Foreign workers costing U.S. jobs?
Foreign workers costing U.S. jobs?
Date: Thursday, August 07, 2003 5:38 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
I would like to expand on this quote:
Longtime critic of corporate work-visa abuse Rob Sanchez,
writing in May 2002, said, "These trade bills are unique
from other types of immigration laws in one major way: They
cannot be repealed by Congress without the consent of the
country the agreement was made with.
Free Trade bills such as NAFTA and the recently approved CAFTA are
difficult to repeal because they are international trade agreements
that are sanctioned by the WTO. The United States has agreed to
sacrifice part of its sovereignty in exchange for these trade bills and
we agreed that the WTO has the right to impose penalties on us if we
don't abide by the trade agreements.
If the United States unilaterally decided to repeal one of these trade
agreements, the WTO would go into a dispute settlement procedure. WTO's
Dispute Settlement Body, which enforces the rules laid down in WTO
agreements such as GATS, NAFTA or CAFTA has the power to authorize
retaliation when a country does not comply with a ruling. The dispute
and discipline procedures are dizzying. You will see what I mean by
going to this WTO web page:
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_e.htm
If the WTO rules confuse you, don't feel alone. Former US Trade
Representative Jeffrey Lang admitted the "overwhelming uncertainty
about the meaning of the provisions of GATS...So little is known about
their origin and intention that it may be years before we discover the
impact of these provisions."
CAFTA is a time bomb and we don't even understand all the implications.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33861
Friday, August 1, 2003
Foreign workers costing U.S. jobs?
Import of cheap labor by corporations seen driving wages down
Posted: August 1, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jon Dougherty
) 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
Corporations allowed to import large numbers of lesser-paid foreign
workers to fill jobs in the United States, coupled with numerous "free
trade" agreements, have caused depressed wages and unemployment for
American workers, say economists and experts.
Worse, they say, some firms are set to import even more foreign
workers, despite current unemployment levels standing at their highest
in years.
According to Eagle Forum founder, syndicated columnist and author
Phyllis Schlafly, the "scandal" of the H-1B and L-1 visa programs "is
why this year's college graduates face the worst job market in recent
memory."
"The big argument for the tax cut [recently] signed by President Bush
is that it will create much-needed jobs," she writes in the June issue
of "The Phyllis Schlafly Report," her organization's monthly
newsletter. "But one big question remains: Will those jobs be created
for Americans, or will corporations simply hire more job-seekers from
India and China?"
The visa programs, authorized in the 1990 Immigration Act, "allow
corporations to import up to 65,000 cheap skilled workers from foreign
countries to fill alleged labor shortages," said Schlafly. The common
claim of a labor shortage advanced by some corporations, she said, "was
always a fiction and now is nonsense."
In June, unemployment rose to 6.4 percent, up from 6.1 percent in May,
representing 9.4 million jobless Americans, the Labor Department
reported. Though the department said new claims for unemployment fell
last week to 388,000 the third week in a row new jobless claims have
dropped off a separate report said U.S. corporations are reporting
cheaper labor costs.
"U.S. employers incurred a much smaller increase in the cost of hiring
and retaining workers during the second quarter of 2003 than they did
in the previous three months," said the Dow Jones news service, rising
only 0.9 percent from April to June. "The cost of wages and salaries
grew even more slowly, rising just 0.6 percent."
Schlafly, in her report, says some U.S. job sectors are being hit
harder than others, resulting in unemployment rates surpassing the
national level.
Citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, Schlafly wrote:
"Unemployment among American electronic engineers has soared to 7
percent, and among computer hardware engineers to 6.5 percent."
"Despite hundreds of thousands of unemployed American engineers and
computer specialists, corporations continue to import foreigners at the
same time they lay off U.S. citizens," said the report.
Recently completed free-trade deals also have some lawmakers and
economists concerned about the future of American workers and wages
they are paid.
Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Thomas Roeser, quoting banker and
manufacturer John E. Jones, is critical of free-trade policies because,
he claims, they have depressed American wages for 30 years.
"Jones says one reason is that 'free trade economists preach that
whatever produces the lowest possible cost is best. All things being
equal, everyone would agree that this is true. But if you need not
consider anything but cost, a slave economy is better because it is
lower cost,'" Roeser writes.
According to Roeser, Jones says "real wages" for Americans peaked in
1973, ''shortly after the U.S. became an unprotected economy in 1971,"
when they were 176 percent of what real wages were in 1946. Jones also
says real wages have fallen to just 92 percent of what they were in the
mid-1940s.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported in July illegal immigration
was "undermining American workers" and pulling down wages while pushing
taxes higher, especially in California now saddled with a $38 billion
budget deficit.
Also, immigration-reform group Project USA criticized Bush
administration trade policy last week as further endangering American
workers.
"The Chile/Singapore free-trade agreements will allow 'American'
corporations to move an unlimited number of 'employees' from those
countries to ours," the group said, in a statement. "In other words,
multinational corporations not the American people will dictate the
number of foreigners allowed into the United States."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, another group opposed
to unrestricted immigration, also criticized the trade agreements as
detrimental to U.S. workers.
Said FAIR, "making these provisions especially dangerous, the Bush
administration is touting them as a model to be replicated in future
trade agreements with numerous other countries."
Longtime critic of corporate work-visa abuse Rob Sanchez, writing in
May 2002, said, "These trade bills are unique from other types of
immigration laws in one major way: They cannot be repealed by Congress
without the consent of the country the agreement was made with.
"Once these agreements are passed, American workers will be powerless
to stop the flood of workers that will arrive to compete with them in
the job market," Sanchez said.
On his website, Sanchez says over 17 million visas to allow foreigners
to work in the U.S. have been issued since 1985. "By the end of the
year 2001, more than 890,000 H-1B workers were employed in the United
States," he said.
"With 18 million Americans struggling to find full-time employment, the
Bush administration has no business making agreements with foreign
nations to flood the labor market with an unlimited amount of imported
labor," added ProjectUSA.
Schlafly believes Americans were duped into accepting the loss of
millions of jobs, mostly in the manufacturing sector.
"When U.S. corporations built hundreds of plants in Third World
countries, we were told not to worry because we were keeping the
service jobs," she writes. "Now the high-paying white-collar service
jobs are going overseas, too, particularly jobs for engineers and
computer specialists."
"Follow the money," says Schlafly. "The big corporations hire aliens
from India and China at half or a third the [U.S.] wages, work them
long hours without overtime pay and treat them like indentured servants
unable to quit for a better job.
"What makes this racket possible is the partnership between
corporations and government," she said.
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Rob Sanchez is board member of NAEA - www.NAEA.US
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