Australian Interlake moves U.S. jobs to Mexico

Date: Monday, March 17, 2003 9:20 AM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/interlake.htm

View from Lodi, CA: Unemployment And Immigration Somethings Got To
Give
By Joe Guzzardi

The Lodi News-Sentinels headline on February 28th told a sad but
familiar tale.

In his story titled Lodians to lose jobs, reporter Ryan Campbell wrote
about the closing of two Interlake Material Handling plants that would
cost 180 workers their jobs within the next 60 days.

Interlakes announcement that workers would be laid off is its third
dismissal notice during the last two years. In June 2001, 40 workers
were fired; in December 2002, 54 employees were terminated.

The news that the local Interlake plant would shut on April 30 and that
many of the jobs would be performed at the companys factory in
Matamoros, Mexico is an ongoing saga being played out across the
country.

February was the nations worst month for job losses since the
October/November period immediately following 9/11. In all, 308,000
jobs were lost in February as the unemployment rate inched up to 5.8%
from Januarys 5.7%.

Economists noted that the latest statistics are negative across the
board. Payrolls are down in every sector. And most alarming is the
unabated job loss in the manufacturing. In February, manufacturing
jobs, in seasonally adjusted terms, dropped below 11 million for the
first time since February 1946.

The immediate outlook is bleak since consumers are not demonstrating
any eagerness to spend.

For the laid off Lodians who wonder what awaits them, their future is
cloudy.

And for those in Matamoros who might be hired, I advise them not to get
too comfortable. These days, globalists consider Matamoros an expensive
location to operate. In the race to find the cheapest labor costs,
China and Sri Lanka are much more attractive.

While Treasury Secretary John W. Snow insisted that Februarys
unemployment statistics were proof that President Bushs tax cut plan
be enacted immediately, leading Democrats disagreed.

Presidential candidate Richard Gephardt said that Bush has left the
country unprepared for the economy of the future and without a strategy
for meaningful economic growth. [308,000 Jobs Lost in February by
Daniel Altman, New York Times, March 8, 2003] And Senate minority
leader Tom Daschle accused Bush of turning the economy into a
job-destroying machine.

While it is very convenient and politically expedient for Gephardt and
Daschle to make Bush their target, the truth is that one of the biggest
threats to continued job loss the H-1B, the L-1 and the TN visas need
to be dismantled immediately by Congress.

Moving jobs offshore, as Interlake has just done, is old hat. And while
jobs have being going overseas for years, so have workers been imported
to displace Americans.

For the last decade the H-1B visa has been the vehicle of choice to
bring overseas workers to America. But the H-1B visa legislation will
sunset this year. And the program--which issues up to 195,000 visas
annually has been the subject of much harsh and deserved criticism. An
additional disadvantage to the H-1B under current economic conditions
is that it is hard to make a case that the U.S. needs to keep the H-1B
visa program to import desperately needed software engineers in light
of the dot com crash.

With the spotlight on the H-1B visa, what better strategy for employers
than to turn to the L-1?

The L-1 visa is used as an intra-company transfer that allows U.S.
companies to transfer employees from the parent company, foreign
subsidiaries or affiliates to the U.S. - for up to seven years. Unlike
the H-1B visa, there is no limit on the number of L-1 visas that can be
issued or on the numbers of workers who can be imported at any one
time.

According to a recent Business Week article, [March 6, 2003, A
Mainframe-Size Visa Loophole] 350,000 L-1 visa holders have taken
American jobs.

Take Interlake, owned by the Sydney, Australia-based Brambles
Industries Limited, as an example of how the L-1 works. Brambles
operates in 40 countries and in six continents. Under L-1 visa
provisions, any Brambles employee in any plant or division could come
to the United States to replace a U.S. worker.

Not only do we have to worry about the L-1 visa, there is also the TN
visa. If you are a professional or if your job requires a college
diploma, look out.

After 2005, pursuant to the NAFTA agreement, the U.S. will allow open
borders for licensed professionals practicing in Mexico to work in the
U.S--without quotas and without the nuisance of having to secure a
visa. All he will have to do is hang up his shingle.

Heres more: if the U.S.-Chile Free Trade accord is ratified by
Congress, any professional Chilean again without quotas--will have the
legal right to come to the U.S. to practice his trade.

No ones job is safe. For America to have any kind of chance to
maintain itself, the H-1B, the L-1 and the TN visas must be abolished.

Every time I hear President Bush say that he is committed to protecting
Americans, referring to Iraq, I wonder if he ever gives our workers a
moments thought.

Judging by current economic conditions, it doesnt appear that he
does.

Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult
School, has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently
appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.

http://www.lodinews.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2003/February/28-1630-01_interlake_030228.txt

February 28, 2003
Lodi manufacturing plants to close

By Ryan Campbell/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Two of Lodi's major manufacturing plants will close, putting 180
employees out of work, the owner of the plants said Thursday.

The two Interlake plants will close in 60 days, said John O'Donnell,
vice president of human resources for Naperville, Ill.-based Interlake
Material Handling Inc.

It will be one of the largest factory closures in Lodi history.

"With the downturn in the economy, we had more production than we
needed," O'Donnell said. "Obviously, this was a hard decision to make."

Interlake workers were called in to work 30 minutes early Thursday to
get the bad news.

Alejandro Reyes thinks about his and his family's future Thursday as he
and all other employees at Interlake Material Handling, Inc. were told
the plant is closing in 60 days. (Jennifer M. Howell/News-Sentinel)

"We knew it was coming eventually, but it's still a surprise," said Pha
Touch, a steel welder from Stockton.

Touch's wife is due to give birth April 26 -- two days before the plant
will close.

Plant workers generally earn between $15 and $17 an hour plus health
benefits, several employees said.

Some workers attributed the loss of the Lodi plants to a new Interlake
manufacturing center completed in 2001 in Matamoros, Mexico, which they
claimed pays its workers much lower wages.

Other Interlake centers are located in Pontiac, Ill., Sumter, S.C., and
Shepherdsville, Ky.

"It's going to be hard to find a job out there. It's not like it used
to be," said Khanthaly Bounlem, a machine operator from Stockton, who
has worked in Lodi for the past 11 years.

The main manufacturing plant at 1029 S. Sacramento St. was acquired by
Interlake in 1969 to build heavy-duty steel racks that are commonly
used in retail stores like Home Depot, Lowe's and Wal-Mart.

At the company's peak in 2000, the manufacturing plant employed about
210 people and operated 24 hours a day in three shifts.

Sales were so brisk that year that the company opened a second, more
modern plant at the corner of Highway 12 and Guild Road to keep up with
demand.

Since then, retail sales have slumped considerably and orders for the
racks steadily declined.

In addition, cheaper, used racks have become more readily available in
recent years, O'Donnell said.

Demand for Interlake's steel racks has dropped 45 percent since 2000,
he said.

"It's just a matter of them not being competitive any more," said Tony
Goehring, Lodi's economic development coordinator.

Situated in the middle of a residential area, the outdated South
Stockton Street plant is included in a proposed redevelopment district,
Goehring said.

Earlier job cuts in Lodi occurred in June 2001, when about 40 Interlake
workers were laid off, and last December, when 54 workers lost their
jobs.

The company has called in the California Office of Dislocated Workers
to help laid off workers find new jobs, O'Donnell said.

When Mohammad Wasiq moved to Lodi from Pakistan 17 years ago, he hoped
to build a better life for his family.

Now Wasiq, a welder for 12 years, is worried about losing medical
insurance for his wife and seven children ages 4 months to 13 years.

"What am I going to do? We will have to eat the money we have been
saving for the future," Wasiq said. "It's a very dark future."

Meanwhile, John Dodson, lead maintenance mechanic for Interlake,
learned he would soon be out of a job on his somber 23-year anniversary
with the Lodi plant.

"I'll probably be going on unemployment for a while, then I don't know
what," he said.

Interlake is owned by the $6.2 billion Sydney, Australia-based company
Brambles, which owns various other manufacturing ventures in 40
countries.

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