I love the smell of labor issues in the morning. It smells like oppression, a noxious combination of good cheese, burnt motor oil, blood, sweat and stanky feet.

The United States has a proud tradition of oppressive and exploitative labor practices. In Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” the author showed us life in the Chicago slaughterhouses around the turn of the 20th century — a barbaric time when men were used up and thrown away.

No one should be allowed to graduate Iowa State without reading it. It shows clearly what business in this country will do to workers when given free reign.

That list is long. Pinkertons were the favorite tools of the union-busting coal industry. They were quick to end labor disputes with a baseball bat in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

It is a miracle that labor in the United States has made the gains it has. Even people who break their backs for a living tend to shy away from unions and, unlike their English counterparts, disdain socialism as if it were the black plague.

Last Thursday, the White House proposed increasing the number of temporary visas granted to technically skilled foreigners over the next three years. The argument is there just aren’t enough Americans with the mad computing skills to keep up with the demands of industry, so you Silicon Valley freelancers can kiss your massages and catered lunches goodbye.

What this basically breaks down to is there aren’t enough Americans desperately scrambling for these jobs to keep American businesses in a position of power.

Right now, the computer industry actually has to pay skilled workers more than they like, and human resources managers are more nervous than a skinhead at the Million Man March.

What’s the cure? Nothing takes the edge off of labor’s advantage like importing foreigners who will work for a song.

According to a CNN report, the White House proposal would increase the number of H-1B visas granted from 107,500 to 200,000 in fiscal years 2001-2003. The argument in favor suggest that the jobless rate is at a 30-year low of 3.9 percent. Translation: Life is too good for workers, so let’s bring in some new ones.

On the plus side, the government intends to double the application fee companies pay from $500 to $1000 with the extra money being spent on retraining women, minorities and Americans with disabilities who are under-represented in these technical fields. The plus side ends there.

If you ever want to see social conservatives and Socialists agree on a solution (if not the problem) with a bizarre “Twilight Zone” twist, then this is the issue. Social conservatives usually want to keep America white, but your American socialist doesn’t want to see labor undermined.

Call a liberal a racist and suddenly he is working for the Man helping screw workers. There is a tendency toward knee-jerk reactions from the average liberal on the subject of immigration.

They say things like “This is a country built on immigration.” “The Statue of Liberty is even dedicated to America’s immigrants.” These things are true for the worst possible reasons.

Whether you are Mexican, Polish, African, Irish or Chinese, chances are your forebears were used ruthlessly to build this country. This is nothing to be proud of. Out of their desire to not be labeled racists, white, middle-class liberals are always in favor of open immigration.

The well-meaning, but short-sighted liberal democrat will usually opt for unrestrictive immigration regardless of how it undermines working Americans attempt to stay even.

On the other hand, open immigration is great for American business. The United States and every other country in the world has a vested interest in immigration when it comes to getting the job done. In the 1970s, Great Britain opened its doors to immigrants from commonwealth countries to overcome a “labor shortage.” It worked too.

In short order, Great Britain undermined labor and assured Tory supremacy for over a decade. Wages decreased, the Labour Party lost power, the dole queue increased and business was booming.

It is always in the best interest of business to keep the majority of the population desperate for work. If they could addict us all to smack like the pimps they are, they probably would.

Living around the poverty line keeps Americans willing. It makes us easier to control. If you can’t afford to lose your job, you will do anything.

Right now, financial pundits will tell you the economy is doing great. They throw out numbers showing the jobless rate as the lowest in decades and we just translate this as good times for all. The Dow is strong? Great! How does that make my life any better?

Americans may be working, but what kind of jobs are they working at?

Ask the down-sized middle manager what he thinks of his new position in the Taco Bell hierarchy. Americans are working, but many are underemployed.

Temporary employment agency, Manpower, is one of the largest employers in the United States. What kind of stability does this provide?

The answer used to be “get better educated and find a job in computers or something.” Well, a lot of people have done that, but look at the result. There still aren’t enough to keep wages low.

Nike and General Motors send American jobs overseas because our workforce operates under the delusion that they are entitled to a fair wage and health benefits.

Even the term “health benefits” is biased. Basic health care should not be a bonus, but the standard for all working Americans, especially those who trade their physical labor for cash.

The problem is that until recently, you would never have gotten these techies interested in labor issues.

Americans like to keep their heads down so long as their bellies and pockets are full. They never care that their brother in the meat-packing plant is slowly losing the use of his right hand because he makes the same cutting motion thousands of times a day. They don’t care if some 6-year-old from Taiwan made 15 cents a day sewing their running shoes.

You watch. The call for solidarity will go up soon enough, and an industry that thought it had it good enough to eschew labor politics will be calling on their membership to unionize and protect their position. Suddenly they will be seeing themselves as united with the very people they could have cared less for last year.

One is sorely tempted to let them hang, but the underlying principle of solidarity suggest the opposite course of action. Regardless of the reason, when laborers of any skill level get screwed, we need to bring them into the fold.

Working Americans need to wake up and stand together. The worker’s paradise may be just a pipe dream, but living in a country where workers make a decent wage without the fear of losing it all should not be.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily.