[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 5.10.12‏‏‏‏-I‏‏‏‏‏

[Carlos Pelayo]

CWA Newsletter: American Airlines Agents in Bankruptcy Court to Protest AMR's Cuts‏ Report: Laying the Foundation for Health Care Reform‏ Keep UFW Heat Bill Advancing‏  Union Presidents Offer Support for Obama on Marriage Equality  Unions Back Obama's Support for Marriage Equality‏ Jerry Brown tells unions state payroll costs need to come down  Manufacturing Jobs Coming Home to US Data Brief: Black Employment and Unemployment in April 2012‏ 
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May 10, 2012American Airlines Agents in Bankruptcy Court to Protest AMR's CutsCWA State Workers Reach Tentative Deal in New JerseyCWA Demands Public Trans-Pacific Trade TalksReal Bargaining Rights Produce Big Gains for ver.di Members at T-MobileCWA LPATs Gear Up for 2012 ElectionCWA Supporters Help Keep the Heat on Verizon, Verizon WirelessCWA Activists Work to Recall Wisconsin Gov. WalkerShareholder Spring Rallies at Bank of America's Annual MeetingOccupy Your Cameras! Deadline June 1 for Photo ContestAmerican Airlines Agents in Bankruptcy Court to Protest AMR's CutsAgents rally outside of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.Below: Protesting AMR's muzzling tactics, agents tape mailing labels over their mouths.More than 100 American Airlines agents and CWA supporters today asked a federal bankruptcy court to stop AMR Corporation from implementing drastic, cost-cutting changes in pay, benefits and working conditions in advance of their union representation election.Speaking for the Ad Hoc Committee for Passenger Service Agents, which called on US Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean Lane to issue an injunction, employees spoke out against the company's anti-worker tactics. The agents, who filed for a representation election last December, are the only major workgroup at AMR without union representation."I have been stunned at how low this company, that I have worked so hard for, and for many years trusted, will go to keep us from having that voice," said Rosemary Capasso, a American Airlines agent and chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for Passenger Service Agents, at a press conference. "Even while in bankruptcy — while they're kicking long-time employees to the curb, outsourcing jobs, taking away retirement security, telling us we have to work harder for significantly less money — they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on union busters and attorneys to squash our effort to have a representation election."The National Mediation Board has called for a union representation election for the nearly 10,000 passenger service agents to be held from May 17 to June 19. Sample ballots are scheduled to be mailed out on May 10. In demonstrating that they want representation, agents should fall under Section 1113 of the bankruptcy code, just as the unionized workers do, said Ed Gilmartin, general counsel for AFA-CWA.However, for weeks, AMR has refused to turn over the list of names of agents who are eligible to vote in the election, so that the NMB has been unable to mail out voting instructions. Refusing to comply with the NMB's directive, AMR has, in fact, sued the agency to block the workers' representation election from going forward.Protesting these muzzling efforts, some agents wore mailing labels over their mouths during the bankruptcy court proceedings.CWA filed for an election last December 7; American Airlines wants to substitute its own agenda for congressional action and has filed a lawsuit based on an empty legal claim.Send a message to NMB General Counsel Mary Johnson asking her to stand up to AMR and ensure the election moves forward at http://go.cwa.net/aalines-action.For more updates, visit www.apsa6001.org or follow the agents on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/cwa4aa.CWA State Workers Reach Tentative Deal in New JerseyCWA State Workers reached a tentative agreement with New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie. Details are being presented to members and will be available as the ratification process goes forward.CWA Demands Public Trans-Pacific Trade TalksActivists make signs ahead of the TPP rally in Dallas.CWA and its progressive allies on Saturday will march on corporate America's latest power grab: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement.As hundreds of international trade ministers and corporate lobbyists gather in Dallas for confidential, closed-door negotiations on May 12, activists will rally for a public debate on the potentially destructive trade deal.CWAers and activists from all over Texas will be making the trip to Addison, Tex., for the 1 p.m. rally, with Local 6215 Executive Vice President Nancy Hall, among others, speaking at the event. Information on buses and carpooling is available at www.tppdallas.org."It is unacceptable that an agreement with such far reaching implications is being negotiated behind closed doors and in complete secrecy," said CWA District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings. "The only people with access to texts, in addition to the governments involved, are the nearly 600 corporate trade advisers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce can see the texts, but because none of the texts has been released to the public, workers who face the loss of their livelihoods and communities that face economic downturn are denied any input."He added, "Every trade deal has resulted in a loss of jobs for U.S. workers. It's no surprise that a recent Wall Street Journal poll found 69 percent of Americans believe that free trade cost jobs. They're right."On Wednesday, activists and Dallas area residents joined a telephone town hall to hear experts from the Sierra Club, Citizens Trade Campaign and CWA discuss what ordinary people can do to stop the TPP.If ratified, the agreement will put an end to "Buy American" policies and other initiatives to keep good jobs in the United States. U.S. workers already have seen far too many good jobs go offshore, from millions of manufacturing jobs to at least 500,000 call center jobs that have been sent overseas from 2006 to 2010.At stake are policies that will likely impact agriculture, the environment, health care, consumer safety, banking regulations and Internet freedom.Currently, the TPP stands to be the largest free trade agreement in the history of the United States. It now includes Chile, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Singapore, but Canada, Mexico and Japan also want to join.Say no to backroom deals for the 1 percent by signing a Citizens Trade Committee's petition for the public release of all TPP proposals. "Americans deserve the right to know what U.S. trade negotiators are proposing in our name," the petition says. The signatures will be presented to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and other trade negotiators this week in Dallas.Real Bargaining Rights Produce Big Gains for ver.di Members at T-MobileCWAers in Miami show their solidarity with their German colleagues in ver.di.In a big victory for Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile workers, ver.di — the union representing more than 2 million workers — announced a tentative agreement with DT that provides for a 6.5 percent pay increase over two years for 50,000 workers in Germany. Negotiations are continuing for workers at DT's T-Systems unit.ver.di members have been holding rolling strikes and mobilizing for a fair contract. They've also been supporting the efforts of T-Mobile USA workers who want the right to bargain here in the United States. In 2010, CWA and ver.di formed TU, a joint union representing T-Mobile workers in both countries, and ver.di union activists have taken on the fight of T-Mobile workers in dealings with DT.CWA President Larry Cohen said the settlement is a huge step forward for ver.di, TU and the global labor movement: "Why is this settlement possible in Germany, yet in the United States, T-Mobile USA management continues a campaign of fear and intimidation in workplaces where workers want to organize and engages in superficial bargaining at best in Connecticut, where technicians voted for CWA representation last year?"The difference is that ver.di and the support for collective bargaining is so strong in Germany and many other countries, including those in Latin America and Asia, Cohen said. Bargaining is the way to end income inequality for working Americans, he said, adding, "this is what democracy looks like."CWA LPATs Gear Up for 2012 ElectionCWA LPATs gather for a three-day political action training session.Below: CWA LPATs work on state plans and goals.Gearing up for the 2012 presidential election, CWA LPAT activists from around the country gathered last week for three days of political action training."If we're going to make change as a community, we in the community have to start fighting," said Anita Andrews of CWA Local 4322.Huddling in suburban Maryland, they reviewed their strategic election targets and LPAT responsibilities, and then circled up with their respective districts to hammer out state plans and goals. CWA President Larry Cohen met with participants one evening, kicking off a discussion of their personal "I am the 99%" stories. CWA National Political Director Rafael Navar led workshops on skill building, such as how to sign up volunteers and approach members about donating to CWA's political action fund. Participants learned about the Labor Action Network, or LAN, and the importance of tracking and reporting data.They also heard from the AFL-CIO about an unprecedented move to give members more say over how the union will spend its campaign war chest. By taking part in campaign activities — phone banking, knocking on doors, signing up volunteers — participants can earn currency in Workers' Voice, the Super PAC arm of the AFL-CIO. That currency, in turn, can be allocated to voter registration for the participants' local candidate of choice, online ads or other issues.While the training stressed the importance of 2012, it laid out a long-term plan to sustain that election-year energy through coalition building. Throughout the weekend, members shared tactics and war stories from their recent legislative victories."We've been able to heal a huge rift between labor and the progressive movement that's existed in Oklahoma for two decades," Dave Ratcliff of CWA Local 6012. "Now we're working together like never before. Now it's like we're one. Unfortunately, it took what the Republicans have been doing to get us to this point. We're playing a lot of defense. But we're playing with a much better team."CWA Supporters Help Keep the Heat on Verizon, Verizon WirelessThree-time Grammy winner Steve Earle last week called out Verizon Communications for hitting up workers for another $20,000 a year in compensation cuts while posting another record earnings quarter this year.This was just one of the actions aimed at pushing Verizon management to do the right thing and bargain fairly.As part of Shareholder Spring, a crowd of 1,000 workers, students and progressive activists demonstrated inside and outside Verizon's annual meeting on May 3 in Huntsville, Ala. They called on the company to stop its assault on customers, employees and American taxpayers; Verizon has earned the nickname "VeriGreedy" for its emphasis on corporate greed.Check out this video from the shareholder meeting, featuring Earle's great song, "God is God."Earle, a musician, writer and actor, is a strong supporter of workers fighting for economic and political justice, among other progressive stands.Verizon, meanwhile, is a $100 billion company that won't bargain fairly with 45,000 union workers who want to hold on to the American Dream.In addition to the company's demands for $20,000 in annual givebacks from workers, amounting to $1 billion a year, Verizon wants another $1 billion a year from consumers for upgrading their phones.Despite billions in profits, Verizon dodges taxes and has sent thousands of American jobs overseas. It didn't pay a dime in federal corporate income taxes from 2008-2010. In fact, it got a nearly $1 billion tax rebate over that period. And Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam makes more money in one day than a Verizon technician makes in an entire year.CWA Activists Work to Recall Wisconsin Gov. WalkerWisconsin CWAers get out the vote.Below: Denise Williams of CWA Local 4630 volunteers at phone bank in Madison.With less than a month until Wisconsin's recall election, CWA activists have been working around the clock to get Republican Gov. Scott Walker out of office."It's a civil war here," said Lindy McGraw of CWA Local 4630, who devotes 10 hours a week to the recall effort. "I just hope that people see the light."McGraw and members of her local women's committee have been helping out wherever they're needed, from data entry to educating people about Walker's anti-worker, anti-family budget. Every weekday at noon, they join the Solidarity Sing-Along for a singing protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol.On "CWA night" at the phone bank, volunteers reached thousands of union households between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. last week, said Mark Frey of CWA Local 4630. On May 16, CWA will partner with Madison Teachers, Inc. for another round of outreach to union families around the state, reminding them of Walker's successful effort last year to strip public sector employees of their bargaining rights."We're telling union households to get out the vote and educating members about the legislative climate," Frey said. "It's a very powerful tool."In 2010, 26 percent of all Wisconsin voters were in union households, compared to 17 percent of voters nationwide.The recall election — scheduled for June 5 — will be a rematch between Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who won Tuesday's primary to become the Democratic Party's nominee. Polls show the race is currently tied. During the last face off, voters in union households made up roughly one third of Barrett's total vote in the election, according to the exit polls.Shareholder Spring Rallies at Bank of America's Annual MeetingCWA members rally outside the Bank of America shareholders meeting in Charlotte, N.C.CWA members joined 1,000 demonstrators Wednesday in protesting at the annual Bank of America shareholders meeting. Billed by 99% Power and UNITY as the "Showdown in Charlotte," activists spotlighted the bank's foreclosure practices and its lack of corporate accountability. Read more here.Occupy Your Cameras! Deadline June 1 for Photo ContestThe Newspaper Guild-CWA and the Labor Heritage Foundation are sponsoring an Occupy Movement photo contest, with prizes for best student, best amateur and best professional photo.Three $333.33 prizes will be awarded, totaling $999.99 in recognition of the 99 percent for whom the Occupy Movement is fighting. The deadline to enter is June 1.Photos must be submitted by regular mail and should be no smaller than 4x6 inches and no larger than 10x13. For the mailing address and all contest rules, click here or go to www.laborheritage.org.Entries will be judged by participants at the 34th Annual Great Labor Arts Exchange, June 22-25, 2012 at the Maritime Trades Institute conference center near Baltimore. Winners will be selected based on the number of votes received.Click here for more information.You 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.
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 Leadership Schools · Workshops · Research Reports · Publications  A report of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, and the Center for Labor Research and Education, University of California, Berkeley. Laying the Foundation for Health Care Reform: Local Initiatives to Integrate the Health Care Safety NetBy Annette Gardner, PhD, MPH, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF » Report The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides an opportunity to coordinate care among health care providers and transform local safety nets into seamless systems of care. Dr. Gardner’s study of safety net integration activities in five California counties—Contra Costa, Humboldt, San Diego, San Joaquin, and San Mateo—confirmed that these counties had already made a great deal of progress. Each county is focusing on systems-wide integration, cross-provider integration, and patient-level integration. In addition, there is evidence that many of these integration initiatives have increased coordination of care and strengthened partnerships between providers and county agencies, thereby facilitating implementation of health care reform. Though there are differences in capacity and in the resources counties bring to bear, the study nonetheless identified specific strategies and models that can be adopted by other counties, particularly in the areas of specialty care access, mental health and primary care integration, patient care coordination, and outreach and enrollment. This report describes the factors that affect the ability of a local safety net system to develop integrated delivery systems. It also discusses lessons learned from the implementation of 30 safety net integration "best practices" that can be applied to other counties.     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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Keep UFW Heat Bill AdvancingFarm workers are dying from heat. In fact, since California issued its landmark 2005 regulations to keep farm workers from dying of extreme heat, preventable farm worker deaths are still occurring at a similar pace as before.

We cannot allow this to continue! Since the state has failed to adequately enforce its heat standards, the UFW has sponsored AB 2346, the Farm Worker Safety Act (Butler). This bill will allow farm workers to be able to enforce mandatory shade and drinking water requirements by taking delinquent employers to court. It will also make growers jointly liable along with farm labor contractors they hire if contractors fail to supply farm workers with shade and water when temperatures soar. In addition, AB 2346 will set meaningful penalties for individuals responsible for heat-related deaths. The bill’s proposed penalties are minimal when compared with state Penal Code sections when a person fails to provide an animal with the same protections. AB 2346 does not impose any costs on taxpayers.

The problem of heat-related farm worker deaths must be solved. Farm workers cannot keep having their lives jeopardized due to grower indifference.

This critical bill has already passed the Assembly Labor and Assembly Public Safety committees and will shortly be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.Please send your e-mail today and tell the chair of this committee to support this critical bill.

http://action.ufw.org/heat12After you take action please share this campaign with your friends and family. You can send them an e-mail, post this campaign on yourFacebook and/or Twitter page by clicking here or going tohttp://action.ufw.org/page/share/heat12
Want more information? 
Check out the UFW's AB 2346 (Butler) Thirst for Justice page.UFW's 50th Anniversary
Convention will
be held on
May 18 thru May 20th
in Bakersfield.
Click here for
more informationMake your donation today. 
Any amount you give will help to improve the lives of farm workers & their families.
 
Check out our website at: www.ufw.org and keep up with the latest news.Check out the UFW's Social Networking pages. Click to visit our Facebook Fan Page, Facebook Cause,YouTube, Flickr, MySpace,and Care2 pages. Please link to us and become our "Friend" and follow us on Twittertoo!If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for the UFW List Serve.If you want to change your mailing address and/or phone number click hereIf you want to receive our alerts at a different e-mail address, send an e-mail to ufwofamer at aol.comPlease add us to your safelist: Please add ufwofamer at aol.com to your address book so that our messages don’t get trapped in your spam filter. If you have questions about how to do this, drop us an e-mail.Privacy PolicyTo unsubscribe, go to: http://action.ufw.org/unsubscribeThis email was sent to cgpelayo at hotmail.com.United Farm Workers,  P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA 93531, http://www.ufw.org
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http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/928035/union_presidents_offer_support_for_obama_on_marriage_equality/#paragraph4

Union Presidents Offer Support for Obama on Marriage EqualityBy Laura Clawson | Daily Kos
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May 10, 2012
On Mother’s Day, domestic workers in California will launch a statewide campaign to build support for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.LGBT families are working families—and yesterday, the union movement strongly backed President Obama’s support of marriage equality. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: “We should respect and honor our friends, neighbors and family members who want to take care of their families and their loved ones—whatever their sexual orientation. We are proud to come together for a more just America.” Read more and comment.  California Domestic Workers Celebrate Mother’s Day with Visit to Lawmakers Trumka: Manufacturing Revival Vital to Strong National Security Former USW VP Leon Lynch Dies Thank a Nurse During National Nurses Week John Stossel Follows in James O’Keefe’s Footsteps Union Veterans Lobby at Ohio StatehouseRead more important news of the day on the issues working families care about.Follow the AFL-CIO:
            Take the next step. Become a mobile activist
by joining the AFL-CIO Rapid Action Text Team.
Text NEWS to AFLCIO (235246) to receive action alerts and more.
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To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.Click here to unsubscribe.
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http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/10/4479637/jerry-brown-tells-unions-state.html

Jerry Brown tells unions state payroll costs need to come down
By Jon OrtizState workers' pay is back on the budget chopping block. - Read More
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After decades of outsourcing, manufacturing jobs coming home to US 

By Michael Moran

GlobalPost 

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120504/american-manufacturing-jobs-returning-outsourcing-reshoring

NEW YORK, New York -- Beginning in the 1970s America's
high-paying manufacturing jobs in the steel, textile,
electronics and automotive industries relocated first
south to Latin America and then east to Asia.

In what some dubbed "a global race to the bottom,"
labor rights have dwindled all along the way and the
American middle class, long sustained by those
manufacturing jobs, finds itself gutted. Now the fate
of what is left of the American middle class is at the
center of a presidential election and forcing a
reexamination of the impact of the global decline of
labor rights.

But after years of pain for America's manufacturing
sector and its workers, some economists and analysts
are wondering if the tide may be turning.

Call it "re-shoring" or "rebalancing" or just
"revenge," but the dynamics of global labor,
transportation and productivity costs that eviscerated
American manufacturing over the past decade have begun
to shift again.

Over the past few years, some key American
manufacturers have either brought jobs back to the US
from Asia and Latin America, or have made important
decisions not to relocate them in the first place.

For several years now, the anecdotal data has been
tantalizing:

Caterpillar is building a $120 million plant to make
giant earthmovers in Victoria, Texas, including some
models that were previously built in Japan and shipped
back to North American customers. The Japan plant is
now free to devote more capacity to the booming Asian
market.

Master Lock, in Milwaukee, landed a visit from
President Barack Obama in February after its decision
to bring 300 jobs back from China.

General Electric reversed a decision to build a new
"green" refrigerator plant in Asia and decided instead
to invest $93 million in refurbishing a plant in
Bloomington, Indiana, saving 700 jobs. The company
followed up in 2010 by investing $80 million in a water
heater plant in Louisville, Kentucky, preventing
another 400 jobs from heading east.

Not to be outdone, GE competitor Whirlpool decided to
break ground on a new $200 million plant in Cleveland,
Tennessee rather than send the 1,500 jobs overseas. The
facility is part of a four-year, $1 billion American
investment campaign [4].

Dow Chemical, the cash register company NCR, Sauder
Woodworking and the machine tool firm GF AgieCharmilles
have all brought overseas production back to the US
market in the past three years.

Most economists -- even those inclined to sympathize
with the Obama administration's economic policies --
scoffed in 2010 when, in his State of the Union
address, the president vowed to double US exports in
five years -- creating 2 million jobs in the process.

It's not that this wasn't possible in the eyes of
economists. It just wasn't likely, they thought, that
the global conditions and political climate in the
United States would allow it.

The "zero effect" -- the distorting phenomenon of
measuring growth starting at an unnaturally low point --
kept a damper on enthusiasm even as export figures
soared in 2010-2011.

Many experts assumed that the favorable trends
supporting that growth had little to do with long-term
shifts. Instead, most felt the numbers reflected a
coincidental confluence of events: sky-high oil prices
that drove the costs of shipping upwards, a
mega-recession that undermined American labor's
negotiating leverage, Federal Reserve "quantitative
easing" that kept the dollar cheap and pumped up US
exports, and freak events like the euro zone meltdown
and the Japanese earthquake/tsunami that took major
players off the economic chessboard.

But the data has started to cause reassessments.
Monthly net exports have grown from $140 billion to
$180 billion since the start of 2010. Indeed, energy
exports (mostly refined gasoline, jet fuel and natural
gas) have suddenly grown into the single most valuable
product sent abroad by American manufacturers, the
first time in 60 years the US has been a net exporter
of any of these items.

A new revolution

So what's behind this strange counterintuitive trend?
For some economists, this represents the start of the
"third industrial revolution," the dawn of the new
high-tech, value-added era of manufacturing that
follows the first two global revolutions: England in
the mid-1800s, and the one sparked by Henry Ford's mass
production innovations in the 1920s in Detroit.

"The factory of the past was based on cranking out
zillions of identical products," writes The Economist
in a special report on the new trend published in April
[6]. "Now a product can be made on a computer and
'printed' on a 3D printer, which creates a solid object
by building up successive layers of material. ... the
cost of producing much smaller batches of a wider
variety, with each product tailored precisely to each
customer's whims, is falling."

Manufacturers have discovered the value of bringing
production closer to the point of sale, where their
employees can engage more directly with customers and
adapt quickly to changes in the market. And for all the
changes in the global economy, the point of sale, by
and large, will still tend to be in the world's largest
consumer economy.

For America, this could be the start of something good,
according to the Boston Consulting Group. In 2011, BCG
reported that, due to a number of changing economic
realities -- including rising salaries and economic
expectations among Chinese workers, new labor,
environmental and safety regulations abroad, the higher
cost of energy required to ship products halfway around
the world, and the US market and the uncertainties of
political risk in these places -- the cost benefits of
producing in Asia no longer automatically outweigh the
risks.

Indeed, the BCG report predicts a "renaissance for US
manufacturing" citing the fact that labor costs in the
United States and China are expected to converge around
2015.

"Executives who are planning a new factory in China to
make exports for sale in the US should take a hard look
at the total costs," says BCG's Harold L. Sirkin, an
author of the report. "They're increasingly likely to
get a good wage deal and substantial incentives in the
US so the cost advantage of China might not be large
enough to bother and that's before taking into account
the added expense, time, and complexity of logistics."


Skeptics continue to question whether this is
sustainable. Not in the political realm, of course; it
is anathema for any politician to suggest that America
should content itself to life as a "post-industrial
society," in part because so few can explain how to
employ 300 million people in such a place.

"Even if we didn't have to compete with lower-wage
workers overseas, we'd still have fewer factory jobs
because the old assembly line has been replaced by
numerically-controlled machine tools and robotics.
Manufacturing is going high-tech," writes Robert Reich,
a University of California at Berkeley professor who
served as Bill Clinton's labor secretary. "Bringing
back American manufacturing isn't the real challenge,
anyway. It's creating good jobs for the majority of
Americans who lack four-year college degrees."

BCG, which launched a cottage industry with its 2011
report on manufacturing, believes this line of argument
misses the changes underway in the global economy. On
April 20 its economists released a survey of the
largest American manufacturing firms. The results: one
third of all US manufacturing executives of companies
with sales above $1 billion per year now say they are
planning or considering "reshoring"; in effect,
bringing home manufacturing plants that were sent to
China and other low labor cost countries during the
1990s and first decade of this century.

The top factors for bringing these jobs home cited by
these executives surveyed by BCG: Higher labor costs in
Asia (57 percent), ease of doing business (29 percent),
and proximity to customers (28 percent).

For the American worker, this will be rare good news.
But the jobs that are returning will look nothing like
those that left. Rote assembly lines, low value-added
manufacturing like textiles, furniture and heavy
smelting operations like the steel industry may never
again be profitable in the way they were after World
War II, when the US economy was the last bastion of
capitalism not destroyed by war.

But history shows that workers adapt to change when the
incentives are present. Displaced hunters became
farmers; displaced farmers became artisans; displaced
artisans learned the skills of the factory; and
displaced factory workers can learn the techniques of
the 21st century.

____________________________________________

PortsideLabor aims to provide material of interest to
people on the left that will help them to interpret the
world and to change it.
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 Leadership Schools · Workshops · Research Reports · Publications   Black Unemployment Rate Was 13.0% in April 2012, a Decrease from 14.0% in March 2012 Data Brief: Black Employment and Unemployment in April 2012May 6, 2012, by Steven Pitts » Data Brief  The unemployment rate for Blacks was 13.0 percent last month.  This is according to the latest report on the nation’s employment situation released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly Employment Situation report. This rate was a decrease from March, when unemployment in the Black community stood at 14.0 percent. For the nation as a whole, unemployment was 8.1 percent in the month of April; this was virtually unchanged from March when the national unemployment rate stood at 8.2 percent.  Among whites, unemployment was 7.4 percent; among Latinos, unemployment was 10.3 percent. Comparable March 2012 figures were 7.3 percent and 10.3 percent respectively. Overall, total non-farm payroll employment increased by 115,000 jobs from last month.  If you were forwarded this e-mail and wish to subscribe, please click here To find out more about the Labor Center Black Worker Project, please visit http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/blackworkers/  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, Berkeley 2521 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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