"Show Us the Jobs" Part 5
"Show Us the Jobs" Part 5
Date: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 12:49 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
www.ZaZona.com
The "Show Us the Jobs" bus tour has the potential to publicize the
plight of American workers so that politicians can no longer ignore
their message. The AFL/CIO should be applauded for putting this
together but they should not be able to get away with ignoring
immigration and how if affects American workers.
Unfortunately the union is in a state of denial over the issue of
immigration and their bias is very obvious on the "Show us the Jobs"
website at:
http://www.showusthejobs.com/
Click on the right hand link called "Speak Out - Read what others have
to say." Use the drop down box titled "Top Concerns" and you will not
see a single selection for immigration or any related topic such as
guest-worker visas, H-1B, or L-1 but there is a selection for
outsourcing.
The message the AFL-CIO seems to be sending is that they don't want
immigration to be discussed even though its impact on employment is
immense. Outsourcing is an important issue, but they are in a state of
denial over the fact that the American labor market is being flooded
with aliens that are displacing US workers in a process I call
insourcing. Some of these aliens are illegal while others take
high-income middle class jobs by using legal visas such as H-1B and
L-1.
It's no secret that the AFL-CIO supports giving illegal aliens amnesty
because they think these aliens can be used to grow their union
memberships. This conflict of interest has led them to deny that the
influx of more aliens into the labor market reduces the wages for all
American workers, both union and non-union.
Fortunately there are several people on the bus tour that aren't going
to let the H-1B and L-1 issue be ignored. It will be interesting to see
if the AFL-CIO tries to muzzle them. I sent a message similar to this
newsletter to be posted on their "Speak Out" but it didn't appear on
the website. They might have decided to censor messages that contain
any mention of immigration. I looked for a website contact to complain
but couldn't find one on the website so they don't seem to want
feedback from the public. Hopefully the bus tour participants receive
similar treatment.
I encourage everyone to post messages about H-1B and L-1. Let me know
if your message gets posted.
The first article below is appearing in newspapers all over the
country. The third one is from the IndiaTimes who characterized the bus
tour as a socialist revolution.
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/business/2004/03/23unionstellbushs.html
Unions tell Bush: 'Show us the jobs'
AFL-CIO tour will focus on employment 'crisis'
By BRIAN TUMULTY
Gannett News Service
03/23/2004
WASHINGTON -- The 2004 presidential campaign gets a new twist Wednesday
when the AFL-CIO takes its criticism of the Bush administration's
economic record on an eight-state "Show Us the Jobs" bus tour.
The circuitous 18-city route begins in St. Louis and ends a week later
in Washington. But it won't be mistaken for the first of two "Jobs and
Growth" bus tours by three of Bush's Cabinet secretaries that covered
some of the same interstates in July in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
In contrast to the administration's effort to promote tax cuts and free
trade as the nation's ticket to a better future, the labor federation
will talk about the 2.2 million jobs that have been lost since Bush
took office.
"This is not a direct response to their bus tours, but it is certainly
an alternative story," AFL-CIO spokeswoman Denise Mitchell said. "They
went out and they tried to cover up the jobs crisis. We are going out
so that people see the human faces and human stories."
Money for the bus trek is coming from the $44 million the labor
federation will spend this year on political campaigns and mobilization
of its 13.1 million members.
A spokesman for Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who participated in both
"Jobs and Growth" tours, maintained that the recent news about the job
market is good.
"No amount of partisan political rhetoric can contradict the fact that
this economy is growing stronger every day," Chao spokesman Ed Frank
said. "Hundreds of thousands of Americans have found good jobs in the
past few months, new unemployment claims are at the lowest level since
January 2001, and the unemployment rate is below the averages of the
1970s, 1980s and 1990s."
Both sides are correct.
Although the nation has lost 2.2 million payroll jobs since Bush took
office, that number is smaller than it was this past summer.
In the past six months, payroll employment has climbed by 364,000. The
downside is that the average monthly increase of 61,000 jobs is only
half the rate needed to stay even with a growing work force.
February's jobless rate of 5.6 percent is low by historical standards
and has been on the decline, in large part because many workers have
stopped looking for jobs.
The AFL-CIO bus trip will focus on issues other than unemployment. Many
of the 51 workers from every state and the District of Columbia who
will be ambassadors of woe now have jobs:
John Greene, a 54-year-old Republican town councilman from
Endicott, N.Y., works as a salesman at a sporting goods store.
"I've never been unemployed, but I've witnessed the devastating effects
of downsizing," said Greene, who plans to talk about the effect of
factory closings on his hometown.
Dawn Teo, 33, of Mesa, Ariz., operates a small business with her
husband that makes parts for racing cars. She founded Rescue American
Jobs last summer after she saw employers repeatedly offer her
Chinese-American husband, Adrian, low wages to work as an engineer.
They thought he was in the United States on a work visa.
"When he told them he didn't need a visa, they would pull the job
offer," Teo said. "We've seen foreign guest workers who work 16- or
18-hour days because they are afraid they will be deported. We are
exploiting people right here on our own soil."
Ron Larson, 57, of the Milwaukee area, works as a $14-an-hour home
inspector, but he's an independent contractor with no health benefits
or retirement plan.
"It's not bad, but you don't often get 40 hours a week," Larson said.
"It's usually between 28 and 36 hours."
Larson has had a succession of temporary jobs and bouts of unemployment
that he said have forced him to withdraw all but $500 of the $240,000
he had accumulated in an individual retirement account. He just
refinanced his house with a new 30-year mortgage that won't be paid off
until he's 87.
Thursday's stop at a Lutheran Church in Des Moines, Iowa, will
highlight the effect of job losses on children. Saturday's visits to
Milwaukee and Manitowoc, Wis., will focus on the loss of factory jobs
to China and other overseas locations.
Other stops will focus on hunger, home foreclosures and proposed cuts
in Bush's 2005 budget for job training.
http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=11879
Unions hit the road over U.S. job losses
Workers want issue addressed in political debates
March 24, 2004
(Reuters) With jobs looming as a presidential campaign issue, the
American labor movement Wednesday launched a Rust Belt bus tour to
highlight the plight of workers who have been passed over by the
economic recovery.
The tour will bus workers from each of 50 states and Washington, D.C.,
on a roundabout route from St. Louis to the nation's capital to deliver
the message that the economy cannot be well if the job market is not
well, organizers said.
``We want to change the debate about what constitutes a healthy
economy,'' said Karen Nussbaum, director of Working America, which is
co-sponsoring the tour with the AFL-CIO.
Working America, with 125,000 members, is a recently formed advocacy
group for nonunion workers that is one of 64 affiliates of the AFL-CIO,
a federation of unions that represent 13 million workers.
The organizers insist the caravan is not a political event but the
AFL-CIO has already endorsed Democratic candidate John Kerry over
President Bush and the proposed itinerary goes through eight states
that could swing either way in the November election.
Jobs were a major topic among the candidates in the Democratic field
with Sen. John Edwards basing much of his losing effort on the issue of
getting jobs back.
Republicans say Bush's tax cuts will create more jobs if given a
chance, while Democrats accuse the administration of doing nothing to
stem the flow of American jobs to low-wage countries.
``We think that political debates are important times to advance
issues,'' said AFL-CIO spokeswoman Denise Mitchell. ``And we want to be
sure that jobs are on people's minds.''
The U.S. economy has been on a dual track since it emerged from
recession in November 2001. Traditional measures are strong: economic
output grew 3.3 percent in 2003, productivity rose 4.4 percent, stock
prices increased and corporate profits surged 10.1 percent in the third
quarter of last year.
But job creation has lagged. The Labor Department's survey of
businesses found that only 364,000 jobs were created in the past six
months. That still leaves a deficit of 3 million private sector jobs,
mostly in manufacturing, since Bush took office in January 2001.
``Life is getting harder for most working people and that part of the
story just was not getting told,'' said Nussbaum.
EIGHT BATTLEGROUND STATES
To tell the workers' story, a small bus caravan will leave St. Louis
Wednesday to bring tales of unemployment, underemployment, outsourcing
and crippling health care costs to eight states, most of them already
hit hard by job losses.
``Hopefully, it will open the eyes of lawmakers, politicians,
rulemakers, whoever and they can get stricter on these trade
agreements and keep the jobs in this country,'' said Jerry Nowadzky,
who represents Iowa on the tour.
From their bus painted with ``Show Us the Jobs'' in giant letters, the
workers will attend rallies, discussion groups, breakfasts and local
press briefings at 16 stops in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania before arriving in
Washington on March 31.
In 2000, most of them had victory margins of less than 5 percent, with
Democrat Al Gore winning five and Bush taking three. The eight states
are among the so-called battleground states that could swing either to
Bush or Kerry.
Despite the states' strategic importance in a race in which the AFL-CIO
is backing Kerry, organizers insist politics has less to do with the
tour than their message about jobs.
Nussbaum noted that no politicians will take part in the events and the
jobs message was aimed at state and local leaders as well as
presidential candidates.
``Unions fight for good jobs and justice in the economy,'' she said.
``This is our job. This is what we're meant to do.''
Still, the tour is bypassing two nearby states that, while reeling from
job losses, are not considered major battlegrounds: Illinois, which
Gore won handily in 2000 and tends Democratic, and Indiana, a solid
Bush state that has a long history of backing Republicans.
Workers on the bus, 24 of whom are union members and 27 of whom are
not, were selected from unions and community groups.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?msid=577646
Lost your job? Take a bus
WEB EXCLUSIVE
ECONOMICTIMES.COM[ TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004 06:16:45 PM ]
Russia may have turned capitalist, but socialism is far from dead.
Workers are flexing their muscles in the home of capitalism, the United
States of America. Why? If things were any worse, you could say that
the US is ready for the next revolution!
This Wednesday, the American Federation of Labour and Congress of
Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO), will kick off it's week-long
18-city tour, criticising the Bush administration's economic record on
an eight-state 'Show Us the Jobs' bus tour.
There is reason for the emergence of big-time union activity in the US.
Every day in America, 85,444 people are losing their jobs and anybody
will tell you that jobs once gone, hardly ever return.
President George Bush may support it, but the outsourcing backlash is
far from over. Americans believe that it was the governments faulty
trade and tax policies made it profitable to send US jobs broad have
encouraged many employers to ship jobs overseas.
And outsourcing alone is not to be blamed. Now the workers are asking
what happened to the 2.2 million jobs that have been lost since the
Bush administration came to power in the US.
We Have Nothing To Lose But Our Jobs...
Laura Tropea, 26, graduated last June from New York's Brooklyn Law
School. She passed the state bar exam there but couldn't find a job.
Facing $120,000 in school loans to repay, she moved home with her
mother.Hundreds of resumes later, she's had two interviews, no offers
and a little contract legal work through a temporary employment agency.
Now she earns spending money by making sandwiches at a deli.
Tropea will be one of 51 unemployed or under-employed people on the bus
tour.
They are coming from all corners of the United States. Laid-off
workers, students, creators of anti-offshoring Web sites. The 51 (one
from each state of the union) who will take the bus tour through the
states of the US include even a priest. They will talk about job
struggles, countering similar trips by the Bush administration to
promote a growing economy.
l ?As many as 14 million white-collar jobs could be lost in the next
decade.
A 2003 study by the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics
at the University of California, Berkeleys Haas School of Business.
l When Pillowtex shut its doors in July, Georgia Hairston lost her job
of 36 years and her town in Fieldale, Virginia, teeters on collapse.
Hairstons job was one of 2.5 million US manufacturing jobs lost
since 2001.
l Dawn Teo, 33, of Mesa, operates a small business in Arizona with her
husband that makes parts for racing cars. She founded Rescue American
Jobs last summer after she saw employers repeatedly offer her
Chinese-American husband, Adrian, low wages to work as an engineer.
They thought he was in the United States on an H1-B work visa.
"When he told them he didn't need a visa, they would pull the job
offer," Teo said. "We've seen foreign guest workers who work 16- or
18-hour days because they are afraid they will be deported. We are
exploiting people right here on our own soil."
l "I think we need to get the word out there that the economy is not as
rosy as people are saying," said Kevin Gregory, 41, of Millinocket,
Maine, who was laid off in January 2003 from the Great Northern Paper
Mill after 17 years.
Every state and Washington, DC, will have a representative riding the
red, white and blue flag-covered buses on the "Show Us the Jobs" tour
organised by AFL-CIO and Working America. The labour organisations will
spend $44 million on political campaigns and for mobilising its 13.1
million members.
The Feeling
"There are millions of people out there who are unemployed and millions
more who are underemployed. There are people who retrained from
manufacturing to technology because they lost their jobs. Now what?
There's nothing left to retrain for. No job is safe."
Oh! Jobs are getting created. But these are low-wage jobs that provide
few if any benefits and are no match for the ones being lost! In the
industries now adding jobs, pay is 21 per cent less than in American
industries losing jobs.
A Much-Travelled Road
The labour tour is only following a government example. There have
already been two bus trips by the US President George Bush's Cabinet
secretaries to promote the administration's economic policies.
In February, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, Labor Secretary Elaine
Chao and Treasury Secretary John Snow went on a "Jobs and Growth Tour"
to Oregon and Washington -- both of which Bush narrowly lost to Al Gore
in 2000.
Chao says the job market is improving and the unemployment rate is
below the averages of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
In the past six months, payroll employment has actually climbed by
364,000. But the average monthly increase of 61,000 jobs is only half
the rate needed to stay even with a growing workforce.
The Truth
Thursday's stop in Des Moines, Iowa, will highlight the effect of job
losses on children. Saturday's visits to Milwaukee and Manitowoc,
Wisconsin, will focus on the loss of factory jobs to China and other
overseas locations.
Other stops will focus on hunger, home foreclosures and proposed cuts
in Bush's 2005 budget for job training. In all the bus will be going to
18 cities across the rust belt -- Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and of course Washington DC.
The bus tour is a political statement. It's not against outsourcing as
such. Some of the supporters have already got jobs. But, the nagging
smell of the decay of an once magnificent structure can't be removed.
Will Bush Jr. manage to survive it?
Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe or Unsubscribe send an email to
H1BNews@ZaZona.com
Back to archives