Over 1,00,000 Americans skipped work Monday in one of the largest protests in history. Immigrants walked off the jobs in over 30 cities, causing disruption of daily life in order to demonstrate the inordinate amount of difficult the U.S. economy would face without migrant labor.It remains to be seen whether or not the largely hispanic community's game of chicken will work with the American public, and more importantly their elected representatives. As the New York transit strike demonstrated last year, workers can only stay off of the job for so long. Skipping work in order to fight for better benefits (government or employer provided) can sometimes hurt more than help. At this point no one seems to know what the economic impact of the protest was. But with the enormous walkoff by both workers and students as well (generally costing a district $30), the Democrats have to start working with the Republicans, and the Republicans need to compromise with the Democrats. This issue is too important to play politics with.
