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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNo One Is Willing To Create Jobs. They Only Want To Eliminate Them Or Insource Foreign Workers
It is not that TPP is bad enough employers are still intent on outsourcing jobs to other countries. And to ADD to that employers also want to bring in foreign nationals to take the jobs of working Americans because these immigrants will work for a lot less. That idea is what is behind the corporate push to have unlimited "H1B immigrant work visas". They also like the L1 immigration work visa because you can apparently pay the same wage paid in the immigrant's home country.
Folks American workers are getting up the you know what from both ends. We are destined to become a dystopian nation. What is most bothersome is how many politicians except for the left wing are OK with massive immigration spawned by unlimited work visas. While at DOL I saw so many Americans relieved of their jobs and replaced by immigrants they had to train because of these visas. Now I retire 16 years ago and it is much worse.
I am even seeing immigration visas for low paying service jobs and any other kind of job in any category. There are over 1 million immigrant workers in the US now even in higher paying jobs that pay less than the original jobs.
American workers alike a "man without a country". Whether you like it or not American businesses and corporations also do not want American workers. And the supposed shortage of American workers is just ONE BIG LIE that the MSM keeps repeating.
I am really sorry to say this but American workers are not even on the radar. And all the talking about training is RHETORICAL BULLSHIT.
I am sorry I cannot mind meld everyone with what I see on the labor market because we would have a revolt against business is everyone understood what is happening. Most workers are completely un aware of the situation and are denied the information that would clue them in. Workers who do have work are really not aware of the plight of the economic cast offs. The unemployed are invisible and kept invisible by our truly criminally corrupt MSM.
I realize some DU'er's here believe I am hyperbolic. If you saw the labor situation from my perspective you might even think I am too mild. I fear the labor situation is really worse than I even see it.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)and he's surrounded by tech people from other countries who are here on visas.
One way out, in my opinion, is for those of us who can hire, to hire unemployed Americans. If we concentrate on hiring one another, we can start making a difference.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)to India. Public outrage over this. You lose your job to somebody in India and you have to CALL India for your unemployment check???? The state stopped it and decided to hire the UNEMPLOYED to man the unemployment call center. Hello???? My unemployed daughter recently took the civil service test for 911 Operator. At the top of the app was written, "First preference will be given to the unemployed". As it SHOULD BE, unlike private, for profit businesses which now are saying, "Only the currrently employed need apply"
Something is very, very wrong with this divide.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)The American jobs issue is similar to the white man's privilege issue.
White men used to have it really good, but now they have to live in a different reality where everyone has equal rights. Americans used to have it really good, but now have to live in a different reality where anyone anywhere can do the job.
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)Skittles
(153,104 posts)Last edited Thu Jan 16, 2014, 06:30 PM - Edit history (1)
none at ALL
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Skittles
(153,104 posts)The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)but you can't or won't tell me why. Fair enough.
and he's surrounded by tech people from other countries who are here on visas.
One way out, in my opinion, is for those of us who can hire, to hire unemployed Americans. If we concentrate on hiring one another, we can start making a difference.
We Americans have had advantages, simply because we were American. The luck of being born in a particular artificial construct. That's rather similar to having advantages just because you happen to be born a man. I just found that quote to be basically exactly what people would criticize old white males for saying. If something like the quote was said about women or African Americans, I'm guessing it wouldn't go over well. We're surrounded by them at work. If we could just work on hiring our own, we could start making a difference.
American jobs. White male privilege. Two things that the rest of the world is moving beyond the need for, but people try and hold onto each one.
lark
(23,059 posts)It was suggested by H/R at one point 2 years ago that we only hire people already employed. I refused, said we need to hire the unemployed, if they have the skills/training to do the job and can pass our tests. If I interview 2 people who score the same on our application process and 1's employed and 1's not - I will always hire the unemployed person. Makes me sad how many people diss the unemployed, who are in this condition, for the most part, through no fault of their own.
Skittles
(153,104 posts)ramapo
(4,587 posts)The OP is not hyperbolic. I contend that legal immigration is at least, if not worse, as bad as illegal immigration. The H1B scam has been going on for about 20 years now, a 'temporary' solution while Americans were trained/retrained to fill tech positions.
There are all kinds of excuses why American workers should not get any benefit to the fact that they are American citizens. What is even worse is that being an American actually works against many workers.
I have seen countless people in IT get totally screwed by their companies as they were either outsourced, or even worse, replaced by H1Bs. Congress keeps upping the limits because we live under corporate rule and certainly not in a democracy for, by or of the people.
SamKnause
(13,087 posts)Nothing short of a nationwide strike will get their attention.
Occupy Wall Street (I know there are factions of Occupy still operating and doing good throughout the country) tried to steer the workers in this country in the right direction.
It terrified the powers that be.
The MSM sat upon them like a pack of hungry dogs.
The militarized police treated them with hate and hostility.
Homeland Security coordinated with 20 mayors across the country.
Some people may be afraid to rise up, but until there are millions of businesses shut down and millions in the streets, nothing will change.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)delusional vision of optimism and crippling naïveté.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Had I not worked at DOL for 24 years I would not really know how the labor and employment framework actually worked. What Reagan was up to when he talked about a service economy went completely over the heads of most Americans. From where I sat as an employment specialist any one paying attention understood that such an economy was fundamentally a low paying and totally job insecure economy.
There was a time when a service job was a job for life and paid a living wage and had security. And business plans were long term plans. So unless you were in the middle of what was going on it was very hard to see what was really happening.
What has amazed me was how the RW and GOP pulled of such a massive misdirection of the voting public. Just about everything I believed was going to happen starting in 1981 has happened and really not abated at all. I have followed these trends even the last 16 years since I retire and we are still headed in the same direction into a rat hole.
What workers do not realize is that if they revolt like the 1930's it will very likely get bloody and messy. The response to the Occupy Movement was somewhat of a surprise. And the counter attack by the authorities was really very vicious. Now anyone who plans to resist can be dogged and followed just like the KGB followed Russian citizens.
If you look closely at the recent Walmart demonstrations protesters were actually brutalized and arrested by police yet it was NOT reported in the media. And Walmart workers are even now being severely punished and labeled at trouble makers. I will bet there are even dossiers on anyone who was out there.
I could be paranoid, but I do not believe I am. The problem is that when I post about these subjects they are just so unbelievable that it looks crazy. And we have to remember that.
Finally it is not that I am particularly gifted or knowledgeable it is that my experience has enabled me to understand all the code being played to the voter which is just so misleading and even lies.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)cannot see the big picture, that is not your problem. It is theirs.
You keep speaking truth to power. Indeed, I will back you up all the way. It's time people got their fucking heads out of the sand because their stupidity and cowardice is the helping this paradigm to continue on its relentless course. The clock is ticking.
We also cannot allow a wingnut super-majority.
Lurker Deluxe
(1,036 posts)Even mention that the skilled trades have to compete against "undocumented workers" and you're labeled racist in a heartbeat.
Sorry ... I had to switch trades twice because of the low wages caused by immigration.
I remember NAFTA and that '92 election when I was told that the US was becoming a service economy now and I should get into IT or something to do with 'puters. I'm a machinist in a repair industry ... service that simply can not be outsourced. Maybe some people will have to change jobs, we're a FOOD service economy now.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)moondust
(19,956 posts)H-1B Visas: These are earmarked for skilled temporary workers like architects, computer programmers, designers and others.
H-1A Visas: These are set aside for farm laborers and other seasonal employees.
H-2B Visas: These are set aside for non-agricultural workers who typically enter and exit the country within the same year.
H-3 Visas: These are intended for short-term training stints during which the visa holder must earn a salary or stipend.
H-4 Visas: These can be obtained by certain relatives and dependents of qualifying H-visa holders.
http://gutierrezfirm.com/immigration/non-immigrant-work-visa/h-visas/
U.S. government helping corporations screw working Americans.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)You can see this with many companies. The owners no longer care about their long term viability, they don't care how many customers they piss off. They are in it for today, for this quarter, and that's it. Again, it's everywhere you look, including many small businesses who cannot afford a strategy like this.
TBF
(31,999 posts)and our billionaires view the world as their oyster.
I think the way we will have to ultimately fight back against this is by organizing workers worldwide to fight for labor and a socialist economic system (and we can see the global owners are trying with TPP to have more control over the Internet so we MUST fight back against that). I have no problem with borders falling and other countries having their standards of living rise. My complaint is that it is all done with the intent of making one very small class of people wealthy beyond their wildest dreams while others barely subsist.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)It's one of those primal fears that must remain undiscussed because it's just too terrifying.
Meanwhile, the frog continues to feel his world warming up. We are deer in the headlights.
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)mother earth
(6,002 posts)It's about time to say enough is enough.
Chisox08
(1,898 posts)realized that they don't need us or at least for the price that an American can demand. To me the TPP, NAFTA and other free trade deals along with outsourcing and bringing foreign workers is a way to lower American standards to that of a third world nations. Companies like Walmart are able to get away with treating their workers like crap because they know people are desperate for jobs and take whatever they give them.
Why in the hell are we giving companies tax breaks to send jobs overseas while people are unemployed here?
America is the richest nation in the history of the world and the way we treat the people that is the most responsible for creating that wealth is despicable. We blaming the poor and the unemployed for the failures of our society at the same time as we make the conditions for them worse. We have it backwards the people the deserve our scorn is the Wallstreet Banksters and the greedy billionaires who caused our economy to crash and forcing millions of people into poverty.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)...
In 2012 they used 4,037 H-1B Visas alone and are ranked #5 in using foreign guest workers to displace U.S. workers and offshore outsource jobs. The H-1B Visa is known as the offshore outsourcing Visa. Offshore outsourcers use this Visa in a notorious method to displace Americans and technology transfer large projects to cheap labor nations.
...
Accenture, like most BPO offshore outsourcers, saves money by underpaying foreign guest workers they import. Typically they pay 25% less for their imported employees than the prevailing wage for a similar United States citizen worker. In 2005, with the corresponding H-1B Visa good until Q1 2013, Accenture had 12,684 H-1B foreign guest workers earning an average of $53,042 per year. This is far less than the median $80,000 salary the same job responsibilities and skills required would fetch for an American worker. Accenture is so bad, they literally paid a foreign guest worker $25,113 per year with the job title, Chief Programmer. Typically chief programmers make six figures in America. Accenture is systemic in their labor arbitrage of United States citizens. Of their imported H-1B foreign tech workers in 2005, they paid 15.3% less than $40,000 a year and 40% less than $60,000. This is way, way below the kind of salaries one would see for a highly trained, college educated technology professional.
...
Here.
"What is most bothersome is how many politicians except for the left wing..." So glad you didn't say Democrats.
They are out there, but one needs Diogenes and his Coleman lantern to ferret them out, amidst the noise. Or maybe just Bernie Sanders and an LED flashlight...
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)just collateral damage in the pursuit of a global economy run by and for multinational corporations. Bootstraps for everyone!
Who doesn't love the idea of retraining in their 40s or 50s for a new exiting career after their job has been off shored?
B Calm
(28,762 posts)bklyncowgirl
(7,960 posts)As a person in my fifties I can't help but feel that my generation has failed miserably in holding onto what our parents earned.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,129 posts)The Work Opportunity Tax Credit program gives tax credits to employers who hire the disabled, veterans and welfare recipients.
http://www.dol.gov/odep/documents/WOTC-incentive.pdf
If there was a tax credit available for hiring the long term unemployed, it would help offset their salary in the first year. It might make some employers more willing to take a chance on someone who has been out of the workforce for a while. Massachusetts already has this kind of program for the long term unemployed and unemployed veterans.
http://www.masslive.com/business-news/index.ssf/2013/10/massachusetts_doubles_cash_incentives_fo.html
I could see this kind of program appealing to both Democrats and Republicans. It would appeal to Democrats because it helps workers and Republicans would like it because it puts money in businesses pockets.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Ir was called the "Targeted Jobs Tax Credit" and it was mostly an exploitation device for cheap employers. Part of my job was to authorize such credits after interviewing the applicant. Most of the people I got were not really qualified by income and were coached to scam me. At other times businesses who were opening would have us go down and ID people qualified for the credit. Once the tax credit period was over they were unemployed again.
There was also another problem with this kind of credit. I would get the same people applying for the credit again because they did not make enough income to keep them from qualifying for the same credit again. And the tax credit as I looked at it meant that employers would get employees for 50 cents and hour during the TJTC qualification period.
Tax credits are largely useless and based on the income levels for qualification the person is more or less homeless anyway.
Tax credit sound god but I found them largely useless during my time at DOL. Employers use them to get cheap labor to hire people they would hire anyway without one.