Empire of Shadows

As it turns out, after people with technical skills flee to other countries, their skills and craftsmanship don’t bring them much of a change.

At least, not at the beginning.

Lance now had a locksmith who, according to his own boasts, could open any lock, it was just a matter of time.

There was also a deaf man. This deaf man couldn’t hear any sound, but he could speak, though his pronunciation was a bit off, not as clear and natural as an ordinary person’s.

His ears were originally fine when he was a child, but later he had a fever, and for some reason, he became deaf.

In the years he was growing up, he gradually mastered the method of understanding what others were saying by observing their lip movements.

Then, based on these words, he would respond.

He learned pronunciation techniques by touching his parents’ throats and feeling their vocalizations. At least communication was not a problem.

This was a lip-reading expert.

Besides these two more special individuals, there were also two teachers and some skilled factory workers. However, Lance didn’t care too much about them. Skilled workers were something that could be had in any quantity as long as the money was right.Lance told them the content of their work: working at the docks.

It was all the most basic, most strenuous work, all manual labor, but they had nothing to complain about.

To have a stable job now was already great news. They signed the contracts with Lance on the spot.

It wasn’t until after one in the morning that everyone had finished signing.

This was the first time they had eaten a full meal since arriving in the Federation. Some people ate while crying. Some asked if they could take food back because their families were still hungry.

At first, the others didn’t quite understand why Lance insisted on finding people from among the refugees, but at this moment, they understood.

Because they were not like those workers, who had nothing that could be held over them.

When they felt the situation was in their favor, they would side with Lance.

When they believed that siding with the Federation of Labor would bring them more benefits, they would unhesitatingly side with the Federation of Labor.

But these people, the people in front of them, they were definitely people with a firm stance!

They wanted to live, their families wanted to live. Without Lance, their lives would be a mess again. This was their biggest weakness!

The next morning, Lance called Johnny and Dave’s group over.

“How many people are willing to return to their posts now?”

Johnny wiped his face. “About one thousand four or five hundred.”

Lance looked up and thought for a moment. “So there’s still a shortfall of about ten thousand.”

Dave’s expression was a bit solemn. “I’m afraid so.”

Lance thought for a moment. “I’ve already gathered five thousand people on my side. They can be sent to the docks to work at any time.”

“Before that, I will communicate with the management company. You will re-sign a supplementary contract. They will re-sign the contract with you according to the last conditions they offered.”

An extra thirty minutes of rest time each day sounded good, but in reality, the working time just changed from eleven hours to eleven and a half hours.

In fact, most of the time when you’re given a half-hour break, no one actually rests for exactly half an hour every day.

At work, they would rather finish their work first and then rest. In other words, this last half hour was actually dispensable.

Then there was more meat and eggs in the lunch, and a wage increase of one dollar and fifty cents.

Calculated this way, the income of most workers could reach thirty-nine to forty dollars. For workers with a little bit of skill, their monthly income had already exceeded the average.

The dock management company was obviously relieved after receiving feedback from Lance. They then began to contact those skilled workers.

This time, the wage increase they offered was very large. The minimum was an increase of two dollars, and some even got an increase of five dollars.

After a busy day of sorting things out, the next step was to transport the workers to the docks.

At night, rumbling trucks traveled back and forth between the industrial area and the docks. The people living on both sides of this road were already used to it.

It was either the factory sending finished products to the docks to wait for shipment, or raw materials that had just been unloaded from the ships at the docks being sent to the factory for processing.

When a large number of uniformly dressed workers appeared here, it still gave the workers at the docks an indescribable feeling.

Early the next morning, just as the striking workers were preparing for a new day of striking, someone suddenly told them that the port had already resumed work.

This made many workers run back to the docks in disbelief!

Piers one to three had fully resumed work. They watched as those unfamiliar workers worked somewhat clumsily on the docks. Even if they were stupid, they knew that these were people the dock management company had brought in from elsewhere!

“What do we do?” When the workers and worker representatives saw this scene, they were a bit panicked!

The Federation of Labor had promised them that the dock services company would definitely compromise. But now, not only had they not compromised, but they had also recruited a group of people to replace them!

Most of the people here had been working for the docks for many years. Some for a few years, some for more than ten, or even decades!

Although the company hadn’t told them yet that they were no longer needed, they could feel the sense of urgency!

They quickly contacted the people from the Federation of Labor. The people from the Federation of Labor, like them, were also unwilling to see this scene. So the news began to spread quickly, and at the same time, they also found out the origin of these workers!

“These are all refugees, people who came to the Federation through smuggling or other illegal methods. Hiring them violates the law. We will talk to the dock services company.”

“If they don’t immediately dismiss these illegal workers, then our Federation of Labor and the Dockworkers’ General Union will jointly sue them for harming the legitimate interests of Federation workers!”

The people from the Federation of Labor came to take a look and came to this conclusion.

According to the current laws of the Federation, there was indeed such a provision. If you use undocumented workers, you will face administrative punishment.

If one person was fined a hundred dollars, they said there were at least several thousand workers here, which would be a punishment of hundreds of thousands of dollars!

The people from the Federation of Labor didn’t believe that the dock services company could withstand such a heavy punishment, so they were actually not nervous at all. They even planned to gather some evidence before going to the dock services company.

They also advised the other striking workers not to be anxious, because these tricks would ultimately prove to be useless!

But just at this moment, Senator Cleveland had just finished a call with the president. This was part of the plan.

That evening, the president delivered a public address at the presidential palace.

In view of the fact that war has broken out on the Tanfit continent, a large number of refugees from Tanfit have poured into various cities in the Federation, causing a certain impact on the original environment of the cities.

Originally, the Federation government should not have kept them and should have deported them.

But in the spirit of humanitarianism, the president agreed that local governments could deal with and arrange the lives and work of these refugees to a limited extent.

But the premise was that the federal government would not allocate funds.

In other words, if local governments were willing to make arrangements, they would have to find their own ways to do so and pay for it themselves.

If they were not willing to make arrangements, they did not need to deport them either.

The president also talked about the issue of illegal immigrants. He admitted that he had mentioned these issues during his campaign. He was recently actively communicating with the cabinet and planned to provide a channel and standard for illegal immigrants to obtain legal immigrant status through legislation.

This news caused a huge public discussion within the Federation that night. For the first time, the federal government was officially addressing the illegal immigrant group that had made important contributions to the high-speed development of the Federation.

This also made many illegal immigrants cry tears of happiness. The air in the Federation was not only sweet, the water was also sweet, and now even people’s hearts were sweet!

These words, which seemed to have said something but also seemed to have said nothing, actually gave local governments a great degree of freedom.

For example, in Golden Port, as long as the state government did not object, then hiring refugees to work within the state was legal—

It had to be refugees, not any illegal immigrants!

More people began to appear at the docks to work. The strike in Golden Port also seemed to have reached a crossroads.

And with the arrival of the first bill payment day, some families could no longer hold on.

“We should talk to them. Now more and more refugees are starting to replace our jobs. What if the dock management company fires us directly?”

Someone loudly asserted his point of view, and many people around him supported him.

But there were also people who believed that they should continue to fight. This was represented by the Federation of Labor and the people from the industry union.

The dock services company was no longer communicating with them, which made them anxious instead.

They were afraid that if they continued to strike, they would really lose their jobs.

After all, the deterrent power of a strike lies in stopping all work. Once they can no longer do this, the strike becomes meaningless.

Someone suddenly complained, “It’s all your fault! Dave and his group have already returned to their posts, and I hear they’ve also re-signed their contracts with the company!”

“Why didn’t you agree back then?!” He pointed the finger directly at the worker representatives.

The worker representatives were also shocked. “We didn’t fucking agree because you didn’t agree, didn’t we?”

The worker’s neck turned red. “You’re the ones who went to the meeting, you’re the ones who went to the negotiations. If you didn’t let us agree, we didn’t agree. I don’t know what meeting you had, or what you negotiated!”

The worker representatives were also fuming after hearing this, just as the big-bearded man had said to Lance.

If they had agreed, but the workers didn’t agree, then even if they had signed an agreement with the company, it would have been meaningless, because the workers could refuse to recognize their signatures and continue to cause trouble.

Now it was the same. They didn’t agree, but the company forced the workers to have no choice but to agree. Now the workers were instead blaming them, the worker representatives. Who could be happy about that?

The representative of the Federation of Labor gave his assistant a look. The latter immediately began to appease the emotions of both sides. “We are together, remember?”

“As long as we are united, no one is our opponent!”

“We can continue to negotiate with them, and even find a way to get these refugees from the docks…” he coughed, “expelled, just like last time!”

(End of chapter)