Labor, Immigration, Foreign workers

ugh...

nikki6278 wrote:Saw both of these articles...opening up the Border?

Obama to revive Mexican truck border program

Two years after a Democratic Congress cancelled the Bush administration's Mexican truck cross-border program, President Obama's Dept. of Transportation has announced it will launch a similar pilot project.

DOT Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled a "concept document" for allowing once again for select Mexican trucks to cross the border beyond the 20-mile commercial restriction zone.

The plan, which needs congressional approval, would give a limited number of Mexican trucks access to the U.S. market.
http://www.todaystrucking.com/news.cfm?intDocID=25398


Union Pacific hopes to move rail hub to New Mexico

The Union Pacific Railroad plans to invest more than $400 million toward the cost to relocate its hub along the Mexican border from El Paso, Texas, to nearby Santa Teresa, N.M., but the project first needs New Mexico lawmakers to approve a tax exemption.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez held a news conference Friday in Santa Teresa, calling for a locomotive fuel exemption to the gross receipts tax and compensation tax.
http://www.todaystrucking.com/news.cfm?intDocID=25398

Egypt approves 15 percent raise for govt employees


Egypt's embattled regime announced Monday a 15 percent raise for government employees in an attempt to shore up its base and defuse popular anger amid ongoing protests demanding President Hosni Mubarak's ouster.

The Cabinet decision follows earlier promises to investigate election fraud and official corruption as well as an announcement that a detained Google Inc. executive who was one of the most prominent youth organizers would be released later Monday. Wael Ghonim, a marketing manager for the Internet company, was seized by security agents on Jan. 28, three days after the crisis erupted.

The gestures so far have done little to persuade the tens of thousands occupying downtown's Tahrir Square to end their two-week long protest, leaving the two sides in an uneasy stalemate. The protesters have vowed to stay put until Mubarak steps down, while the regime wants him to stay in office until elections in September.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9L8280G0.htm

its always about cost of labor...oh yeah, and oil

so instead of 15c an hour they get 18c?

Police Departments Turn to Volunteers

FRESNO, Calif. — Roman Sarkisian easily passes for your average Fresno police officer: crew cut, tight-set jaw and “just-the-facts” demeanor.

“I like to do law enforcement stuff,” said Mr. Sarkisian, 23, an immigrant from the republic of Georgia who is studying criminology at the city college here. “I like helping out putting bad guys in jail.”

But Mr. Sarkisian is not a police officer, and he does not carry a gun or a Taser. He is a police volunteer, part of an experiment by departments across the country that enlists trained amateurs to perform a broad — and occasionally dangerous — array of investigative duties like collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, searching for missing persons and stolen vehicles and looking into long-dormant cases.

Hamstrung by shrinking budgets, the police say the volunteers are indispensable in dealing with low-level offenses and allow sworn officers to focus on more pressing crimes and more violent criminals.

snip
Mr. Gascon and other supporters say such programs — in addition to providing free labor — are a recruitment tool for police cadets and are popular with residents.

“Citizens are more receptive to our volunteers than to our officers,” said Officer Celestine Ratliff, the volunteer liaison for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina.

Still, Allen Hopper, the police practices director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said volunteers needed to be aware of — and responsible for — suspects’ constitutional protections. While sworn officers can be punished for breaking those rules, he said, “It is unclear how these important safeguards would apply to civilians doing police officers’ jobs.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02volunteers.html?pagewanted=2&hp

Training the unemployed for martial law? It will soon be asked...who's side are you on. Recruiting while they can!

Army Recruits Prisoners to Make Body Armor


Building parts for Patriot missile systems was just a warm-up, apparently, for a government-owned company that relies on federal inmates making as little as 23 cents an hour. On Wednesday, the U.S. Army announced that it handed Federal Prison Industries a no-bid, nearly $20 million contract to build body armor.

It’s the latest in a decades-long string of military deals for FPI, also known as Unicor. Over the years, the company has supplied parts for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, the Cobra attack helicopter, and the iconic Patriot interceptor system. (More about that in a second.)

But this deal is particularly odd, because FPI’s track record with protective equipment is, to put it generously, uneven. In May of last year, the Army recalled 44,000 FPI-made protective helmets after they failed ballistic testing. FPI then promptly got out of the helmet business.

That rather serious blemish on FPI’s record hasn’t stopped the Army from going back to the firm for $19,767,468’s worth of bulletproof “Outer Tactical Vests.” According to the Army’s contract announcement, the gear is supposed to be “for Pakistan” — presumably, for the Pakistani military. (Although a State Department told suppliers Wednesday that it wants 1,000 vests in Pakistan, too.)


The vest-making will be done at the federal correctional facility in Yazoo City, Mississippi — one of 70 prisons where inmates make anywhere from $0.23 to $1.15 per hour building everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.

Exactly which military electronics FPI’s nearly 20,000 prisoners build is a matter of some dispute, however. According to FPI’s website, the company “supplies numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile.”

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which assembles the missile, calls that “completely false” and insists in an e-mail to Danger Room that “at no time were parts from Unicor EVER used in the PAC-3.” The spokesman, Craig Vanbebber, instead says that Unicor components are only used in the larger Patriot system, like the ignition and control units which ensure that the missiles are actually launched into the sky. That larger system is put together by a separate defense contractor, Raytheon. The missiles themselves are free of prison labor, Vanbebber asserts.

But Eric Piepert, who sells FPI’s electronics to the government, insists that the company is very much involved in missile-making. “We’re not making anything up,” he tells Danger Room. “We make wiring harnesses for the military, this being one of them — the Patriot missile.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/prisoners-body-armor/#

labor doesnt get much cheaper than that!

Migrant train delay causes European diplomatic rift

The Italian and French governments were both trying to defuse an escalating diplomatic row Monday after France refused entry to a train carrying North African migrants from Italy.

Italy complained to France on Sunday after authorities blocked a train with Tunisian migrants from the border city of Ventimiglia entering Menton on the Cote d'Azur. The Tunisians had been issued resident permits by Italy, allowing them to travel freely in many European countries.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Monday in Bucharest that France did not want any continuing tensions with Rome regarding the train incident.

Gueant said Rome's decision to give temporary resident permits to more than 25,000 Tunisian migrants arriving in Italy since January had been "heavily contested by many countries in the European Union."

snip
Since the mass political unrest started in North Africa and other Arab states in January, a large number people have fled Tunisia and Libya to Europe, where governments have been trying to prevent a refugee crisis.

Italy's coast guard said at least 1,623 migrants landed on the island of Lampedusa over a 24-hour period in mid-March alone.

Italy's foreign minister has estimated that as many as 300,000 Libyans could try to leave and could potentially end up in his country.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said Saturday that it had evacuated nearly 100 people by boat from Misrata in Libya and on Monday the UK Department for International Development (DFID) said that it would help 5,000 migrants trapped by fighting in western Libya.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/04/18/italy.france.tunisia.migrants/

well that should help the whole "cost of labor" issue

Foxconn to rely more on robots; could use 1 million in 3 years

Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, known for assembling Apple's iPhones and iPads in China, plans to use more robots, with one report saying the company will use one million of them in the next three years, to cope with rising labor costs.

Foxconn's move highlights an increasing trend toward automation among Chinese companies as labor issues such as high-profile strikes and workers' suicides plague firms in sectors from autos to technology.

Contract manufacturers such as Foxconn, which also counts Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Nokia among its clients, are moving parts of their manufacturing to inland Chinese cities or other emerging markets.

They are also boosting research and development investments to lift their thin margins.

"Workers' wages are increasing so quickly that some companies can't take it longer," said Dan Bin, a fund manager at Shenzhen-based Eastern Bay Investment Management, which invests in technology and consumer-related shares in China and Hong Kong.

"Automation is a general trend in many sectors in China, such as electronics. Of course some companies will consider moving their manufacturing overseas, but it's easier said than done when the supply chain is here."

snip
"If they don't do this, they will have to move their factories elsewhere."

At Foxconn, a worker fell to his death last month at a manufacturing plant in southern China, local media reported.

The worker's death was the latest in a series of apparent suicides by young migrant workers at its factory complexes in the past two years.

Foxconn employs about 1.2 million workers, one million of which are based in mainland China, the China Business News said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-foxconn-robots-idUSTRE77016B20110801

using robots is probably a welcome relief to some, Foxconn has a horrible reputation. I wouldn't be surprised to hear the robots jump to their demise as well.

robots jumping lol

Fight Against Dutch Cannabis Café Restrictions Heats Up
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2012/apr/23/fight_against_dutch_cannabis_caf

leave the weed alone!

The sandwich chain Subway have been caught out looking for staff at just £2.60 per hour.
http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/04/subway-apprenticeship-minimum-wage/

The sandwich chain Subway have been caught out looking for staff at just £2.60 per hour. This would be legal for an apprenticeship – but the role in the West Midlands advertised as being “permanent”.

The position, advertised by Job Centre Plus as an, errrm, “sandwich artist” is set out as a level two apprenticeship, meaning a lower minimum wage applies. Under the law, a level two apprentice must spend at least 30% of their time training – but no training details are specified in the advertisement.

Labor is definitely on the defensive..

nice wage rate for slaves..

Zakaria: Are Mexicans giving up on U.S?
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/27/zakaria-are-mexicans-giving-up-on-u-s/?hpt=hp_bn2

US corporations are moving abroad. Hence there is no need for cheap labor anymore..

Two-tiered wage system announced by Tories
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1168905--two-tiered-wage-system-announced-by-tories

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has always vehemently denied bringing cheap foreign labour into Canada. Employers had to pay foreign temporary workers “the prevailing wage,” he pointed out.

That indeed is what the rules said – until Wednesday, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley quietly changed them. Employers will now be allowed to pay foreign temp workers 15 per cent less than the average wage.

I am shocked !! lol

P&O cruise ship staff paid basic salary of 75p an hour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/apr/29/cruise-firm-performance-bonuses-tips

Crew on British cruise holidays who are paid a basic salary of as little as 75p an hour face having extra tips from passengers withheld unless they hit performance targets.

The boss of P&O Cruises said the move was part of a package to "make crew more responsive" and offer protection as tips dry up in the economic downturn.