Posted on 06/27/2014 8:55:00 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
Despite published reports Thursday that immigration reform is dead, Motorola Solutions Chairman and CEO Greg Brown rallied business leaders to keep it alive because of its impact on their competitiveness, innovation and the economy.
Brown said he was disturbed that Congress has given up on immigration reform at a time when the economic recovery is "fragile" and businesses will lose their competitive edge without it.
"Why is the timing not right for this? I find that unacceptable," Brown said.
Brown urged business leaders to get involved in the fight to pass immigration reform during his keynote speech at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting in downtown Chicago. The Washington Post and other media outlets said Thursday that immigration reform is dead until President Obama leaves office. Brown serves on the president's immigration reform committee and sounded the alarm on what could happen without it.
Brown said American businesses are at a crisis point because they cannot find workers with the skills needed to produce innovative products and to compete worldwide.
Even companies such as Schaumburg-based Motorola Solutions and others depend on talent from around the world, including from such competitive markets as India and China. However, many of those young immigrants get their educations in the United States, but then return to their native lands because they cannot stay here, he said.
He said reform could be tackled again next year, because it spans all political parties and small and big businesses. Such reform will make companies better, produce more for the local economy and, ultimately, create more jobs, he said.
"Immigration reform is not about taking jobs from U.S. workers," Brown said. In fact, he said it could lead to hiring more U.S. workers as businesses grow.
"Immigrant workers are job generators themselves. They have a job multiplier effect," he said. "So if our goal is to grow a dynamic environment for businesses to be created, grow and thrive, we ought to care about this as a state."
Besides passing immigration reform to help in the short term, Brown believes strengthening ties with local colleges and universities can help cultivate future engineers and other skilled labor.
For example, Motorola Solutions has had a 25-year partnership with Harper College in Palatine, and the company also partners with After School Matters, the Chicago Public Library Foundation, the Museum of Science and Industry, local school districts and other groups. He encouraged others to do the same to prepare future generations for the workforce.
"It's about preparing the workforce for the jobs that will keep America competitive and enable kids to succeed in the 21st century," Brown said. "But, unfortunately, it takes 18 years to make an engineer, and the crisis for talent is now."
Besides tackling such issues, the chamber said a fond farewell Thursday to longtime President and CEO Doug Whitley, a Batavia resident.
Several dignitaries and business leaders, including Brown, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and others, congratulated Whitley on his retirement and praised his unrelenting efforts to fight for issues to help businesses.
Whitley continued to lead the charge, telling colleagues not to give up on immigration reform and other major issues and thanking everyone for their support.
Whitley will be replaced by Todd Maisch, who had been the chamber's executive vice president.
In other news, the chamber presented its 6th annual Edie Awards to businesses for their economic development impact on Illinois. Winners included CVS Caremark Customer Center in Mount Prospect, Peacock Engineering in Romeoville, Universal Technical Institute in Lisle as well as Midwest Inland Port in Decatur and CSL Behring in Kankakee.
The rest of us exist at their pleasure.
“Brown said American businesses are at a crisis point because they cannot find workers with the skills needed to produce innovative products and to compete worldwide.”
Yes, for the wages you want to pay them.
Which countries have higher levels of immigration than the US against which we will lose our ‘competitive edge?’
And when you’ve turned the biggest economy on Earth into a third world hell hole who’s going to buy your products then?
This pisses me off. What I’m about to say is definitely going to get me flamed by many here, so here it goes anyway.
If American Tech companies are really having the hard time finding qualified workers they say they are then why not partner with local schools and colleges to implement programs that grow qualified tech workers here? It’s a win-win for everyone. Think about it, if companies don’t hire native workers and outsource foreign workers, at some point there won’t be anyone in the US who can afford their damn products. Grow your own workers here, and you also grow your own consumers. It doesn’t happen because companies will always look to maximize their profits. Which in this case means bringing in foreign workers. I’m all for capitalism, but at some point I believe a company should also have the well being of the country as one of their interests. CEO’s and share holders should have some damn sense of patriotism.
The individual should be told flat out, that Motorola can either be a patriotic American company, or it should not look to exploiting, or even participating, in the American marketplace.
By its actions, if Motorola is seeking to undermine America, its prosperity, its citizens, and its economy, then Motorola needs to find a new country that offers it as much potential.
Motorola abandoned manufacturing in the US at least 20 years ago. They only exist in the US as a sales-marketing firm. Maybe instead of trying to flood those divisions in the US with third world labor, they should move offshore altogether, like so many other former US industries did. I’m sure that there’s plenty of markets in the world for their products, except for the ones that the chinese now dominate in, using technology handed over by companies like oh, say, motorola.
Don’t worry. Soon enough cheap labor won’t be good enough for them either. What they really long for is slave labor.
“keep competitive” sounds so much nicer than “destroy the American middle class”.
Americans are not short on innovative ideas. As the only nation based upon the individual, America has always been a nation of the innovative, which is why a Japanese executive once observed, “All ‘Mellican, oddball!”
In his eyes, all Americans were non-conformists, “Oddball”.
It was actually quite a compliment.
America has too much regulation, legislation, and far too much government ‘spendulation’ of our money.
Get the regulatory ape off America’s back and we will once again be on the way to dominating the world economy because our uniquely American emphasis on the individual harnesses man’s basic nature.
Man cares best for that which is his.
Freedom of choice and private property once defined America and made possible a level of wealth and productivity never before seen on earth.
Dump the regulations.
Fire the AgencyPersons.
Or America declines and the world follows America back into the darkness of tyranny.
Our Republic is being destroyed from within by crony capitalists and utterly corrupt politicians from both parties.
This guy must be a blithering idiot.
If they really were honest about the dearth of qualified employees they'd do exactly as you suggest.
Trouble is, those students would require a certain standard of living these employers are not willing to pay for. Not when there are poor benighted workers who will work for anything if it means escaping their hellholes.
Would someone tell me how amnesty for uneducated, unskilled people who cannot even speak the language will be an asset to America??????????????
Must be a techno-coolie shortage at Motorola
It depends on how you define America. If America is nothing more than Corporations, amnesty will help further depress wages, hence increasing profits. Increased profits are good? /
Yes, and count me as one. We conservatives need to realize we have been used by Big Business like we've been used by the RINOs.
Right...but a host of bedraggled, uneducated street rats from some $hithole in Central America are going to magically morph into Math, Science and Engineering wizards who will lead us all into the promised land of the future? I don't think so scooter.
I've spent 30+ years working for a Fortune 100 company and have watched them rape, pillage and burn their American workforce as they export jobs (and the future), to places like India, The Philippines and Estonia.
The leadership of these “global enterprises” have no allegiance to the America which originally gave them their economic and political freedom to thrive. This whole out of control immigration process is about grinding the American middle class into economic dust so corporations can have dirt cheap labor.
Millions of uneducated welfare seekers is going to help? How? Plus the taxes needed to support them will hurt business.
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