Posted on 05/13/2014 7:09:15 PM PDT by Whenifhow
A major business group said Monday that U.S. manufacturers are hoping an immigration bill will let them give hundreds of thousands of jobs to foreign workers.
Jay Timmons, the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said he believes an immigration bill will pass near the end of this year. He said creating some pathway to citizenship for non-legal residents is “absolutely essential” for manufacturers to help bring skilled workers to the United States.
“There are 600,000 jobs in manufacturing that are going unfilled today. This immigration bill can go a long way toward helping us fill those positions,” Timmons said. (See video here.)
Timmons’ comments put the National Association of Manufacturers at odds with many Republicans in the House and Senate who are worried that a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants would only reward their illegal residency, and make it harder for U.S. citizens to find jobs.
But the organization seems to hold a position that’s consistent with that of the Obama administration. Just last week, the administration announced it would grant work authorization to 100,000 spouses of skilled non-U.S. workers, which Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said would only take jobs away from the millions of U.S. workers who need a job.
Timmons spoke on the same panel with U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue, who said he is “optimistic” that an immigration bill could be done this year. He suggested that the House should take up the Senate-passed bill.
“I do believe that we’re absolutely crazy if we don’t take advantage of having passed an immigration bill out of the Senate… and do something rational in the House, and put it together and let’s get the three or four things we really need there,” he said.
Donohue said the Chamber would be pressuring members to pass a bill later this year, and warned that Republicans would stumble in the 2016 presidential election in 2016 if they don’t pass something.
“If Republicans don’t do it they shouldn’t bother to run candidate in 2016,” he said.
they want these new immigrants because they need them as customers.
It doesn’t take involvement at an early age to learn to do whatever our factories need.
Actually, young America is not educated and can’t pass the drug tests.
It is just that simple.
What business are YOU in? How many American citizens have YOU hired in the last five years?
But that's exactly what's driving this. Every industry -- and every government agency -- in this country looks at immigrants as customers or clients. In most cases they don't even care if they work at all. This is exactly how we've gotten to where we are now.
Now THAT is a lie.
It takes involvement at a young age to get people to understand what these careers offer. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone over the age of 25 who is willing to put aside his/her dreams of being a high-priced lawyer or Wall Street executive and pursue a career working in a Cargill plant.
Of course it’s true. Why do you think U.S. labor unions are strong supporters of amnesty even though these immigrants represent a huge competitive threat to union labor? It’s because U.S. labor unions know damn well that most of these immigrants aren’t likely to work in closed union shops anyway.
Man are you stupid.
That’s the end of this conversation, dude.
You need to get out more. You really don’t know
Adults with those dreams probably aren’t the ones suited for it. Factory work is still a “working class”, rather than “middle class”, line of work. That really is at the heart of the issue as to why students aren’t raised to aspire to such positions—their parents have dreamed for them of a move up the social ladder.
The truth is the main problem in this country isn’t the incompetent laboring class. It is the stupid ownership and management classes. Management has no idea how to manage and the only idea the owners can come with to fix this is pay the managers more of the profits.
Your inane comments crystallized this for me. There are 350 million consumers within our borders but they are bad customers. We need to import some better customers.
This is best management can come up with.
Pathetic!
Same here - and if they can somehow manage to pass the basic math test, good luck finding some that can pass a drug test or background check.
It’s hard enough filling the general labor positions, let alone the ones that call for any kind of specific technical skill. Industrial Maintenance, Electrical Technician, any type of Mechanical or Electrical Engineering...it’s a dry market finding those types of candidates in this area. For every one solid Engineer, there’s 3 positions for them to choose from, so I have to be very competitive in order to ‘win’ them to our company.
For every technical/engineering ad I place, probably 80% of the responses are from foreign nationals living in the US on student visas, looking for sponsorship. 10% of the remaining 20% don’t have the skills/experience/education qualifications.
Johnny and Susie just aren’t taking technical classes at school anymore it seems. They’re more interested in being Psychology/History/Sociology/Music Theory/Whatever majors. The foreign students are the ones taking all the heavy science classes. If we sponsor an H1B visa candidate, they make the same wage as their US Citizen counterpart, and chances are they have advanced education beyond BS degree. In most cases, they work their guts out and are grateful for the work.
Management has no idea how to manage
Ok one more vote for the “we need to import better customers”. side. Well I’ll think about this. Maybe we DO need to exchange populations with Mexico.
Somehow college is turning the welding class stupid at the same time it’s turning out genius managers.
Amazing institution college.
I find it interesting here on FreeRepublic (and in life in general) that the loudest "bring back American jobs" clamoring always seems to come from people who don't run businesses and have never hired anyone. And the reality check about the quality of American workers comes from the business owner who can't find Americans who are capable and willing to work in the American jobs that are out there.
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