truck driver (out of seven Hispanic employees) ask for a personal day to attend the demonstration in Washington, DC.”
“We have 77 employees at this location who are Hispanic (11% of the workforce). We only had one absence on Monday that “might have been related” to the protest even though there was a fairly large demonstration/parade in our city,” noted another.
At least one reader respondent was directly “impacted” by the protests, noting simply, “I don’t know…I wasn’t there (at work).”
It was interesting to get the “reports” from readers in various parts of the country. Here’s a sampling:
“Almost one third of our employees in this facility (Massachusetts) are Hispanic or Laotian, but it was business as usual. Most of our Hispanic employees are from Puerto Rico.”
“No impact here. I work in downtown San Francisco, where a large demonstration took place – but, hey, we’re used to them by now! No problem!”
“The protests on Monday had absolutely no effect on my business and, actually, I have not had even one client mention it. News reports here in the Dallas area spoke of a Mexican food restaurant chain that closed for the day, and it also seems that many construction sites shut down when there were not enough workers to do the job safely.”
“We have a Hispanic population in our Denver office of about 150. We did not see any impact on Monday.”
“It seemed like it was more difficult to get a taxi to the Hill, but other than that, my company was not affected.”
“Although our office is in downtown Chicago, the disruption was minimal in terms of crowds, and everyone was able to find a restaurant open to eat lunch – although a few of them closed early.”
“We had no impact Monday. The protests in Atlanta were minimal. Just a couple of hundred marched. There are estimates of upwards of 350,000 illegal immigrants in this city, so the impact of a few hundred probably went unnoticed. I did hear stories of Mexican businesses and restaurants closing for the day, but apparently the boycott affected their own businesses more than anyone else.”
“I can only speak for our Headquarters, which is located in Miami, FL. There was no impact on HQ, and no special accommodations were arranged or mentioned. However, I personally noticed that commuter traffic was unusually light this Monday.”
“Our office is in Los Angeles County. Yes, there was an impact in that traffic was lighter on the commute since many people working or living in the march zone decided to take the day off.”
Whether or not, they were impacted, a number of readers had perspectives on the issue of immigration reform:
"Here in Richmond, Virginia, we haven't gotten past the Civil War yet, and back in 1880 the only immigration problem was one that the landowners had created themselves. We have a lot of Latinos working here. But here and, I believe, around the country, they are doing the back-breaking work that our country-men don't want to do."
"We have several immigrant workers, all legal. (I have the documents to prove it.) They are terrific employees."
"I find it extremely disconcerting that employers face fines and penalties for employing persons not legally authorized to work in the United States, yet those same 'illegals' are granted the equivalent of protected status in the current debate on immigration. I spell that h y p o c r i s y !"
"The thing that people seem to forget is the problem is not immigrants (unless you are Native American, we are all descendents of immigrants) it is illegal immigrants!! Which by definition are breaking the law."
And for all the discussion/debate about immigration reform, based on an admittedly unscientific sampling of the responses, the impact of the day's events (where it was present) seemed to be largely restricted to Hispanic populations. One reader noted, "No impact whatsoever, and the four Chinese, one Turkish, and one Russian immigrant who work in my office were all here - it appeared to be a non-event." Another said, "Warehouse operation consists of 80% first-generation Eastern Europeans. All were present, none requested time off."
"We employ a number of immigrants from various parts of the world (India, China, Canada, and Mexico)," noted another, "but they were all here at work on Monday." Another said, "All of our current 'foreigners' are from Bosnia and India, and all have the proper documentation. In the past, we've hired nationals from England and Korea and they, as well, were legal. It's really not difficult to comply with the law."
But this week's Editor's Choice goes to the reader who noted that, "For our company, Monday's protest was a non-event. But it really put a crimp in my lunch plans. The Taco Bell down the street was so understaffed that the normal 1- minute wait lasted over 35 minutes as the manager and two others manned the ship."
Thanks to everyone who participated in our survey!
Being at a mfg company that has a very large Latino population in production areas, we shut down all of our production (& directly affiliated) departments on Monday, and wisely so. In retrospect, having learned of our Latino's plans whether we had closed or not, we would have been missing a very significant % of our population in production areas, which would have created mayhem for those trying to keep it running and a powder keg of resentment/prejudice for Tuesday and beyond. Closing was a good idea, and most of our people were either elated or "okay" with it. Also, as a result, those affected depts. are working 4x10's to make up for lost production, and nobody seems to mind.
Saw no difference
Our office is in Los Angeles County. Yes, there was an impact in that traffic was lighter on the commute since many people working or living in the march zone decided to take the day off. Higher ups didn't mention any official response to the march but seemed to be tolerant of the schedule changes of employees who might have to commute to or from the march zone. I don't know of anyone who actually participated in the march.
Was able to go to Wal - Mart
Monday's protest had absolutely zero impact on our business. No work disruption, no economic impact -- a real sleeper. I believe that there may have been a protest 40 miles from here with 100 or so people in attendance.
No and no.
I can only speak for our Headquarters, which is located in Miami, FL. There was no impact on HQ's and no special accommodations were arranged or mentioned. However, I personally noticed that commuter traffic was unusually light this Monday. I cannot speak to whether or not this impacted any of our locations in the field, for which we have approx. 1,400 locations geographically dispersed among 49 states.
No impact here.
Zero impact and zero planning for said impact.
All of our current "foreigners" are from Bosnia and India and all have the proper documentation. In the past we've hired national from England and Korea and they as well were legal. It's really not difficult to comply with the law.
Absolutely no impact on our business. Although our office is in downtown Chicago, the disruption was minimal in terms of crowds and everyone was able to find a restaurant open to eat lunch - although a few of them closed early. If we were located closer to the rallying point, we might have had a different experience.
The protests on Monday had absolutely no affect on my business, and actually I have not had even one client mention it. News reports here in the Dallas area spoke of a Mexican food restaurant chain that closed for the day and it also seems that many construction sites shut down when there were not enough workers to do the job safely.
No impact, no special arrangements necessary. I'm in a suburb of Chicago, and despite all of the media coverage, it seemed like an ordinary day on the roads and at the desk.
We have a Hispanic population in our Denver office of about 150. We did not see any impact on Monday. There was no impact on our entire company.
It seemed like it was more difficult to get a taxi to the Hill, but other than that, my company was not affected.
As a multi-site employer (approx 60 sites) comprised of apartment communities and construction sites, we had very little disruption. One construction site closed because all the laborers asked for the day off. We had about 70%-80% of our subcontractors or their employees show up.
We had virtually no disruption in our apartment communities. I only heard about 1 no call/no show. We experienced quite the opposite at another site that is 100% Hispanic in a predominately Hispanic area of So Cal. The staff was talking about the strike in front of the manager, who interestingly enough didn't know about the strike. She sat them down and told them she wasn't going to strike and she didn't know why they would because SARES-REGIS is a good company and has done nothing but treat her and all the employees fairly. They ended up working on Monday.
Also, Hispanic employees of other companies who service our business showed up on Monday as usual.
I was wondering why I got so many e-mail (including one narrated by Rush Limbaugh) on Monday suggesting that we (US citizens) should be allowed enter Mexico and expect the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. All government forms need to be printed in English.
4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.
5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.
7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don't enforce any labor laws or tax laws.
13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.
For our company, it was a non event. Our business had a normal Monday sales day. We had one Hispanic truck driver (out of seven Hispanic employees) ask for a personal day to attend the demonstration in Washington, DC.
For our company, Monday's protest was a non-event. But it really put a cramp in my lunch plans. The Taco Bell down the street was so understaffed that the normal 10 minute wait lasted over 35 minutes as the manager and two others manned the ship. Thanks for doing such a great job with Plan Sponsor.
No affect whatsoever. Anybody who works at our trust company has to undergo an extensive FBI background check prior to employment so we don't have any illegals working for us. On a personal note, I don't sympathize with the demonstrators since they are here illegally in the first place. Therefore, they have no rights.
Not any that I am aware of. We have one Canadian citizen and one Mexican citizen with green cards in our department, and they were at work yesterday. All the other nationalities in our office, Central American, South American, Eastern Asian, Western European, Eastern European, African, even the Yankees, are American citizens, so I guess we don't have the immediate issue to deal with directly.
Since we live in the state capital, it's unusual NOT to see some group parading the streets about the latest socio-political issue, so we may have become desensitized to it. I miss the 60's when marches and protesting seemed fresh and new.
No and no. Almost one third of our employees in this facility (Massachusetts) are Hispanic or Laotian, but it was business as usual. Most of our Hispanic employees are from Puerto Rico, so they are not immigrants anyway.
Nope and Nope. Didn't even notice. Of course, we're located outside of downtown Atlanta, just ITP (inside the perimeter - the I-285 loop around Atlanta), so perhaps we were too far away from where the illegals (and they are illegal if they entered the country illegally) were gathering. I did hear from one friend that his new carpet was delayed a day because of the protests.
I don't know...I wasn't there.
Warehouse operation consists of 80% first generation Eastern Europeans. All were present, none requested time off.
What protest?
We employ a number of immigrants from various parts of the world (India, China, Canada & Mexico), but they were all here at work on Monday.
Not one iota.
I find it extremely disconcerting that employers face fines and penalties for employing persons not legally authorized to work in the United States, yet those same 'illegals' are granted the equivalent of protected status in the current debate on immigration. I spell that h y p o c r i s y !
No impact and no special arrangements. On a personal note, my commute home was a breeze - ½ the time it normally takes me.
No impact at all here. Interestingly the downtown hotels requested that their employees notify them if they planned on not coming in on Monday.
This allowed the hotel to have advanced knowledge of any staff they needed to cover for as if they were taking a vacation day. Thus the hotels did not have any problems either.
There are two points you should mention to your readers.
Supporters say the illegal immigrants do work that Americans will not do. If that were true, and the illegal immigrants became legal, then they would no longer be willing to do that work so more illegal immigrants would have to be found to do the work.
The real truth is that Americans will not do the work for $2.00 an hour. If picking mushrooms paid $30.00 per hour, there would be a long line of people wanting those jobs. It is the employers that want the illegals because they can pay them low wages.
Just take a look at the HBPA (Horseman's Benevolent Protective Association) in New Jersey. They provide benefits (health and pension) to the race track workers. These workers get paid in cash, pay no taxes and never apply for retirement benefits (although they do use the health benefits). The list of employees includes dozens of people with the same name and social security number. The race tracks fund the program because it is cheaper to do so than pay reasonable salaries. The health benefits are provided because the horse owners do not want sick employees handling their million dollar horses.
However, there is a large group of illegals earning high salaries. All you have to do is go to any construction site along the gulf coast. There cement workers making $20.00 per hour who are illegal immigrants. Tell me there are no "Americans" that would take those jobs.
I did not close down my business on Monday and do not support illegal immigrants. There are millions of people around the world waiting to enter this country legally, if we give the illegal's the right to stay, why should others wait to come here legally. The guest worker makes sense since those workers would be here legally.
My great grandfather came here legally in 1896 and had to work 4 years before he could bring his wife and children to this country, but he did it all legally.
I believe that any person that enters this country illegally should be deported and barred from legal entrance for 10 years. I also believe and employer who knowing hires illegals should face high fines and imprisonment. I require proof of citizenship whenever I interview a prospective employee.
No, we have not hired any illegal immigrants. It would not be our practice.
No impact whatsoever, and the 4 Chinese, 1 Turkish and 1 Russian immigrant who work in my office were all here - it appeared to be a non-event.
No & No.
This past Monday was no different than any other……business as usual
As far as I know, there was no impact on our work in the area where I am
No impact on our workplace was seen or felt from the protest.
No Although I did drive a different way home from work to avoid the protest.
No impact, other than a few water cooler conversations.
I live and work in Denver, Colorado where there are an extremely large number of illegal immigrants. Our office was not affected by the demonstrations at all, probably because we require all employees to speak fluent English. We also mandate all employees be legal to work in the USA. The first requirement alone prevents our having illegal immigrants apply for work here.
We experienced no effect. But there don't seem to be many immigrants in the insurance business. Several restaurants were closed around town, but we eat "on campus" in our caf so it didn't effect our office.
We were not affected at all.
My family decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant (www.acambaromexicanrestaurant.com - the Webb City, Missouri location) on Monday, May1, to show our support for those who are a part of our community. We love the service, food and people whenever we go - which is frequently. We have taken many friends who have also made it one of their frequent favorites. How sad it was to find them closed that day.
As far as I could tell, it didn't affect us and I did not hear of any special provisions.
I was in no way impacted by Monday's actions!
Our company was not affected and not special arrangements were made.
The only disruption we had at work is the smokers had to find a new place to smoke during break. The park, across from the office, was taken over by the protestors. Of course, the smokers would have infringed up the protestors right to clean air and not having to breathe second hand smoke.....bummer!
Protest actions did not affect our business. We had not made any special arrangements.
Monday had no impact on our business at all. I suppose there aren't many illegal aliens doing CPA or pension work. I do understand, however, that travel inside the Chicago loop was rather difficult due to protestors packed into the streets.
We had no impact Monday. The protests in Atlanta were minimal. Just a couple of hundred marched. There are estimates of upwards of 350,000 illegal immigrants in this city, so there impact of a few hundred probably went unnoticed. I did hear stories of Mexican businesses and restaurants closing for the day, but apparently the boycott affected their own businesses more than anyone else.
No impact whatsoever.........
We have several immigrant workers, all legal. (I have the documents to prove it.) They are terrific employees. No one chose to leave in protest.
Personally I have deep sympathy for immigrants legal and illegal. My grandparents were immigrants to this country. We all agree that we would crawl on our bellies with guns blazing, under barbed wire, to get here if we had to. No one can appreciate America more than immigrants.
Monday's protest did not affect my workplace - although I had to use the drive-thru at the McDonald's because the lobby was closed due to the protests.
Here in Richmond, Virginia, we haven't gotten past the Civil War yet and back in 1880 the only immigration problem was one that the landowners had created themselves. We have a lot of Latinos working here. But here and, I believe, around the country they are doing the back-breaking work that our country-men don't want to do. Throughout the ages, the "new guys" on the block always had to start at the bottom and these people seem willing to do that. The Latinos I have known are hard-working people interested only in the welfare of their families--the same as everyone else. I only wish they would learn American-English, though, it is the language of this country.
No impact whatsoever! The thing that people seem to forget is the problem is not immigrants (unless you are Native American we are all decedents of immigrants) it is illegal immigrants!! Which by definition are breaking the law. Where do we draw the line if we give them all blanket amnesty? Maybe we should give all speeders amnesty, all muggers, murderers and pedophiles. Why have laws at all...we can just live in anarchy!
The marches on Monday had absolutely no effect on our company. Even though a majority of our employees are not naturalized Americans, no one asked off or even said anything about the immigration issue. Three of our employees have become citizens within the past couple of years, others have already become citizens and others are in the process.
Not only did the protest NOT impact my place of employment, it didn't impact my trip to the grocer, the butcher, or the liquor shop. My laundry was washed, dried, and folded; bed linens and towels were changed; meals were served; my children were well cared for; and another day passed.
We were totally unaffected.
The protests had no impact what-so-ever on our business, and as far as I can tell very little to no impact on our clients either.
Even though I agree the principles on which our great nation was founded furnish the right to assemble and speak freely to all, I still think these protests were a complete sham and an embarrassment to us globally.
No matter what the circumstance we CANNOT encourage or in anyway support a group or assembly whose main purpose is to subvert our laws. While I certainly feel compassion for the plight of some of these individuals, that in no way mitigates the fact that what they are doing is ILLEGAL.
No impact here. I work in downtown San Francisco, where a large demonstration took place - but, hey, we're used to them by now! No problem!
The impact on our workplace was everyone talking about how the INS is the only one we all knew that didn't think that if you have all these illegal immigrants in one place, they should be there picking them up to deport those that should be deported. Isn't that what our tax dollars are paying for?
No impact.
Well, traffic was a dream on Monday. I only had to hit the brakes once from the time I entered I-88 until I exited at Midwest Rd in Oakbrook IL. That includes going thru a construction zone (It is possible to slow down by just taking one's foot off the gas! Who knew?)
This leaves me with two theories. The first is that being an illegal alien also means bad, discourteous driver. The second is that all the bad discourteous drivers I have to deal with every day are citizens.
Our company did nothing special regarding the march. We just benefited from the better traffic.
We have 77 employees at this location who are Hispanic (11% of the workforce). We only had one absence on Monday that "might have been related" to the protest even though there was a fairly large demonstration/parade in our city.
PS - Our company is scrupulous about hiring only documented workers. We also offer on-site ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, and we have two bi-lingual trainers.