Free Republic

Why has Gov. Tom Wolf’s Office of General Counsel paid nearly $400,000 of taxpayer money to several private law firms? It’s a simple question, and there may be a simple and reasonable answer. But the administration’s failure to answer it raises questions about what causes and activities the governor has used state resources to pursue, and why he didn’t use the state’s attorneys to do it. Secrecy always raises suspicions, even if they are entirely unwarranted. In terms of legal bills for complex institutional litigation, $367,500 spread across six firms is a pittance. The Office of General Counsel employs hundreds...

News emerged this week that Ford has parked around 40,000 unfinished new vehicles waiting for parts. If you thought parts shortages couldn't get any worse for the auto industry than they did last year, then it's time to hit reset. We've seen multiple car companies, including international giants like Honda and Toyota, struggle to deliver vehicles simply because they can't source the components they need. The same is true with Ford, which announced this week that up to 45,000 vehicles will be held in its inventory this quarter until they receive essential parts—mainly chips. The Blue Oval has made use...

Wary of mounting tensions surrounding out-of-favor countries like China and Russia, multinational corporations are shifting operations to places that present less geopolitical risk. The trend has been labelled "friendshoring." While that's a play on "offshoring," this isn't about companies moving operations back to the United States or Europe, but rather seeking foreign alternatives that retain the benefit of low labor costs but with less international controversy. For now, the conversation is principally about China. “Every company that I speak to at the moment is engaged in rethinking their [China-focused] supply chains," Tony Danker, head of the Confederation of British Industry,...

Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) says a plan that gives amnesty to illegal aliens and expands pipelines for foreign visa workers will be a boost for business. Last week, as Breitbart News reported, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) and six House Republicans introduced “The Dignity Act” to provide green cards to the nation’s 11 to 22 million while expanding visa programs to more readily outsource American jobs. Curtis is co-sponsoring the bill alongside Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-PR), Tom Reed (R-NY), and Peter Meijer (R-MI). The bill is backed by the United States Chamber of Commerce and...

The printing press behind El Paso City Hall that produces the El Paso Times ceases production Monday. Beginning Tuesday, the newspaper will be printed just a few miles away — and across the international boundary in neighboring Ciudad Juárez. Regionally outsourcing newspaper printing is not uncommon among media outlets, but the decision by Gannett, the company that owns the El Paso Times, is notable in that printing will be moved to Mexico. This is Gannett’s first cross-border move, according to a spokesperson. There’s no official tracker on how many American papers print in Mexico, but “it’s certainly very rare,” said...

From the onset of the pandemic to fluctuations in cost and efficiencies, a growing number of companies have been thinking about bringing their overseas operations closer to home.Among North American manufacturers, 83 percent state they are likely or extremely likely to reshore, according to the “2021 State of North American Manufacturing Annual Report” by Thomas, an industrial sourcing platform. That percentage is significantly up from March 2020, when 54 percent of manufacturers reported that they were considering taking steps to reshore.Shifting operations to the United States could spark an influx of funds and jobs throughout the country. If manufacturers that...

Here is very, very strong evidence from Steve Hilton that the United States National Institutes of Health, run by Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci provided funding for the Communist Chinese to conduct "gain of function" research on deadly viruses, that resulted in what we have now. Essential viewing: Part 1 video link: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6225847837001Part 2 video link: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6227902415001#sp=show-clips

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is expected to seek Senate passage of his S.386 job-outsourcing bill Wednesday evening. If no Republican or Democrat objects to Lee’s actions, his bill will pass the Senate by so-called “Unanimous Consent,” (UC), setting the stage for a joint House-Senate conference to draft a final bill. Lee’s aggressive effort to pass the bill by UC is a threat to the GOP Senators and their slim majority, an immigration activist told Breitbart News. “They have to give Georgia Republicans a reason to vote [in January] — and UC for this bill ain’t that,” the activist said. Lee...

A security check on a US company has reportedly revealed one of its staff was outsourcing his work to China. The software developer, in his 40s, is thought to have spent his workdays surfing the web, watching cat videos on YouTube and browsing Reddit and eBay. He reportedly paid just a fifth of his six-figure salary to a company based in Shenyang to do his job. Operator Verizon says the scam came to light after the US firm asked it for an audit, suspecting a security breach. According to Andrew Valentine, of Verizon, the infrastructure company requested the operator's risk...

A federal judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit by business groups and is allowing President Donald Trump to temporarily bar the entry of foreign contract workers who are hired to take the U.S. jobs needed by Americans. The decision is a big labor rights win for American employees because it recognizes a president can use his authority under section 212(f) of federal law to block the inflow of foreign workers if they have a damaging impact on Americans’ economic circumstances. “The court expands executive authority under 212(f) to previously unknown limits,” said a tweeted complaint from one of the lawyers...

The long-awaited reform of the H-1B outsourcing program that was promised by Donald Trump in 2016 has been sent to the White House for approval, according to a chorus of concerned corporate immigration lawyers. The news was praised by advocates for U.S. professionals but slammed by the immigration lawyers who guide foreign workers into hundreds of thousands of jobs that would otherwise go to young and old American graduates.

Nearly all GOP Senators and top officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are quietly backing the S.386 outsourcing bill pushed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), according to Hill sources. “There isn’t a single Republican in the U.S. Senate that will stand up against outsourcers,” said an advocate for more legal immigration. “I don’t think the GOP is going block the bill,” a Hill source said.

Union workers in upstate New York are pleading with President Trump to help prevent layoffs by requiring the Tennessee Valley Authority to build six massive new electricity generators in the US instead of moving some overseas. The TVA is a federally owned electricity supplier in Tennessee and neighboring states. On Monday, Trump fired two TVA board chairmen and demanded the TVA president’s ouster for laying off Americans while outsourcing tech jobs to a company in India. Workers at the historic General Electric campus in Schenectady — where Thomas Edison once worked — hope Trump will now help them. The factory...

U.S. employers keep roughly 600,000 foreign H-1B visa workers in jobs throughout the United States, according to an unprecedented report released by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. The total number of resident H-1B workers has successfully been kept secret for decades, mainly because Fortune 500 companies do not want voters to recognize the massive outsourcing of jobs for themselves and their college graduate children.

Anyone who's followed my posts on this topic over the past three weeks knows that the Wuhan Virus is impacting global trade and commerce. I've been detailing my employers response to the Wuhan over the past three weeks through my posts on various threads here on FR. Having said all that, this evening I received a phone call from our Global Pandemic Response Line, instructing me to call into a tele-meeting. I just hung up on it, I was so disgusted. Long story very short, our "Indian technology partners" in Mumbai are being instructed by the outsourcing company our Bank's...

Opponents of job outsourcing are making a holiday-season appeal to President Trump: Stop U.S. companies from forcing American workers to train the very same cheaper foreign laborers who will soon replace them.Why it matters: Trump promised voters he'd end abuses of worker visa programs and save U.S. jobs — but as he campaigns for re-election, advocates say he hasn't done enough. Driving the news: AT&T is poised to send thousands into the new year hunting for new jobs after assigning them to train their own foreign replacements, according to conversations with current and former workers and documents obtained by Axios....

SEATTLE - The former CEO of two Bellevue tech firms was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in federal prison for a sophisticated visa fraud scheme that cheated workers out of their wages and cheated the government out of over $1 million in taxes. Pradyumna Kumar Samal, 50, a citizen of India, then used the illegally obtained cash to enrich himself and fund a luxurious lifestyle, court records show. Samal was arrested in August 2018 when he arrived on an international flight at Sea-Tac Airport and has been in custody ever since his arrest. At the sentencing hearing U.S....

Lowe’s Cos. told thousands of store workers this week their jobs were being eliminated as the company outsourced tasks such as assembling barbecue grills and janitorial services. The home-improvement chain notified maintenance staff and assemblers that put together grills, wheelbarrows and other products that they were being laid off, according to the company and employees. Those roles will be taken over by third-party companies

It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors. The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs. Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have...

A new report by the Transport Workers Union says that airlines are increasingly performing heavy maintenance in foreign countries, limiting the number of aircraft maintenance jobs in the U.S. The report said that approximately 24% of heavy aircraft maintenance is performed offshore, up from about 7% in 2003. The report includes estimates that U.S. airlines spend about $2 billion annually on maintenance work in South America, China and Europe, an amount that could otherwise be spent on an estimated 8,200 jobs for U.S. mechanics. Foreign outsourcing “creates an unnecessary and devastating economic impact on future generations,” said John Samuelsen, president...