Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Save the ski industry, issue more H2B visas

Been listening to new Vermont Senator, Bernie Saunders this morning on Vermont Public Radio (VPR). Bernie came out four square against furrin low wage immigrants driving down the wages of his rural Vermont constituents. He started talking about the ski resort business as if it was Ford Motor or something. They have to pay a living wage, they need to offer entry level jobs to Vermont high school graduates, on and on. Actully young guys don't work at ski resorts for money. NO way. Young guys work at ski resorts 'cause they like to ski, and the resorts let the workers ride the lifts for free. Up here we call it ski bumming, you take a winter off and just ski. Best job is ski patrolman, that way you ski all the time, when you are working and on your day off. When you are 19, life doesn't get much better than skiing all day. I hadn't heard of any ski places around here failing to find enough young skiers to keep the place open.
Listening to Bernie, you'd think the resorts were heartless scrooges grinding their workers into the dirt (Bernie used to be a Marxist and still uses the old cold war/class war cliches). In real life, everyone in the ski business is in it 'cause they love to ski. Nobody (especially not the resort owners) makes much money at it, but they all have a good time.

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