[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 1.21.12-I

Sat Jan 21 22:00:58 UTC 2012

A Look Behind the Drop in Undocumented Immigration  Shattering the Class Warfare Taboo  State, unions slated to release initial bargaining positions  Kaiser hospital workers plan one-day strike Tuesday  White House manufacturing policy‏ Just announced: Deborah Barndt, February 6, 2-3:30 PM‏ You're a person, corporations are not‏Wisconsin Recall Elections a Sure Thing, but New ID Law May Block Anti-Walker Vote  Labor, Consumer Agency Fights Aren't Over: Now Republicans Try to Defund Them  We accept the claim of the electrical workers of Mexico  
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A Look Behind the Drop in Undocumented ImmigrationMichelle Mittelstadt, New America Media: A recent New York Times op-ed by Dowell Myers argues that we need to shift from an “immigration policy,” focused on border enforcement, to an ‘immigrant policy’ focused on the integration of those who are already here. The argument is based on reports that illegal immigration to the United States has dropped dramatically. Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the Migration Policy Institute, takes a closer look behind the numbers in the context of global migration trends. Read the Article 

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Shattering the Class Warfare Taboo
Read the Article at Open Salon

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State, unions slated to release initial bargaining positions
With contracts covering roughly 24,000 state employees expiring July 1, the Brown administration has set meetings in February and March for the government and four unions to publicly release initial bargaining proposals. - Read More
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Kaiser hospital workers plan one-day strike Tuesday

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On manufacturing policy, White House remains in grip of "ratchet-down" consultants 

By Mike Alberti 

Remapping Debate

http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/manufacturing-policy-white-house-remains-grip-%E2%80%9Cratchet-down%E2%80%9D-consultants

Jan 18, 2012 -- As part of a recent shift to a more
populist tone, the Obama Administration last week held
a conference at the White House to encourage companies
to create jobs in the United States, rather than to
continue outsourcing them overseas. 

The event was an attempt by the White House to
capitalize on the recent modest growth in the
manufacturing sector, after decades of decline. In a
speech given after the conference, President Obama
praised the attending business leaders for
patriotically bringing jobs back to the United States
from other countries. "That's exactly the kind of
commitment to country that we need -- especially right
now, when we're in a make-or-break moment for the
middle class and those aspiring to get in the middle
class here in the United States."

But critics of U.S. manufacturing and trade policy
suggest that, for all its populist rhetoric, the White
House may actually be embracing some disturbing trends
in the manufacturing sector: long-term wage stagnation
occuring in tandem with the huge gains in productivity
that have accrued overwhelmingly to the benefit of
employers and the creation of jobs that pay less and
offer fewer benefits -- often in non-unionized states --
than those that have been lost to outsourcing. These
trends have led many advocates for manufacturing to
warn of a "race to the bottom" approach to
manufacturing policy, and to worry that the U.S. is
becoming a low-wage haven.

Strikingly, both the President's speech and a new White
House study cited approvingly a paper issued last fall
by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Remapping Debate
has previously published an in-depth report on that
paper, which reflected a broader and longer-term effort
on the part of consulting firms (like BCG and
McKinsey). The paper contained a thinly veiled public
policy agenda based on the premise that wages should be
kept low and workers non-unionized if manufacturing
jobs are to be brought back to the United States.

The BCG paper claimed that rising labor costs in China
combined with the fact that the United States "is
becoming a lower-cost country" would "virtually close
the cost gap" between the two countries for many goods.
It went on to say that "when all costs are taken into
account, certain U.S. states, such as South Carolina,
Alabama, and Tennessee, will turn out to be among the
least expensive production sites in the industrialized
world." The White House report touted the fact that
"unit labor costs" have risen in most advanced
economies, while falling here at home.

The policy proposals offered by President Obama at the
conference were a proposed $12 million for research and
development, the ending of tax breaks for companies who
outsource jobs to other countries, and the creation of
tax incentives 

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial
Union Council, said that he welcomes the elimination of
tax breaks for companies that outsource, but warned
that the proposals fall far short of a real strategy,
and any policy program that relies on low wages and
weak unions is "extremely short-sighted."

"Other countries have a suite of tools they use to
support their manufacturing sector," he said. "They
have workforce training and education policies,
beneficial trade policies, and policies to make sure
that manufacturing jobs remain high wage jobs. They
think of this thing comprehensively. They take the long
view. We're the ones who don't."

Ron Hira, associate professor of public policy at the
Rochester Institute of Technology who attended the
White House event, agreed and added that any discussion
of a "renaissance" in manufacturing needs to address
the issue of high-wage manufacturing jobs being
replaced with low-wage jobs. "There was no discussion
about the quality of jobs," he said. "That seems like a
big omission."

One of the companies featured at the event and praised
by President Obama was GalaxE Solutions, a healthcare
information technology company based in New Jersey.
GalaxE was lauded for hiring 150 new workers in
Detroit, but, according to its website, the company's
"key to success" is a business model that relies on
"the transfer of primary development functions to its
facility in Bangalore, India." And GalaxE apparently
looked to Detroit to provide the opportunity to hire
relatively low-wage workers: according to Timothy
Bryan, GalaxE's chief executive officer, is a cost
savings that is "comparable to what you'd find
offshoring to Brazil and some other offshore
locations."

Remapping Debate emailed the White House, asking it to
respond to a series of questions. One was whether
recent gains in manufacturing have come at a cost to
workers in the form of lower-wage jobs with fewer
benefits. Another was why the White House would
implicitly or explicitly embrace the strategy advocated
by BCG, given that the company claims that a U.S.
manufacturing renaissance depends on the maintenance of
competitive cost advantages (low wages) and labor
"flexibility" (weak labor unions). The White House did
not respond by press time.

At the conference, President Obama commended the
business leaders for their patriotism and said that
creating jobs in the U.S. is "part of the
responsibility that comes with being a leader in
America -- a responsibility not just to the shareholders
or the stakeholders, but to the country that made all
this incredible wealth and opportunity possible."

Mark Price, an economist at the Keystone Research
Center, a think tank in Harrisburg, Pa., said that any
implication that the corporate leaders featured at the
event were motivated by patriotism "deserves mockery."

"If we're talking about large multinational companies,
they are governed by profit and loss, not by any notion
of national allegiance," Price said.

Ironically, it was one of the speakers at the event who
provided the strongest evidence against the claim that
patriotism was driving business decisions. Hal Sirkin,
one of the co-authors of the BCG report, told the
Associated Press, "It's a simple mathematical equation
[that is] changing...It's not about the patriotism --
although I know everybody on stage with me here is just
as patriotic. But it is about the underlying
economics."
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 Leadership Schools · Workshops · Research Reports · Publications  Labor education talk withDeborah Barndt Join us for a conversation with Deborah Barndt about popular education, her new book ¡VIVA!, and the Food Justice Conference that she recently attended. ¡VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas is about community art making community change. ¡VIVA! has been created by and for people who are seeking a more just and sustainable world, who want to integrate education and art into community work, and who believe that such synergy can foster greater passion for and deeper commitment to movements for social and environmental justice.
Deborah Barndt is also the author of Tangled Routes: Women, Work, andGlobalization on the Tomato Trail; and To Change This House: Popular Education Under the Sandinistas, among others. Copies of ¡VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas andTangled Routes will be available for purchase. For more information contact Rebecca Graham at 510-642-9187 orrgraham at berkeley.edu, or visit http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu.  Monday, Feb. 62:00 - 3:30 pm IRLE Directors Room2521 Channing WayBerkeley, CA Stay connected to the Labor Center DonateJoin our mailing listFollow usBecome a fan Center for Labor Research and Education, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley2521 Channing Way # 5555 · Berkeley, CA 94720-5555 · TEL (510) 642-0323 · FAX (510) 642-6432 If you do not wish to receive occasional emails from the UC Berkeley Labor Center, please reply to clre_unsubscribe at berkeley.edu and place UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
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Dear Friend,Today is an unhappy anniversary.It's been one year since the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens Uniteddecision, which allowed corporations to spend unrestricted dollars -- and have unrestricted influence -- on our nation's political process.We've seen the consequences. The 2010 mid-term election was the most expensive in U.S. history, and the 2012 election will likely shatter that record as more and more corporate money corrupts our democracy.Elections in the U.S. should not go to the highest bidder. Tell everyone you know that you won't allow secret super PAC spending overpower our democratic process.Post a Facebook status or Twitter update declaring that corporations are not people and should not have unrestricted influence on our elections.Political spending limits were put in place for a reason: to prevent those with the most money from exacting the most influence. From 1999-2010, without these restrictions, corporations spent $32 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures while unions spent $872 million.We can't afford to celebrate the Citizens United anniversary again. We are working with our allies to stand together and fight back. Take the first step: stand up to say you're a person and corporations are not: http://cwa-union.org/pages/corporations-are-not-peopleIn Unity,Beth Allen
Online Mobilization CoordinatorYou have received this message through your subscription to a Communications Workers of America e-mail list.
If you did not subscribe or would like to unsubscribe click here.Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, CLC. All Rights Reserved. 501 Third Street, NW Washington, DC 20001

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Wisconsin Recall Elections a Sure Thing, but New ID Law May Block Anti-Walker VoteRoger Bybee, In These Times: "As in other states, the Wisconsin Republicans felt no obligation to present proof that voter-impersonation fraud - the supposed target of the legislation - actually takes place in more than a tiny handful of cases. But the extreme rarity of this form of potential fraud has seldom been stressed in corporate media accounts. Most stories on the issue simply present statements and counter-statements by the two major political parties ..." Read the Article 

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Labor, Consumer Agency Fights Aren't Over: Now Republicans Try to Defund ThemDave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "Republicans were blocking National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nominees to keep these agencies from doing their jobs under the law, in exchange for a cut of the take. Obama made recess appointments to get them up and operating. Now Republicans are trying to defund the agencies." Read the Article 

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Satisfied with the evolution of the Mexican electrical workers: NAFTA offices in Canada and the United States accept the complaint. OTTAWA - The Canadian Labour Congress (CTC) said it was pleased that a complaint by the Mexican Electricians Union (SME) against his government will be heard in Canada and the United States under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC )."This is a positive development and we hope that will convince the Mexican government to negotiate in good faith with workers who have so outrageously treated," said Hassan Yussuff, CCT Secretary-Treasurer.In October 2009, the Mexican government extinguished Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), one of the two parastatals Mexico, from utility power. The decree led to the rescission of unionized workers LyFC 44.362 (all EMS workforce) as well as the collective bargaining rights and the EMS. The government used police and soldiers to occupy and close LyFC headquarters, hundreds of his workplaces and also harassed and intimidated the union and its members.Since the extinction of LyFC, the Mexican government has been running LyFC operations and has been providing the same services previously provided by LyFC energy through the use of non-union employees and hundreds of nonunion contractors.Yussuff said: "We believe it was a violation of Mexico's labor laws and its Constitution. He was also a violation of Mexico's responsibilities under the labor side agreement to the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "The union of Mexico, along with the CST, the Union of Steel Workers (USW) and 80 other unions and nongovernmental organizations throughout North America, filed a complaint with the National Administrative Office (NAO) of Canada and the U.S. under the NAALC. The parties have been notified that the offices in Canada and the U.S. have accepted the allegations and will proceed to review.Yussuff added: "This development comes at an important moment because it will add to the pressure being placed on the Mexican government." The government has been negotiating with the union to reinstate or re-employ more than 16,000 workers who refused to make compensation after his company was closed unilaterally. But government negotiators have been repeat offenders and workers fear the government will renege on their promises.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 

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