Kristi Noem hates foreigners…except when they’re coming to work for crap wages to prop up South Dakota’s major industries.
A couple weeks ago, Governor Kristi Noem stirred her Lewandowski attention pot by unChristinaly haranguing immigrants. “Call me when you’re an American,” she said.
Now in her usual talking-point dime-turning, Governor Noem claims “we love people” and is begging for cheap foreign labor to support our tourism industry:
Now the state is working to help make sure businesses are ready to support the influx of guests.
“I know that the biggest challenge that we have in many businesses today is workforce, getting the bodies to fill the jobs that we need in order to take care of people to fill the hospitality industry,” Noem said.
“I met folks on the western side of the state this morning that said we are in desperate need of J1 and H2B workers and we just can’t get them,” Hagen said.
While state and congressional leaders are lobbying the federal government for more temporary foreign workers South Dakota’s travel industry depends on, the state Department of Labor and Department of Tourism is now teaming up on a nationwide campaign to attract more hospitality workers [Bridget Bennett,”South Dakota Expects Tourism Boom in 2021, But Needs More Workers to Help Serve Guests,” KELO-TV, 2021.05.03].
Noem flew across the state to make identical pro-foreign-labor announcements at Mount Rushmore and at Falls Park on Monday.
Such a hypocrite
Note To South Dakota from Hollywood
“NOMADLAND” wasn’t a compliment about the deplorable jobs and employee treatment, depicted at Wall Drug.
Every time I went to Wall Drug in the summer, almost all the workers were foreign. Nobody ever asked any questions.
We need other people to come to SD to spend their money here (tourism) to support our businesses. We need other people to pay taxes in SD to support government. We need other people to come to SD to take the low-paying/difficult jobs that are left open.
That all seems like a long way to walk to avoid good-paying industry creation and support of a strong middle class for SD.
Do these workers become “American” when their skills are exploited for SD business?
drumpf had the same labor shortage at his country clubs. no white Americans would work for parsimonious pay, so drumpf had to petition the government constantly to allow him to hire foreigners. Which he professed to hating.
Hypocrisy and greed so reign in the GOP circles of SD. They are ruining a political party that our country needs in counter-balance to the other major party. But, the pendulum never stops and if they don’t straighten their sh– out, that pendulum is going to slice them thoroughly.
‘All hat and no cattle’ would be one of the nicer descriptions I could label this scurrilous, disingenuous governor of the state I love.
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For decades we were told that the Invisible Hand of the Market™ would automatically solve this problem, because wages would rise until enough people were willing to take those jobs. Now they’re telling us people won’t leave their full-time jobs or move from faraway places to South Dakota to take low wage seasonal jobs? Only Nostradamus could’ve foreseen that outcome!
Wasn’t it Trump? Noem’s buddy. Who in recent years did a number on this State Department program to invite guest workers to the US, especially for the hospitality industry?
For supposedly being self-proclaimed Christians, the Republican party sure loves to hate. They must be pretty miserable souls.
South Dakota’s numero uno Karen will not admit the hypocrisy she displays. No, she’ll fall back to default self defense and blame liberals and media for making her look stoopid.
When you go out to eat any any restaurant, just know the plate you’re eating off of was cleaned by the lowest paid person in the kitchen. If the law would allow, the owner would probably pay them less. I wonder why restaurants don’t proudly put that fact on their menus? Bon appetit.
Hypocrite Kristi is once again on full display when she laments about the lack of foreign workers for the tourism industry. This shortage began because of policies by the Trump administration to restrict the number of foreign workers. But did Kristi publicly complain about the lack of foreign seasonal workers then? Of course not. Our craven governor lacked the fortitude to criticize the Trump administration’s policies that were affecting businesses in South Dakota. Even in 2019, the new restrictions were affecting not only the tourism industry but other seasonal employers as well.
As an example, in 2019 I visited with a local landscape contractor who bemoaned the fact that his usual seasonal workers from Guatemala were unable to enter the United States because of the Trump administration’s restrictions on foreign workers. For several years, the same group of men came to work during the landscape season and then returned home to Guatemala. Unable to secure local help to replace his foreign seasonal workers, that landscaper had to reduce the number of projects.
Now that Trump is no longer in office, Kristi and her administration are now willing to publicly acknowledge that foreign workers are necessary for the tourism industry and other businesses that rely on seasonal workers. Pathetic.
You know pubs don’t want the minimum wage raised because they say those jobs are for young people on their first job. At least in their minds they are. It’s like when I draw myself to my full mental height of six two when I have too. Repubs think they are holding down the fort of freedom while actually doing the opposite. Now at least everyone realizes that you can’t tell the truth and be a repub since they are all trumpies now and lie like rugs. What can any reasonable person say other than wipe your feet.
I was an Artist-in-Residence at the Custer State Park Game Lodge for at least a dozen years starting in the late 1990s. There were still many U.S. students on the payroll for the summer when I started but the last time I was there (maybe 7 years ago) most seasonal employees were Central and South American, Eastern European (Russian and Ukranian), African or Asian. Much of the wait staff in the dining room as well as front desk workers were professionals with much experience. Many of those had spouses and children at home in other countries…that meant they had to leave their families behind for two years without going home just to get a green card. The management found it much easier if their employees already knew how to work at specific jobs than if they had to be trained and, in some cases, taught how to work as this might be their first job out of high school. Also they could stay the whole season rather than being restricted by school end and start dates.
Maybe the trumpers should have thought about it a little more before they started demonizing folks from other countries.
Someone didn’t get the memos about slavery and unpaid labor in racist southern USA.
https://www.wistv.com/2021/05/04/court-rules-man-enslaved-by-conway-restaurant-manager-owed-more-than-k-restitution/
He’ll have many years in prison to blame Obama and Biden for his racist self.
Just came up from the southwest. Moab, Utah “mc donalds sign, now hiring, $18/hr starting”. Food at micky D’s cost the same in the Phoenix area, Moab UT. and a Gilette Wy. And yes,probably won’t eat at Mc donalds again all summer.
Well..please be assured that the hospitality industry in South Dakota won’t be paying $18 per hour. The low wages, deplorable employee housing, and long hours provided seasonal employees is just a manifestation of the value “tourism ownership” places on the labor which produces wealth. In South Dakota, labor is seen as a cheap commodity. Workers are not viewed as a cog in the wheel. they are the grease between the cogs, and when its used up, they will just squirt in more grease. A massive adjustment in business model, and employer attitude, is necessary to keep the tourism machine running.Governor Noem, as always, is out of touch.
You are right Arlo. As a tourist trap state, the motto should be” a place to visit, but you would not want to live here”.
Noem & her greedy tourist trap ilk reminds one of Napoleon’s maximum. “There are no bad regiments, only bad colonels.”
Businesses that can’t pay a living wage do not deserve being in business. Oil companies and support agencies were challenged with getting workers to North Dakota until they decided to pay them.
So… is the solution here to give all the illegal immigrants at the border emergency H2B visas and send them forth?
Just thinking out loud.
Just to clarify, if Wayne is referencing people that have actually violated U.S. immigration law, people that violate such laws may have committed an illegal act, but this does not make those people “illegal people.” For example, some U.S. citizen from Rapid City, SD that commits a misdemeanor is not an “illegal Rapid Citian,” nor an “illegal South Dakotan” nor an “illegal citizen.”
“Illegal people” are more like the Jewish people in Nazi Germany, which, in effect, made it illegal to be Jewish with the punishment as death. During the Nazi years Romani people, and other ethnic or identifiable groups, were also declared to be “illegal people” by Germany and executed based on being an illegal human being. “Illegal people” are often particular ethnic groups, or other identifiable groups, that a particular sovereign declares to be “illegal.”
Fortunately, we have not yet reached a point where US or State law has declared people that volate a law or adminstrative rule to be “illegal people,” including, for example, people seeking only freedom, safety and security for themselves and their children, such as most American “immigrants” from Central and South American countries.
Thank you bearcreekbat!!!!