"One man with courage makes a majority." ~ Andrew Jackson
Support Free Republic!
click the pic and donate today
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.
I say this without any hostility. You’ve been sitting in management offices listening to them rationalize their failure and have lost perspective on what is happening in this country.
As someone who teaches IT skills for a living, this really makes me see red.
I have way too many bright students looking for work they cannot find, so they are seeking out skills to improve their resumes, and they aren’t just route learning, but do clearly understand what they are learning and would be great employees.
Unfortunately, many are older men and women in their 40s and 50s who were let go and now cannot be hired because of age discrimination due to the perceived cost of their benefits.
Far easier to get a Indian or Chinese to do the same thing for peanuts and little if any benefits.
I have students who tell me they will work for no benefits but a salary yet their applications are trashed as soon as the Anglo name is read and the age is seen.
I think it is a travesty for OUR elected officials to rally for the companies and not their true constituents! At least my Senator, Jeff Sessions, understands.
Would you care to comment on Alberta’s Child’s contention that American business is just looking for new customers?
I am IN the IT world. I am more in the wire aspect but I have to deal with “Cisco certified technicians” that the companies I contract with when turning a circuit up or if something is not working correctly..
With the exception of one clec (phone company basically) they are all from india, and are likely still IN India.. Their english is horrible and their skills are miserable. I use to think learning Cisco and passing the test would be hard.. Now I am not so sure.
One thing they have learned is the american blame game. it’s never them. it’s always something I did. Even when I prove them wrong with testing results..
You might be right about many of my peers in industry, but not me. I’ve turned down job offers for managerial positions in other companies because I insist on keeping close to the ground and getting my hands dirty.
I do not disagree with him. The CEOs and staff of major corporations can be very smart but also foolish, unethical and just plain wrong.
I’m sure a lot of health insurance companies went along with Obamacare as they saw the potential to pick up millions of more customers, while at the same time seeing that if they didn’t “dance with the democrats” they would be imperiled.
My contention is with HB1 visas especially in light of all the high tech capable people I know who cannot find work. There is unwritten age discrimination based on the assumption that older workers “cost” the company more than HB1s or younger people. I don’t even think it’s true, based on productivity; it is a plus even considering a few dollars more for salary & benefits.
And of course, there is the little used option, in my own humble opinion, of actually retraining or simply training workers that can return value to the corporation in new skills and knowledge. Too many companies see employees on the dollar side of cost rather than profit. Everything is an expense—people aren’t treated as an investment.
Back to Alberta’s Child, yes, I do think that some do see increasing immigrants as a way to sell more stuff. As Lenin once said, “sell the rope that one day will be used to hang them.”
One thing about industry certifications is the amount of cheating that goes on in other countries, especially China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, and almost all of the Arabian peninsular countries.
The US testing centers are very strict. It is a joke in those other countries. In Pakistan, for example, they can bring in friends to sit by them when they take a test! Some have told me they know people who make their entire living being a “sit-by-me” friend just for this purpose. You don’t even need a brain dump to let someone else answer the questions for you.
Some may call it racist, but I will always test them before hiring.
One Pakistani MCSE in NT I interviewed could not tell me what DNS stood for, nor explain its concept nor how it worked.
Management has two major functions:
Chart a strategic path for the company to follow, and get to maximize the output of their work force.
I have no comment about how they are doing the first job but on the second I would say they have completely abrogated that responsibility. And what they end up doing is whine, and cry and stamp their feet and demand that the schools take over this responsibility from them. That and these magic thinking fixes they expect from government like letting them import these mythical foreign genius workers.
Speaking of foreign, the old idea that you would cultivate and grow your work force is completely foreign to them today. They used to be farmers of work now they are hunter gatherers. They just want to wander out and grab what they need when the need it and then toss it away when their need has been satisfied.
In real-speak, that’s 600,000 jobs they adamantly refuse to pay market wages for.
One of my first questions on a call is to make sure they are not on a speakerphone, because it makes them even harder to understand.
It's too bad that management doesn't understand that they aren't really saving anything by hiring these folk. Maybe it's just us, but it really seems like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel talent-wise. We don't seem to have that problem with americans.
Heck, we test everyone. I'm not as involved in that aspect as I once was, but it is critical to weed out folks who aren't up to snuff. Last group I was in (I pretty much work by myself these days), after the manager did the initial weeding, we'd call the candidate in to beat them up in a technical interview. You'd be amazed at what you discover when you really start questioning what they know. I've actually seen posts on the internet by folks we've grilled who didn't much appreciate it. LOL. I'll tell you what though, we got good people, and our group was extremely stable. Strangely, we only had one indian, and he was actually someone who knew his stuff. We'd been instructed by corporate that we had to have at least one 'overseas' resource for after hours work. We interviewed a lot of folks before we finally found someone who was up to snuff.
"One man with courage makes a majority." ~ Andrew Jackson
Support Free Republic!
click the pic and donate today
We should stiffen the penalties for hiring illegals. We must encourage them to hire unemployed Americans. (When we’re at full employment, if we still need immigrant workers, we can devise a system.)
IMHO, that would be the simplest, and most effective way to end this madness. After we make a few examples of employers who hire illegals, the rest will get the message.
I want to see some businessmen who hire illegals instead of American be forced to do the perp walk.
The other thing we should do is cut off all benefits to anyone who is here illegally.
You put your finger on an important point that gets lost in this debate - we have a big shortage of literate, low-end workers and a vast oversupply of minimally qualified mid-level office workers. Thanks to public schools, the unemployable rate among entry level and manufacturing workers is through the roof - thanks to the Information Revolution, we have nothing for the literate former middle class office worker to do.
Thank you.
“yet their applications are trashed as soon as the Anglo name is read and the age is seen.” Exactly. And there isn’t a thing they can do about it (What discrimination?) It doesn’t matter if a person’s salary expectations are dropped by $15-25,000. (which really IS, fine. We’ve adjusted. We can live on that.)
Employers may want to “reset” their costs, but what about the reset of living expenses for working people? This is where foreign workers come in. They’re perfectly willing to live in crazy-sorry conditions because they come from crappy situations.
These employers are trying to turn America into Mexico/ Asia/ ME/ third world wherever. They are blatantly destroying what was formerly the ‘American standard of living’. They don’t give a damn about our country, just themselves.
Meanwhile, China- a communist country!- has a “middle class” which enough disposable income for the things we used to be able to afford.
I want to throw up.
I work for a US based manufacturer and we have had a really hard time finding good people to work in iur foundries.
The perversion of USA labor supply/demand, is history merely repeating itself, as if no advances were ever made!
Just my admittedly cynical opinion based on current labor market conditions:
That's a very good analogy!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
