Truck drivers from India to take U.S. jobs? (I am just now zotting retread)

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER Truck drivers from India to take U.S. jobs? Union protests plan as attempt to undercut 'hard-working Americans'

An American company is recruiting long-haul truck drivers from India with the goal of placing them with U.S. trucking firms.

The Teamsters Union strongly opposes the plan by Gagan Global LLC of Garnerville, N.Y.

Teamsters Union spokesman Galen Munroe told WND the plan "is yet another example of corporations exploiting a visa program to replace highly trained, hard-working Americans with cheap labor from overseas."

Gagan Global has contracted with the Indian state government of Andra Pradesh and its Overseas Manpower Consultancy to run a training school in the Asian country.

Gagan Global CEO Philip Gagan told WND a first batch of 200 Indian truck drivers has been recruited to attend the school in preparation for work in the U.S.

"We are recruiting Indian truck drivers," Gagan confirmed to WND. "We are very demanding on our requirements to get into the school. The requirements are that you have to have five years of heavy driving experience on tractor-trailer trucks, you have to be HIV-negative, have a clean police record, verifiable references that the government in India can verify."

"The Indian truck drivers have to be able to read and understand English," Gagan explained. "We like them to speak English. They all speak pigeon-English, mostly what they learned in schools."

How does Gagan Global know that the Indian drivers will be able to read road signs or communicate with other drivers on the road?

"We know that if they can read English and understand what they are reading," Gagan told WND, "then we think they can learn enough English in the four-months training program to be able to be productive in the U.S."

Gagan argued that the reason he created the company was to address the growing shortage in the U.S. for long-haul drivers.

"There's a massive shortage of long-haul truck drivers in the U.S.," Gagan said. "Long-haul truck drivers get home four days a month. There just aren't enough Americans who want to do that kind of work."

A May 2005 study conducted for the American Trucking Association argues that there is "already a shortage of long-haul heavy-duty truck drivers equal to about 1.5 percent of the over-the-road workforce, or about 20,000 drivers."

The driver shortfall is projected to reach 114,000 by 2014. Another 219,000 new truck drivers "must be found to replace drivers currently of ages 55 and older who will retire over the next 10 years and to replace those in younger groups who will leave the occupation."

Teamster Union spokesman Munroe strongly objected. In an e-mail to WND, he wrote:

While there is currently a shortage of long-haul drivers, the problem lies with corporations like Gagan Global that are championing the race to the bottom for American workers. If corporations would treat their employees fairly and offer competitive wages with decent benefit packages, this shortage would disappear. Gagan Global is in the process of applying to the Department of Labor to get H-2B visas for the Indian drivers. H-2B visas are designed to be issued only when there are no qualified and willing U.S. workers available for the job. Gagan acknowledges that no H-2B visas have yet been issued to Indian truck drivers training in India with his company.

Gagan Global has twisted the intent of the H-2B visa program to fit their desire for a fatter bottom line. The assertion that there are no American workers who are willing to take long-haul truck driving jobs is absurd. It would be more accurate to say they do not want to be exploited by taking poor-paying, long-haul jobs at nonunion companies. On the company website, Gagan Global explains why Indian drivers are suitable to help address the shortage in long-haul drivers:

We also found that while the average long-haul truck driver makes between $50,000 and $90,000 a year, these truck drivers make far less, and work a whole lot more. So what we have here are people who are never shy of work, extremely friendly and cooperative, and most of all, tough guys who are more than up to handling the American trucks. Why is Gagan Global so sure the Indian drivers will be able to be successful on U.S. highways? The company website explains the Indian drivers "on an average, have anywhere between 10 and 25 years of experience driving trucks for a living. These drivers have driven long-haul trucks in extreme conditions and terrain and on roads that are anything but like the freeways in the U.S."

These [Indian truck drivers] want to work. They want to get into their trucks and work every hour that they are legally allowed to work. They only have a one-year period, plus a one-year extension under their visa to work here. Then they have to go home for six months and apply for a new visa. The Indian truck driver can earn in a day in the U.S. what it may take two months to earn in India. They don’t have families here and they don't care about time-off. If the Indian drivers come here work hard, they can go home with maybe $100,000, which is five lifetimes of money back home in India. Gagan explained to WND that his company’s goal was not to undercut U.S. truck drivers:

We’re not here to take jobs away from Americans. If they drive for a Teamster organization, they will join the Teamsters. Our Indian drivers have to come into a company and be paid exactly what the American drivers are being paid in that company. They have to receive every benefit and they have to be treated exactly the same. We want them to get the highest paid jobs they can get. We have rejected as clients a couple of companies that have approached us because they want to hire them as trainees and pay them about half as much per mile as they pay U.S. drivers. The Teamsters' Munroe objected to Gagan Global's program, concluding, "It is time for American companies to invest in the American workforce. Outsourcing will only quicken the demise of the middle class."

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21 July 2006

G8 Nations Will Push Plans To Fund Medicines for Poor Countries
Experts say lack of consensus regrettable, but will not stop pilot programs

By Elizabeth Kelleher
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington – In reviewing what she called the Group of Eight (G8) nations’ recent “intense meeting on global health,” Josette Shiner, U.S. under secretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs, pointed out an omission in the official document resulting from the summit: endorsement of finance mechanisms to pay for vaccines and medicines needed by poor countries.

Shiner said that, even though there is support among donor countries for finding ways to get better results from their financial assistance to less developed nations, officials from the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the European Union could not reach consensus on proposals put forward in St. Petersburg, Russia. She spoke July 20 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

The G8 communiqué, “Fight Against Infectious Diseases,” adopted July 16, encourages greater investment in research, development and production of drugs and vaccines to address global diseases impeding development and calls for innovation in strategies to promote those goals. “The limited capacity of health systems is a major barrier to coming as close as possible to universal access to treatment for those who need it by 2010,” the communiqué says. (See related article.)

Citing evidence in a July article in the medical journal The Lancet, another participant at the CSIS discussion, Jennifer Kates of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said global health funding is increasing, but not fast enough to meet the needs of the world’s poor. The journal reports that an additional $22 billion a year will be needed by 2007 and an additional $31 billion a year by 2015.

Several proposed financing mechanisms, meant to better utilize money that developed countries donate to improve global health, were discussed at the G8 summit. But in the end, no endorsement of any of the mechanisms was made. “Everyone wanted their thing mentioned in the final document,” said Kates. In the end, countries stated their support for various proposals in an annex to the main document.

The United States favors a system whereby donor nations would make commitments to buy vaccines that pharmaceutical companies might develop in the future. These advance market commitments (AMCs) would encourage manufacturers to develop vaccines against diseases epidemic in poor countries. According to supporters – which include Italy, Canada and Russia – AMCs would assure manufacturers of profit at the end of development.

In current market conditions, the inability of poor countries to buy large amounts of vaccines and medicines for diseases that affect their populations is a disincentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in the research and development of these drugs. The United States supports work toward a successful launch of an AMC pilot project for vaccines by the end of 2006, according to the U.S. annex to the G8 communiqué.

“Some of us wanted a good, strong looking-ahead at the AMCs,” Shiner said, “but there was no consensus.”

Another system, championed by the British, would issue bonds to pay for existing vaccines that could help developing countries now. The goal is to get donors to commit to 15 years’ worth of budget allocations to the bond program, allowing poor countries to ramp up large-scale health campaigns without worrying that funding would not be renewed year to year.

A third financing mechanism, favored by France, would tax airline tickets and use the money to pay for medicines for people with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. France implemented such a tax in its own country on July 1 and enjoys support for the idea from other countries.

Kates said that because the G8 countries did not agree on which mechanism to endorse in its main document, the press portrayed them as oppositional, when in fact each system can operate in complement to the others.

“It’s always nice to have G8 pronouncements to say these things are great,” said Owen Barder, of the Center for Global Development, a think-tank focused on poverty eradication. “But, in fact, the G8 has no budget, no bureaucracy, no process. So individual members can take things forward with or without the G8.”

The center expects several countries will launch a pilot AMC program by the end of 2006 to support the development of a vaccine to prevent pneumococcal infections. There is a version of a vaccine used in the United States, Barder said, that needs to be adapted to help children in African countries who often die or are left disabled after upper-respiratory infections.

Barder said that he expects such a pilot to be supported by Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia and “possibly France.” He said there will be outreach to donors not in the G8 – Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Ireland and Switzerland – and to big foundations. His expectation was echoed by Lisa Carty of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who also spoke at the CSIS panel.

Those expectations are based on a communiqué, resulting from an April meeting in Washington, in which the G7 finance ministers endorsed the concept of a pilot AMC for vaccines. The document calls for “the additional work necessary to make its launch possible in 2006.”

For additional information, see Health and G8 Summit 2006, St. Petersburg, Russia.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER Foreign ownership of U.S. airlines? Bush ready to defy Congress' ban despite pilots' fears of another Dubai ports deal

The Department of Transportation, acting under President Bush's orders, is preparing to issue an administrative ruling that would open U.S. airlines up to foreign ownership, despite specific prohibitions and warnings from Congress, as well as predictions by pilots that another Dubai ports controversy is in the offing.

The proposed ruling puts the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA – the largest airline pilot union in the world representing 61,000 pilots who fly for 40 U.S. and Canadian airlines – at odds with the Bush administration.

The administration is determined to comply with European Union demands presented in the November 2005 "open skies" negotiations. (So-called "open skies" agreements are bilateral or multilateral agreements that liberalize the rules for international aviation markets and minimize government intervention.)

The EU is threatening to delay the signing of an open skies treaty unless the U.S. changes restrictions on the percentage of a U.S. airline that can be foreign-owned. The U.S. currently has 74 bilateral open skies agreements, none of which require any rule changes on the foreign ownership of U.S. airlines.

The Bush administration continues to advocate the EU position, arguing that the Department of Transportation should issue new administrative rules, if necessary, even in direct defiance of Congress.

U.S. pilots have provided WND with copies of draft letters the Air Line Pilots Association has organized.

ALPA is encouraging pilots to write letters and e-mails of protest to Congress, newspapers and national television and radio outlets.

"Do not underestimate the seriousness of this issue!" ALPA has advised, "This is do-or-die, sink-or-swim time."

Some U.S. pilots who have spoken with WND on condition of anonymity expressed concern about job reprisals.

The pilots have argued another Dubai Ports World-type controversy is brewing in which the "Bush administration does not care about selling out key U.S. assets to foreigners." ALPA calls for action echo the alarm:

The writing is clearly on the wall! This Administration wants foreign investors, airlines or otherwise, to pay for the costs of our aviation infrastructure, while risking hundreds of thousands of aviation jobs, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program (CRAF), and the safety and security of our national airspace. Forty percent of all Air Force Reserve and National Guard pilots are also airline pilots. ALPA believes the foreign-ownership issue is a fight for survival:

The time to act is now! Together, with every pilot across this country participating in this effort, we can stop this rogue attack on our profession and our industry. There is no issue more important than preventing this NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) from moving forward. If the White House is successful in changing the foreign ownership rules through DOT affirmative action, within just a few short years our industry will mirror the maritime industry. Our jobs will no longer exist, our country's ability to militarily act abroad will be handicapped, and our families may no longer be safe in our own airspace! The ALPA concern concludes with this: "Our country already has a dependence upon foreign oil. Are we going to allow the DOT to make air travel dependent on foreign airlines, too?"

On June 14, in an official statement of administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget in the executive office of the president put out a notice that the Department of Transportation intended to change the foreign ownership rule by issuing a new administrative rule:

The Administration understands that an amendment may be offered to prohibit the use of funds to implement a final rule regarding foreign investment in U.S. airlines. The proposed rule would facilitate a landmark agreement with the European Union that would provide significant benefit to consumers as well as the domestic passenger and cargo airline industry. The Administration has worked with Congress to address concerns with the final rule and recently extended the final comment period by an additional 60 days. The Administration strongly opposes any amendment that would prevent the Department of Transportation from finalizing its rule. To counter the Bush administration, five congressmen wrote a letter eight days later, June 22, to DOT Secretary Norman Mineta on U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure stationary.

In citing specific congressional prohibitions, the letter noted Congress had taken two specific actions to put the White House on notice that "a major change to the current law regarding foreign ownership of U.S. airlines should be accomplished only by congressional action, not unilaterally imposed by the executive branch."

The letter cited the following congressional prohibitions:

First, the Conference Report on H.R. 4939, Making Emergency Supplementary Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2006, includes 'language preventing the Secretary from issuing a final rule regarding foreign control of U.S. airlines for 120 days.' Second, during consideration of H.R. 5576 – the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (TTHUD appropriations), the House adopted, by an overwhelming vote of 291 to 137, an amendment prohibiting the department from finalizing or implementing the policy proposed in the rulemaking during the next fiscal year. The letter concluded by reminding Mineta, "the courts have ruled that an executive branch agency does not have authority to interpret a law in a manner inconsistent with the plain meaning of the words of the law."

Signing the letter were Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Frank A. LoBiondo, R-N.J.; chairman on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee; Ted Poe, R-Texas; James L. Oberstar. D-Minn., ranking Democratic member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee; and Jerry F. Costello, D-Ill., ranking Democratic member of the Subcommittee on Aviation.

A major proponent of the rule change has been Under Secretary of Transportation Jeffery Shane, who was quoted on a government Web site in April suggesting Mineta remains "committed to completing this important rulemaking procedure."

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