University of Tennessee professor Marvin Valazquez received federal funding last year to study the working habits of Mexican blue collar workers in the United States to see how they compare to U.S. citizens. The controversial study will be released next week, and published in the scholarly journal “Work It.” At his press conference yesterday, Valazquez said his findings showed key differences between Mexican workers and U.S. citizens. According to his studies, Mexican workers do the following in a typical work day:
- Show up, usually on time regardless of weather or hangover.
- Work.
- Siesta and/or drink from large jugs of water.
- Do more work.
- Finish.
- Clean up.
- Find somebody in their crew to translate status to homeowner or contractor.
- Go home.
His study found that the key differences are in steps 1, 2, and 5. “Nothing at all happens unless the worker actually shows up,” he explained. “Mexicans have Americans beat right there 9 out of 10 times. We found that homeowners cited this more than any other reason, including cost, for hiring Mexicans over Americans.” He added that communication was not really a problem, saying that hungover Americans are as hard to communicate with as non-English speaking Mexicans.