Why Guest Worker Programs Don't Work
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North Carolina's woes teach us that building an economy around temporary workers isn't easy
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MONTERREY, Mexico -- If a quarry needs a migrant worker who can haul 50-pound loads of rock out of a mine, or a big landscaper wants to hire a man who'll mow grass from sunup to sundown for $8 an hour without overstaying his visa, Jeffrey West scrolls through his computer, clicks the mouse and fills...
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Can a piece of software make a difference in the lives of factory workers in the Far East?
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government needs to do a better job of supporting and training IT and other workers who have lost jobs to offshore outsourcing, two economists on the opposite side of the offshoring debate said Tuesday. Many other countries have better benefits and retraining programs, Alan Blinder, an economist from Princeton University, told the U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee. "The U.S. government now offers disgracefully little help for workers who are displaced from their jobs," he said. "I'm talking about stingy unemployment insurance ... the prospect of losing your health insurance, your pension rights, and so on. I can't believe our country can't do better than that." Blinder, who has suggested that 30 million to 40 million U.S. jobs could potentially be replaced by offshoring, found support for stronger worker benefits from Martin Baily, senior academic advisor at the McKinsey Global Institute and a defender of global outsourcing. "We do very little with the training of workers," he said. But the witnesses at the hearing on the impact of offshoring U.S. research and development found little other common ground. Baily suggested the benefits of a global economy to the U.S. far outweigh the downsides. About 80 percent of the available investments in the global economy is coming into the U.S., instead of it flowing outside the country, he said. Globalization has "brought tremendous benefits to the United States," said Baily, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during President Bill Clinton's administration. "It's made the U.S. much more competitive. We've had access to better technology." More than a quarter of the people with doctorate degrees in the U.S. are foreign born, he added. "We're actually benefiting from the education that's being provided to people overseas," he said. The U.S. also benefits from computer hardware and software made overseas, he added. "At some level, we have to embrace the fact that science and technology is a global endeavor," he said. But Blinder and Ralph Gomory, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, suggested there are significant downsides to offshore outsources. Under current U.S. policies, there's a "large-scale occupational migration" on the way, and the U.S. government needs to prepare for it, Blinder said. While many U.S. lawmakers support free trade, globalization is different, added Gomory, former senior vice president for science and technology at IBM Corp. Typically, free trade involves countries migrating to create the goods they are most efficient at producing, then trade with other countries that produce other goods, he said. But in globalization, the U.S. is moving much of its important production capability overseas, he added. "When the U.S. trades semiconductors for Asian sneakers ... that is trade," he said. "This type of exchange clearly benefits both countries." But U.S. companies build semiconductor plants in other countries instead of the U.S., that's not free trade, he said. "Neither economic theory nor common sense asserts that shift is automatically good for the United States," Gomory added. Lawmakers said they will consider the testimony as they look at ways to address offshoring. "What we want to do is make sure that companies find that U.S. scientists, engineers and students are the best in the world," said Representative Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat and chairman of the committee. "We want to make sure we enact policies that keep us from having to offshore our future."
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President Bush sharply challenged critics of his stalled immigration-overhaul efforts on Thursday, suggesting that failure to pass a guest-worker program could trigger a labor shortage in the United States.
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By Elmer Ploetz  In 2007, the fortunes of many Western New York farmers won't be as dependent on local weather as on the political climate in Washington.  That's where the politicians will be turning their attention to immigrant labor - again.
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Business & money: Workers in poor countries exploited, say investors.
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Coercion doesnât work. Empathy is a more powerful tool than you might think. A veteran Air Force interrogator who grilled prisoners in Iraq talks about how to gather information during wartime.
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What rights will you give up in order to get some work?      We are guaranteed certain protections against the tyranny of the State, but what's to stop private companies from ignoring those protections, so long as they can require us to agree to forego them in order to receive employment?
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MADRID, Aug 11 (IPS) - The number of employees who sign temporary work   contracts week after week, and thus have no right to paid  vacation, is  increasing among young people in Spain. But  immigrant workers have even more  to complain about, because they  are offered no job contracts or benefits at  all.
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Some contend that low-cost labor in India, China and elsewhere is far from the only thing inhibiting job growth in the United States --  skilled workers just aren't out there. American adults rank 12th in literacy among those of 20 high-income, industrialized countries, according to a study.
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Still not using online bill-pay? Here's how (and why) to get with the program.
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NEW YORK - For younger workers not near or at retirement, the woes of the US Social Security system tend to have a distant, if not surreal quality.
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Migrant workers paid below minimum wage and overcharged for unsanitary accommodation and dangerous transport
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BRUSSELS, Sep 13 (IPS) - Inequalities between men and women are not  adequately addressed in aid programmes for countries of the  former Soviet Union, a new study has concluded.
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In a new blog entry, Richard Thomas shares some of his opinions on a problem he's noticed in the area of IT with companies not realizing one thing - the cost of living differences.   So you got companies like Yahoo, PriceGrabber, IBM and others trying to hire and at some points almost begging for people to apply they are sure to have something to offer right? Move to the silicon valley and if your a good programmer you can make $65-90K a year easy so it makes sense doesn't it?   In his opinion this is one of the major barriers that faces companies - not being able to attract developers with offers that make sense for the area. They flash large numbers at them, hoping that they'll accept only to find that they can't live quite how they expect.
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Working in poverty-stricken areas  gives corporate travelers an up-close look at global problems  such as disease, illiteracy or injustice. It also puts them in  a position to bring about change.