9 Articles on Job Destruction
9 Articles on Job Destruction
Date: Sunday, November 30, 2003 4:05 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
Article 1:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7260505.htm
Thank tech companies for helpful off-shoring
Whew! For a minute there I thought the growing trend of sending
technology jobs overseas was another example of Silicon Valley
companies caring more about profits than people. But no, no, no. Such
thinking is wrong-headed. Ask the companies that are moving work to
India, China and elsewhere. They're doing it to ``be close to our
customers'' or to ``follow the sun'' or to ``free workers up to do more
exciting jobs.'' They are definitely not -- and this is important --
they are not doing it to find cheap labor and bigger profits. In fact,
such thinking is hurtful.
Article 2:
http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9395
(This is part 1 of a 3 part series. Go to the home page to read all 3
parts)
Trade Off
What were the central claims by the economists, politicians and
self-styled, college-educated experts? They promised that NAFTA would
generate 200,000 new American jobs, that the relatively small $9
billion U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada would turn into a
trade surplus and that the United States would become an export engine
of manufactured goods.
The reality? Using the same methodology NAFTA's proponents wielded, the
agreement cost us 750,000 jobs, many of them good-paying manufacturing
jobs that were a backbone of America's middle class. The U.S. trade
deficit with Mexico and Canada ballooned to $87 billion in 2002.
Article 3:
http://www.wiretapmag.org/story.html?StoryID=17210
What is the FTAA?
This week the city of Miami will be hosting an international meeting of
all the governments of the Western Hemisphere (except for the communist
government of Cuba). The topic of the meeting is the highly
controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA is an
expansion of the now 10-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which eliminated trade restrictions between Canada, the US,
and Mexico.
Article 4:
Article :http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article_print.cfm?i=71044
U.S. engineers shortchanged
Should we even encourage our children to seek engineering careers?
Should we throw money into their college educations? Because likely
there is no job at the end of this investment. Our corporations have
been allowed to bring low-paid engineers into the United States at an
alarming rate
Article 5:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/07/MNG4Q2SEAM1.DTL
Credit agencies sending our files abroad
Two of the three major credit-reporting agencies, each holding detailed
files on about 220 million U.S. consumers, are in the process of
outsourcing sensitive operations abroad, and a third may follow suit
shortly, industry officials acknowledge for the first time.
Article 6:
http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_1741.shtml
AN AMERICAN SCAM: H-1B VISAS
Our elected officials in Washington, DC take an oath of office to
defend and protect American citizens. Senators and
Representatives pledge their honor to work for the benefit of their
American constituents who voted them into office. However, today, after
one decade,
Article 7
http://www.msnbc.com/news/997472.asp?cp1=1#BODY
More trade pact angst after NAFTA
New pact would expand free trade from Argentina to Canada
MIAMI, Nov. 26 For the thousands of Florida workers who lost their
jobs to free trade and the industries that struggled with open
commerce, free trade comes at a price. The proposed FTAA would remove
trade tariffs and quotas from imports and exports to allow a free flow
of goods, capital and services from Canada to Argentina.
Article 8:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3110511
Offshoring of IT Jobs Expected to Accelerate
Textile mills closed their doors, sending their jobs to foreign shores
where labor is cheaper. Shoe manufactures did the same. Then
manufacturers started handing out pink slips to their U.S. workers,
sending the jobs, and the pay, offshore.
Today, the IT industry is the next one to fall.
Article 9:
http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/031126_forum.cfm
Seattle Forum Addresses Offshoring of White-Collar Jobs
Alan Tonelson has seen the future and it is bleak. "Offshoring," said
Tonelson, "is really just a shorthand term for a more complex trend. In
my view, what is really happening in the high-tech industry in this
country is that a once high-wage industry is now becoming a low-wage
industry." The reason, he said, is because that is what the leaders of
high-tech industry want. It offers an appealing way to cut costs.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7260505.htm
Posted on Fri, Nov. 14, 2003
Thank tech companies for helpful off-shoring
By Mike Cassidy
Mercury News
Whew!
For a minute there I thought the growing trend of sending technology
jobs overseas was another example of Silicon Valley companies caring
more about profits than people.
But no, no, no. Such thinking is wrong-headed. Ask the companies that
are moving work to India, China and elsewhere. They're doing it to ``be
close to our customers'' or to ``follow the sun'' or to ``free workers
up to do more exciting jobs.''
They are definitely not -- and this is important -- they are not doing
it to find cheap labor and bigger profits. In fact, such thinking is
hurtful.
It's like Oracle spokeswoman Jennifer Glass said to Mercury News
reporter Aaron Davis recently: Talk that Oracle is expanding
aggressively in India simply for cost savings is ``insulting.''
Not to her, mind you, but to the highly qualified Indian engineers.
``Our employees in India find it offensive,'' Glass said. ``The fact
that they are viewed as cheap labor when they are highly qualified.''
Actually, they are both highly qualified and cheap labor. Still, we
mustn't assume.
Imagine thinking Oracle would hire Indian engineers at $15 to $20 an
hour instead of U.S. engineers at $40 to $120 an hour just to save
money.
I mean, if Oracle wanted to save money, they could find other ways.
Chief Executive Larry Ellison could again forgo a salary. After all,
Ellison has more money than God. (Word is he passed God on the Forbes
list with his 2001 compensation of $706 million.)
Or Oracle could move Ellison's CEO job to India. (Thanks to a Mercury
News reader for the idea.) Say his compensation is 80 percent less
there. That $706 million becomes $141 million overnight.
After running a series about off-shoring this week, the Mercury News
received a passionate response from many readers. The issue is an
emotional one in Silicon Valley, which has lost more than 200,000 jobs
since December 2000.
So forgive those who've been out of work for months for thinking just
maybe their former companies are shifting work to developing countries
solely to save money and increase profits. These folks aren't thinking
straight, what with the stress of trying to pay bills with no money and
all.
If these folks were thinking straight, then they'd understand that
Oracle and companies like Intel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Agilent, Cisco,
Sun and Adobe could have other good reasons for shifting jobs to
cheaper labor markets.
Oracle talks about ``following the sun.'' The time difference between
India and California means workers finishing the day in Redwood Shores
can hand off work to software developers in India who are just starting
their days.
This is just plain considerate. Sure, Oracle could employ the same
strategy by hiring U.S. workers to work an overnight shift, but who
wants those hours? You might think bad hours are better than no hours,
but really, they're bad news.
Unless you're working for a call center in the Philippines that serves
Dell. Those workers actually do work all night. See, night in the
Philippines is day in the United States and that's when Dell customers
are awake and calling for help.
``It's like living in a bubble,'' a call-center worker told the Wall
Street Journal. ``Often, I don't see my family for days.''
Which could be a benefit, depending on how you feel about your family.
So, let's ease up on these companies as they pack up jobs and move them
to where they can be done more cheaply. This is not about money.
In the end, really, this is about you.
Hey! Have an only-in-Silicon Valley story? Contact Mike Cassidy at
mcassidy@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5536.
http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9395
Trade Off
Jonathan Tasini is the national director of American Rights At Work.
A Note From The Author: Almost 10 years ago to the day, the North
American Free Trade Agreement passed the House by a narrow margin. A
decade later, it's clear NAFTA's proponents were dead wrong - NAFTA has
been a disaster for our nation and its workers. But, more importantly,
NAFTA's implementation has valuable lessons for the future, from this
week's negotiations over the Free Trade Area of the Americas to U.S.
presidential politics to the very question of our country's
self-governance. Today's column begins a three-day exploration of these
issues.
What were the central claims by the economists, politicians and
self-styled, college-educated experts? They promised that NAFTA would
generate 200,000 new American jobs, that the relatively small $9
billion U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada would turn into a
trade surplus and that the United States would become an export engine
of manufactured goods. Mexicans would buy up exported goods from the
United States and rocket into the middle class. Canadians would also
benefit from new trade opportunities. Supporters of NAFTA were branded
"forward looking," while opponents were called "protectionists."
The reality? Using the same methodology NAFTA's proponents wielded, the
agreement cost us 750,000 jobs, many of them good-paying manufacturing
jobs that were a backbone of America's middle class. The U.S. trade
deficit with Mexico and Canada ballooned to $87 billion in 2002. In the
United States, workers haunted by the specter of losing their jobs,
became even more fearful of forming unions or striking&mash;and
companies used that fear to break union organizing drives and drive
down wages and benefits. Wages in Canada now lag behind U.S. wages and
the average Mexican wage has plummeted.
None of this should truly come as a shock. While proponents waved
around numbers about exports from the United States, they would
conveniently ignore an obvious outcome: a huge wave of imports coming
into the United States generated by cheaper labor across the border.
The evidence was in plain site. During the NAFTA debate, the Mexican
government ran huge full-page ads in business magazines, touting its
teeming masses. In one, a troubled Anglo business executive worries, "I
can't find good loyal workers for a dollar an hour within a thousand
miles of here." The ad declares: "Yes you can. Yucatan."
Some claims were bizarre. A new, large Mexican middle-class just
waiting to be born? Mexico's population was mired in abject poverty,
unable to feed their families let alone buy consumer goods like cars.
Post-NAFTA, more than one million more Mexicans work for less than the
$5 a day minimum wage in the border-area maquiladora industries and
eight million more people have fallen from the shrinking middle-class
into poverty.
What went wrong? Actually, nothing - NAFTA worked perfectly if one
understands that it was an agreement to make life easier for
corporations, not people. Blinded by the tens of millions of dollars
spent by corporate interests to push NAFTA and the backroom deals made
by Bill Clinton to buy votes, Congress either did not see, or did want
to admit, that companies were not as interested in exporting goods as
they were in exporting jobs. Yes, NAFTA had labor and environmental
side-agreements. But, the very fact that they were side agreements, not
part of the main text, speaks volumes about the irrelevance of workers
to those who dictated the agreements' ideological framework.
So, why would we make the same mistake twice? The FTAA simply recreates
the NAFTA model, just on a bigger scale: it would cover 34 countries in
North, Central and South America, from Canada down to Chile. It does
not contain a single chapter on labor rights. It would gut U.S. laws
aimed at protecting the economic, social, environmental, and health and
safety interests of our citizens.
We even have a new set of experts and studies to replace the
discredited NAFTA promoters (who, typically, slipped into obscurity
without being held accountable for their views). In one instance,
Florida business groups are flogging a study that predicts that the
state will gain 89,000 jobs over 10 years if the FTAA Secretariat is
located there. This is utter nonsense - under NAFTA, Florida lost as
many as 27,000 jobs and the FTAA, with its far broader hemispheric
reach, will expose Florida's citrus and sugar industries to even
stiffer foreign competition.
Let's be honest - "free trade" is just a marketing phrase picked up
uncritically by college-educated journalists and politicians who
probably absorbed the theoretical wonders of free trade in an
introductory economics class. True free trade could be written as a
10-page document. NAFTA-style trade agreements are voluminous,
carefully-written documents mainly crafted to protect investment and
capital rights such as corporate intellectual property. Indeed, rather
than free trade, these agreements are tightly-managed trade for special
interests.
"Free trade" should be banned from the political lexicon - except that
it gives cover to policy makers who fear voter retribution. Perhaps all
NAFTA-style trade agreements should carry the equivalent of the
cigarette-package health warnings: "Warning: Consuming this product may
lead to the loss of your job, lower pay and benefits, the poisoning of
your environment and the weakening of your democratic rights as a
citizen."
Check back tomorrow for the next in a three-part series on the FTAA.
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Published: Nov 17 2003
http://www.wiretapmag.org/story.html?StoryID=17210
What is the FTAA?
Ali Tonak, WireTap
November 17, 2003
Viewed on November 19, 2003
Sites to Check Out:
www.stopftaa.org
www.ftaaresistance.org
www.infoshop.org/octo/ftaa_miami.php
www.ftaaimc.org
This week the city of Miami will be hosting an international meeting of
all the governments of the Western Hemisphere (except for the communist
government of Cuba). The topic of the meeting is the highly
controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA is an
expansion of the now 10-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which eliminated trade restrictions between Canada, the US,
and Mexico.
In its previous gathering in Quebec City, Canada in 2001, the FTAA was
met with incredible resistance where the perimeter fence protecting
those at the meeting from the voices of dissent (yes, there will be a
fence in Miami as well) was torn down and the Canadian police were
overwhelmed by the amount of people actively resisting the summit.
But why were so many people protesting in Quebec City, and why are
thousands of protestors, many of them young people, going to Miami to
protest? In order to better understand how the proposed expansion of a
continental free trade zone could negatively affect the rest of the
countries in central and southern America, it is useful to look at what
NAFTA has done for the people of Mexico and the US.
NAFTA allows free trade between Canada, Mexico, and the US. This may
sound like a good thing for the economies of the countries, but working
people of North America and the environment have suffered negative
consequences.
Workers and Farmers
Seven years into NAFTA, the minimum wage in Mexico has dropped 18
percent while the manufacturing wage has dropped 21 percent. The drop
in manufacturing wages has come with the increase of maquiladoras,
which are factories established within Mexico that are run in sweatshop
conditions. During these first seven years of NAFTA the number of
maquiladoras in Mexico jumped from 546,433 to 1,240,840 (more than
double). These jobs, however, did not come out of nowhere, but are jobs
that had once resided in the US. Many companies have escaped south of
the border for cheaper labor and lax environmental laws. While the
number of US workers that have lost their jobs due to NAFTA is not
available, as of June 2001, 356,000 workers had qualified for a special
retraining program for workers whose previous employees had moved to
Mexico or Canada or had shut down due to competition from these
countries.
One of the counter arguments against this critique is that the
corporations that move to Mexico are providing a source of income for
the population by providing them with work. This is not the case as the
number of people living in poverty has actually increased by about 10%,
even though productivity has also increased by 47.7 percent.
Also, many of the employees of the newly formed maquiladoras were not
necessarily unemployed from the start. The central aspect of free
trade, as the name implies, is the free flow of goods into and out of
countries without any imposition of tariffs. As a result, large farming
corporations from the US have flooded the Mexican market with cheaper
crops. Farmers who have traditionally relied on agriculture for their
sustenance and income have not been able to compete with the large
American corporations and have been pushed to working in maquiladoras.
The Environment
The effect that NAFTA has had on the environment is especially
devastating. Corporations that are constantly looking to maximize their
profits are cutting their costs, and the environment is paying the
price. According to research done at Tufts University, air pollution
levels in Mexico have doubled in the three years following the
implementation of NAFTA. While US and Canadian corporations benefit
from NAFTA, they do so at the expense of the Mexican environment.
Those who participated in the creation of NAFTA -- many of them the
same people who reside on the boards that govern corporations -- have
not considered protecting their own environment. One of the starkest
examples of this is a case brought forward by Canadian corporation
Methanex.
Under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, corporations are able to sue governments for
profit losses (whether they actually lost profits or potentially might
lose profits). In 1999 Methanex attempted to sue the state of
California for $1 billion because of a ban on MTBE. MTBE, a gasoline
additive, was banned due to the environmental and health impact it had
in polluting groundwater. Methanex was claiming that this ban was a
trade barrier. The NAFTA panel that examined the case refused to award
Methanex the $1 billion in estimated losses.
The environment and people of Mexico have not been as lucky as those of
California. In 1997, US corporation Metalclad sued the Mexican
government for a local decision to stop the construction of a hazardous
landfill near the city of Guadalcazur in the state of San Luis Potosi.
After three years the NAFTA panel decided that the Mexican Government
was to pay $16.5 million in damages to Metalclad.
FTAA: Bigger and Worse
The FTAA would effectively expand NAFTA to all of the western
hemisphere. By opening up the markets of large economies such as Brazil
and Argentina, the FTAA would crush the local autonomy of indigenous
communities, put labor under immense pressure from corporate control,
and devastate one of the world's most biodiverse environments.
Why are the leaders of these countries allowing such horrible trade
agreements to literally take control of the internal affairs of their
countries? The answer is twofold. First of all, they are left without a
lot of options since most of the governments of Latin America are
already underneath a huge amount of international debt accumulated by
years of borrowing from the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank and now are in a disadvantaged negotiating position. Their
unstable economies enable the US to strong-arm the countries of Latin
America who are desperate for stability and relief from financial
burden.
The second part of the answer lies in the true nature of most Latin
American governments. While in recent years great changes have taken
place in electoral politics all over Latin America (Brazil, Venezuela
and Argentina), most of the leaders still represent the economically
privileged class and race of their countries. Indigenous representation
is still far from realization and many leaders are also investors
looking to profit from free trade agreements through relationships with
multinational corporations.
This misrepresentation is being challenged today with popular uprisings
across the hemisphere (and soon in Miami).
This past October in Bolivia, a huge revolt led by indigenous and
working people ousted the president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (Goni)
because of his insistence in implementing neo-liberal policies. He fled
with his family, interior circle of ministers (including the minister
of defense who undoubtedly would have been held accountable for the 80
civilian deaths that had occurred in the past month during protests)
and $85 million from the National Bank. His current location is
particularly significant because it is none other than the city of
Miami... and while Goni might be safe in Florida, his ideals, embodied
in the FTAA, are not.
Stay tuned for journals from the FTAA!
Ali Tonak graduated from Bard College after studying molecular biology.
He is currently employed as a construction worker.
Source of statistics:
http://www.ips-dc.org/downloads/NAFTA%20at%207.pdf
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article_print.cfm?i=71044
U.S. engineers shortchanged
SHARON SCOTT
November 19, 2003
Should we even encourage our children to seek engineering careers?
Should we throw money into their college educations?
Because likely there is no job at the end of this investment. Our
corporations have been allowed to bring low-paid engineers into the
United States at an alarming rate since The Immigration Act of 1990 was
revised to admit foreign nationals for permanent employment-based
programs.
This H-1B Visa program has resulted in approximately 200,000 immigrants
(mostly from India) in 1998-1999; 600,000 in years 1999-2001; 100,000
in 2002; and approximately 240,000 in 2003. These workers include
electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers.
Compare this to the rising unemployment of U.S. engineers. The
unemployment rate for electrical and electronic engineers reached 7
percent, 6.5 percent for computer engineers and 7.5 percent for
computer hardware engineers. The U.S. electronic industry shed 560,000
high-paying manufacturing and service jobs between Jan. 1, 2001, and
Dec. 31, 2002.
There are supposed to be certain criteria for corporations to be
allowed to import these workers. These include having tried to hire
American engineers. There is no strict monitoring of the requirements,
so corporate abuse is rampant.
And the fees charged to corporations for this program are not going to
the training programs for which they were intended. Instead of training
for professional-level jobs, the funding is for entry-level training.
To add insult to injury, some of the U.S. engineers are forced, as part
of their severance pay, to train the immigrant engineers for their own
jobs!
The studies show that these new workers are paid substantially less
than the American engineers, although equal pay was one of the rules.
The imported engineers are reluctant to complain since they are
"indentured servants" for six years or longer. Non-U.S. engineering
services firms are importing technical workers through U.S.
subsidiaries who are then outsourced to other U.S. companies, allowing
these U.S. companies to lay off their American engineers.
By crying "competition," corporations are forever reducing their costs
by firing their U.S. engineers and indenturing the newly imported
replacements. This downward spiral will continue, since there will
always be some company reducing the wages even of these new folks. Paul
Kostek, a former president of The Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, said, "How can you compete with an $800-a-month
engineer?"
My question to Gov. Kulongoski and Sens. Wyden and Smith, when you
gather together in Portland for your economic summit, is: How are you
going to help our student-engineers compete with this corporate crime?
And how can we get federal financial aid for our state colleges when
the vast majority of money goes to the elite colleges (Harvard,
Princeton, Yale)?
Sharon Scott of Salem is a clinical social worker, small-business owner
and parent of an Oregon State engineering student.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/07/MNG4Q2SEAM1.DTL
Credit agencies sending our files abroad
David Lazarus
Friday, November 7, 2003
)2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
URL:
sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/07/MNG4Q2SEAM1.
DTL
Two of the three major credit-reporting agencies, each holding detailed
files on about 220 million U.S. consumers, are in the process of
outsourcing sensitive operations abroad, and a third may follow suit
shortly, industry officials acknowledge for the first time.
Privacy advocates say the outsourcing of files that include Social
Security numbers and complete credit histories could lead to a surge in
identity theft because U.S. laws cannot be enforced overseas.
For their part, the credit agencies say the trend is a necessary cost-
cutting move in light of new legislation that would allow all consumers
to obtain free copies of their credit reports.
The top credit agencies -- Equifax, Experian and Trans Union -- have
refused in the past to comment on their outsourcing plans. No longer.
"A hundred percent of our mail regarding customer disputes is going to
go to India at some point," said David Emery, executive vice president
and chief financial officer of TransUnion in Chicago. "We are now
testing the system and negotiating a contract with an outside vendor.
We expect to sign that contract by the end of the year."
Emery said in an interview that the decision to have an Indian firm
handle thousands of written requests for changes to credit files each
year was necessitated in part by the amended Fair Credit Reporting Act,
which was approved by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.
The act would require credit agencies to provide copies of personal
credit files to anyone who asks -- an expense that TransUnion, for one,
estimates could cost the company as much as $350 million a year.
A credit file serves as a snapshot of one's legal identity and
financial status. It contains a person's name, address, date of birth,
Social Security number and details of relationships with all
credit-card issuers and other lenders.
Emery also said the decision to "offshore'' a key customer service was
necessitated by "the competition placed on us by Equifax and Experian."
Equifax, he said, was the first major credit agency to move operations
abroad, establishing a facility in the Caribbean. Experian, meanwhile,
is "actively testing" work with an overseas affiliate, Emery said.
"We had to get into this process for defensive reasons," he said.
An Equifax spokesman's first response when asked about the Atlanta
company's outsourcing was to insist that all customer service was
handled at North American facilities. Confronted with TransUnion's
remarks, though, a senior Equifax official later offered a different
answer.
"We have a vendor in Jamaica," said Rob Hogan, senior vice president of
customer services. "The Jamaican workers handle data entry at the very
beginning of the reinvestigation process (for disputed credit
reports)."
He said the overseas workers had "limited access" to consumers' credit
files but were "closely supervised by our Atlanta office."
Hogan acknowledged that Equifax had had "problems from time to time"
with consumers' privacy being compromised. But he said each problem had
led to improvements in security. He also said there had been no known
security breaches in the four years that Equifax has outsourced to
Jamaica.
"We take great care of our data," Hogan stressed. "It's our
livelihood."
An Experian spokesman, Addrian Brooks, denied Trans Union's assertion
that the Costa Mesa company is now "actively testing" an overseas
operation. "We are confident that Trans Union doesn't know what our
plans are because we don't know what their plans are," he said.
However, Brooks repeatedly emphasized that Experian could outsource
work abroad at any time.
"We definitely are evaluating every option on the table, and offshoring
is one of them," he said. "I don't want to be quoted as saying we'll
never do it."
Privacy advocates say the outsourcing of credit agencies' work abroad
and hence access to U.S. consumers' credit files -- dramatically
increases the chance that confidential information will get into the
wrong hands.
"Consumers should be worried," said Beth Givens, director of the
Privacy Rights Clearing House in San Diego. "The infrastructure to
protect information just isn't there in a lot of these places."
Credit industry officials bristle at such talk.
"Are we saying that Hindus are more criminal?" asked Stuart Pratt,
president of the Consumer Data Industry Association, a trade group for
credit- reporting agencies. "Are we saying that workers in India are
less safe? That strikes me as xenophobic, and I don't want to go
there."
But privacy advocates say that this isn't a question of people's being
more or less trustworthy in one place or another. It's a question of
enforcement of strict U.S. laws.
"The problem is not that they're in India," said Chris Hoofnagle,
associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in
Washington. "The problem is that American laws are not going to be
enforced in India."
In fact, the Indian government, largely at the urging of privacy-
conscious European officials, is working on new legislation aimed at
better controlling the country's rapidly growing data-processing
industry.
But privacy advocates note that India passed a similar cyber-crime law
several years ago making it illegal to steal information from
computers. Since then, only 11 people have been charged with violating
the law and, of that number, only two cases are being prosecuted.
"If you're an international crime ring, and you want Social Security
numbers for identity theft, you're going to look at the weakest link,"
said Givens at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "And that's quite
possibly these overseas companies."
The credit-rating agencies say that privacy and security are their most
important considerations and that they hold overseas affiliates to the
same high standards that they hold their domestic offices.
However, California's two Democratic senators expressed alarm that the
agencies are outsourcing work.
"The application of American law in a foreign country is difficult, if
not impossible," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "Therefore, the more
companies move overseas, the less American law can control the uses for
which personal data is put. And this can only represent an increasing
threat to the privacy of our citizens."
Sen. Barbara Boxer said she would ensure that the matter was raised as
senators and House members completed changes to the Fair Credit
Reporting Act.
"This information is very significant, and I intend to make sure that
the conferees who are finalizing the bill are aware of The Chronicle's
investigation in hopes that they will protect Americans from such
outrageous invasions of privacy," Boxer said.
David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He also
can be seen regularly on KTVU's "Mornings on 2." Send tips or feedback
to dlazarus@sfchronicle.com.
)2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/031126_att.cfm
November 26, 2003
AT&T Wireless Blocks Employees Access to News Stories About
Offshoring
By D. David Beckman
WashTech News
AT&T Wireless is now tracking all Internet browsing by its employees,
at one point last week even blocking access to online media stories
that were perceived by company officials as critical of its offshoring
activities.
Employees reported last Thursday that when they attempted to read
online news reports about AT&T Wireless offshoring activities on The
Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Web sites, a blocking
alert appeared on their Web browsers warning them that access to those
stories was blocked.
"Warning Notice," the alert reads. "You have attempted to access a site
that has been deemed inappropriate by our business and blocked from ALL
internal access. A record of this request has been logged and will be
provided to Business Security upon request."
Below the message, in capital letters, a line reads, "PLEASE REFRAIN
FROM ANY FURTHUR ATTEMPTS!"
Company employees who spoke to WashTech News on the condition that they
would not be identified said that currently navigating from their work
computer to any Internet site that carries news reports critical of
AT&T Wireless produces a similar alert, but the sites are now
accessible.
"It really makes you feel like Big Brother is watching," said one
employee. "It's intimidating."
Last Wednesday (Nov. 19) WashTech News and the Wall Street Journal
published stories detailing how AT&T Wireless is reducing its domestic
IT workforce, and forcing many current employees to train their foreign
replacements. Internal company documents obtained by WashTech News show
that the replacements are employees of Indian offshore outsourcing
firms such as Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro, Ltd.
The following day (Nov. 20), the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The
Seattle Times newspapers published similar stories.
Redmond-based AT&T Wireless is the third-largest mobile phone company
in the United States, and employs about 30,000 workers, approximately
3,900 of whom work in IT. Most of the IT employees are based in Redmond
and Bothell, Wash., and in Allen, Texas.
Internal documents obtained by WashTech News show that as many as 70
percent of the companys IT workers will lose their jobs, many of
which are being sent to India. Several AT&T Wireless IT workers claim
that many who are slated to be laid off are being forced to train their
Indian replacements.
"It's not like the company is not doing well financially," said an
employee. "It is doing quite well. This [offshoring] is motivated by
pure greed."
http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_1741.shtml
Guest Commentary
AN AMERICAN SCAM: H-1B VISAS
By Dr. Gene A. Nelson and Frosty Wooldridge
Nov 20, 2003, 00:15
Our elected officials in Washington, DC take an oath of office to
defend and protect American citizens. Senators and
Representatives pledge their honor to work for the benefit of their
American constituents who voted them into office. However, today, after
one decade, 890,000 high tech American citizens were forced to train
foreign workers and then were fired via the H-1B visa program. In 2000,
not satisfied with 115,000 visas per year, Congress increased the
annual quota to more than 195,000 visas. That visa is why you hear a
foreign voice with broken English when you call for high tech help.
Its your clue that another American citizen is out of work.
Millions of college - trained American citizens have suffered
unemployment via Congressional actions. While employers raise the false
claim that positions are being "offshored," in reality, immigrants from
nations such as India, China, and Russia are displacing American
citizens while eroding American wage scales. Simultaneously, the
economic elite, who capture most of the value added by these
professionals, are experiencing unprecedented increases in their
personal wealth - as working Americanss economic stability teeters
on the brink.
Hundreds of thousands of American citizen recent college graduates are
unable to find work. Instead, they are being forced to take low -
skill positions that make scant use of their training. Is this the
America we aspire to? Many still live, uninsured, with their parents.
Employers covet the "fresh cheap young blood" from Third World nations,
instead.
Government leaders trumpet "rising productivity" and continue to
suggest that job creation will eventually catch up with population
growth. The grim reality is that millions of jobs have been cut since
2000. Those visa holders are "officially" working only eight hours per
day. Thus, having millions of these people working as indentured
servants in exchange for potential employer "green card" sponsorship
results in tens of millions of hours per year of uncompensated overtime
- an employer windfall worth billions.
Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman described the H-1B visa program as
another government subsidy (to employers) in 2002. How many more
subsidies can we afford?
Highly skilled and experienced professionals with Ph.Ds and two
decades of "high tech" employment are told by employers they are
"overqualified." This thinly - disguised illegal employment
discrimination on the basis of age and national origin has meant that
many Americans have been seeking full - time employment since 2001.
(One employer, Genuity, Inc. retained its special visa holders while
axing the jobs of hundreds of American citizens.)
It should be clear by now that these special visa programs, which are a
form of corporate welfare, often as a quid - pro - quo for generous
campaign contributions, are destroying America as a participatory
democracy. Plutocracy is becoming the power behind many government
leaders.
A BRIEF HISTORY
The history of these employer - designed "cheap labor" programs
includes many ethical lapses. The H visa was created in 1952 to give
"special handling" to western range-land owners who wanted inexpensive
imported sheepherders. The term "special handling" means that employers
dont have to attest that they are usurping American citizens
access to jobs. In 1976, in response to still undisclosed
considerations, the Association of American Universities (AAU)
successfully lobbied U.S. Representative Joshua Eilberg for the passage
of the "Eilberg Amendment" which granted universities special handling
for college professors and researchers. AAU members imported
unprecedented numbers of these skilled professionals at bargain -
basement prices, since the employer could sponsor the special visa
holder for permanent residency after six years of quasi - slave
labor. These colleges cut off the chance for bright, dedicated American
citizens to pursue a career in research or teaching. Instead, some
worked in those fields for a total of six years, but were discarded by
employers like yesterdays newspaper.
Even more shocking, employers are now importing people to work in very
sensitive positions affecting our nations infrastructure and
national defense. Non - American workers are teaching our young
people in elementary schools - and teaching some very un - American
values, (such as how unimportant women are, based on the entrenched
cultures of India, Middle East and mainland China) to their receptive
young charges.
IMPORTING POVERTY
The goal of most employers is clear. Drive down U.S. wages with labor
gluts that result from removing all protections against displacement by
desperate Third World wage earners.
OUR NEXT STEPS
What can be done to equalize the power of American citizens against
these "robber barons?" The first step is to widely circulate
information like this article. The opposition annually spends millions
of dollars in sophisticated public relations campaigns. American
citizens, harnessing the power of the Internet, can counteract their
propaganda.
Joining organizations such as WashTech.com, NAEA.US, NumbersUSA.com and
FAIRUS.ORG gives you access to citizen empowerment tools to take back
this democracy before it is too late. The leadership of reformers such
as U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo should be supported and encouraged.
We hope it does not take bloody street riots to re-establish American
democracy.
The job you save by becoming an activist today may be your job
tomorrow.
More of Frosty Wooldridge on MichNews.com
Dr. Gene Nelson (c0030180@airmail.net) has been campaigning for reform
of American labor markets for two decades. He is a sought - after
source utilized by many television, radio, and print reporters. He has
lobbied during many visits to Washington, DC for reform of the special
visa programs. In 1999, he presented testimony critical of the H-1B
visa program in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is writing a book
An American Scam : How Special Interests Undermine National Security
with Endless Techie Gluts. A 27 page summary version is available
gratis via an email request to the author at (c0030180@airmail.net)
Frosty Wooldridge (frostyw@juno.com) is a former US Army Medical
Service Corps officer, Colorado teacher, author, mountain climber and
has bicycled 100,000 miles on six continents to see overpopulation up
close and ugly. For citizens wanting to take action nationally, go to
www.numbersusa.com or write the authors for state websites.
) Copyright 2003 MichNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/news/997472.asp?cp1=1#BODY
More trade pact angst after NAFTA
New pact would expand free trade from Argentina to Canada
By Paola Iuspa-Abbott
SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL
MIAMI, Nov. 26 For the thousands of Florida workers who lost their
jobs to free trade and the industries that struggled with open
commerce, free trade comes at a price. The proposed FTAA would remove
trade tariffs and quotas from imports and exports to allow a free flow
of goods, capital and services from Canada to Argentina.
AS GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS from 34 countries in the Americas met
in Miami last week to negotiate a proposed Free Trade Area of the
Americas hemispheric trade bloc, some Florida industries are still
recovering from the downside of the North American Free Trade
Agreement, the 1993 pact among the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Some Floridians fear an extension of NAFTA to Central and South
America could be devastating to the states economy.
But a survey of Florida-based international trade experts and
those in affected industries, revealed mixed opinions about the
states future in a widened free-trade pact.
NAFTAs track record on jobs has been criticized. Since it was
ratified in 1993, more than 35,500 jobs disappeared in the import and
export industry, according to the Economic Policy Institute report,
"The High Price of Free Trade," published Nov. 17. The Washington,
D.C., research and education center is a nonprofit organization that
analyzes the living standards of working people. It claims to be a
non-partisan group, but its list of board members includes nine labor
organization leaders and two former labor secretaries in Democratic
administrations.
California lost 115,723 jobs in the past 10 years, the most in
the nation, the report showed. From 1993 to 2002, more than 880,000
jobs vanished nationally in the import and export field. Of that total,
686,700 jobs, or 78 percent, were in manufacturing industries,
according to the institute.
Business Week: When California loses jobs to Idaho
Since 1993, American capital has flown to Mexico to fund the
construction of thousands of factories that manufacture products for
export to the United States. The 10-year-old pact has widened the
countrys trade deficit gap with its neighbors. The United States
net export deficit with Mexico and Canada jumped from $30 billion in
1993 to $85 billion in 2002, a 281 percent increase, the institute
said.
South Florida Biz Journal
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The proposed FTAA would remove trade tariffs and quotas from
imports and exports to allow a free flow of goods, capital and services
from Canada to Argentina and all nations in between except Cuba. The
agreement is supposed to be worked out by January 2005, a self-imposed
deadline.
FTAA proponents have said the proposed trade bloc, comprised of
800 million consumers, would open doors to small and medium-size
companies in the area of trade and professional services, said David
Batt, an international trade consultant with the Florida Chamber of
Commerce in Tallahassee, a network of more than 100 chambers of
commerce representing about 100,000 businesses.
Floridas geographic location means the state stands to win
rather than lose with the creation of the FTAA, said Charles Jainarain,
a trade consultant with Greenheart in Orlando.
As a gateway for commerce to and from the Americas, Florida
would benefit from an increased movement of goods, he said.
"All the trade partners will benefit in the long run," he said.
"But you have an adjustment [time], and in that period of adaptation,
some companies expand and some others contract."
While some jobs may move to low-wage countries in Latin America,
service and transportation jobs would be created in Florida, which is
an in-transit state for commerce, he said.
But replacing some jobs with others worries some labor and
interest groups.
"How do you tell an employee who worked at the same factory for
22 years and is making $15 an hour that his job is moving to Mexico?"
Jainarain said. "What do you do with those workers who are five years
from retirement? Do you train them to work in information technology? I
dont think so."
FREE TRADE IMPACT LINGERS ON
But for those in Florida severely affected by opening the United
States to Mexican and Canadian products, free trade remains an open
wound, said Terrence McElroy, spokesman for Florida Agriculture
Commissioner Charles Bronson.
"It affected us very negatively," he said. "It is hard to
quantify. It resulted in vegetable growers going out of business."
In the early 1990s, there were about 200 tomato growers. Now
there are about 70, said Reggie Brown, executive VP of the Tomato
Exchange in Orlando.
Business Week: Bush's wobbly line on trade
A provision in NAFTA put in place to protect his industry did
not work, he said. "We were able to stabilize our situation by using
the [U.S.] anti-dumping law."
Mexican produce prices tend to be cheaper than Floridas, as
meeting the standards set by U.S. labor and environmental regulations
bring domestic prices up.
"We are not protectionists," McElroy said. "We advocate free
trade because the greatest potential growth in our industry is in
exports. But trade has to be fair. We need to keep the tariff in place
to be able to compete with them."
Florida citrus is one of the strongest industries opposing the
FTAA under its current format.
Currently, Florida competes with Brazil in the production of
oranges. Florida and the South American nation produce up to 90 percent
of the orange juice consumed in the world, said Casey Pace, spokeswoman
for Florida Citrus Mutual of Lakeland, an advocate group that
represents about 10,000 citrus growers.
While Brazil exports 99 percent of its production, about 90
percent of Floridas production is consumed domestically and 10
percent is exported.
Once the tariffs are gone, the Florida citrus industry fears
Brazil will be able to sell its orange juice at a lower price and gain
a monopoly the U.S. market, Pace said. The tariff now is seven cents a
liter of orange juice. The citrus industry employs about 90,000
workers, she said.
Trade pacts also have the potential to undermine a nations
sovereignty, said Bruce Nissen, director of the Center for Labor
Research and Studies at Florida International University in Miami.
Countries may find themselves involved in legal battles with
international corporations suing governments for enacting worker or
consumer protection laws, which they view as trade barriers, Nissen
said.
"Trade agreements are of the multinational corporations, with
the multinational corporations and for the multinational corporations,"
he said.
A ray of hope with the FTAA process is that, contrary to NAFTA,
it invited civic and grassroots groups to submit recommendations to be
included in the negotiations.
"It is progress," Nissen said. "Of course, it could be window
dressing."
Pro-trade advocates said it is difficult to work out a pact that
makes all parties happy.
"It takes courage and vision to be willing to create a free
trade area," said Al Cardenas, a partner with the law firm of Tew
Cardenas Rebak Kellogg Lehman DeMaria Tague Raymond & Levine, which has
offices in Miami and Tallahassee. He served as the chairman of the
Republican Party of Florida from 1999 to 2003.
"In Florida, free trade needs to be cognizant of the fact that
there will be a diminution of jobs and economic development in some
sectors," he said. "But there will be a job increase in sectors related
to servicing imports and exports, trade, legal, transportation, air and
marine cargo and in the sale of goods produced in Florida."
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3110511
Offshoring of IT Jobs Expected to Accelerate
By Sharon Gaudin
November 18, 2003
Textile mills closed their doors, sending their jobs to foreign shores
where labor is cheaper. Shoe manufactures did the same. Then
manufacturers started handing out pink slips to their U.S. workers,
sending the jobs, and the pay, offshore.
Today, the IT industry is the next one to fall.
Analysts call it 'globalization', but IT workers, especially
programmers and technicians in corporate call centers, will call it
unemployment. And it's coming in a time when the industry is still
reeling from the shattering of the dot-com boom, several years of
economic turbulence and a high-tech slump. IT workers, who only a few
years ago had the hottest jobs on the market and raked in great money,
are either unemployed themselves or know people who are.
And industry watchers say that's about to get much worse.
''IT, as people understand it now, is never going to be the same,''
says Dale Smith, an information and technology advisor to the British
Consulate, speaking at CDExpo in Las Vegas. ''The model has changed.
The world has changed... That process is unstoppable. Companies will
continue to seek lower-cost labor markets. IT workers must think about
how they will survive this. How do we have a career in this new
market?''
And it's a market that will change quickly.
Today, approximately 8 percent of IT work is outsourced, according to
Gordon Brooks, president and CEO of E5 Systems, Inc., an IT outsourcing
company based in Waltham, Mass. In five years, that number will have
exploded to 55 percent.
Forrester Research predicts that $136 billion in wages, or 3.3 million
jobs, will move offshore in the next 15 years.
Most of the analysts speaking at CDExpo say that number, as large as it
sounds, might be wishful thinking. The actual numbers will be much
higher.
''We thought for the last 10 years we had seen big change in IT,'' says
Brooks. ''That was nothing. You can't stop this move. People in IT will
have to reinvent what they're doing. They will have to figure out how
to take advantage of this.''
Analysts say that despite any social and political outcry, IT jobs will
increasingly move offshore. It's a matter of math.
Brooks reports that computer programming is generally calculated to
cost $80 per hour. In India, that figure drops to $22 per hour, and in
China it falls to $15 an hour.
''We can like it or we can not like it, but it's just math,'' said
Brooks, speaking to a crowd at the Las Vegas IT conference. ''It's
nothing but math.''
Mitchell Levy, president and CEO of ECnow.com, a management consulting
firm based in Cupertino, Calif., says IT jobs are largely going to
India and Russia. But increasingly they're starting to head to China,
the Phillippines and Canada. And once they're offshore, the jobs most
likely are not coming back.
During the dot-com boom, it was cool to be a programmer. They were the
pony tail, black t-shirt crowd who worked late at night and played
foosball in the office. It's not so cool to be a programmer today.
Industry watchers agree that programming is one of the first jobs to be
offshored.
''Those programmers have to grow up... If you code for a living, you
need to reinvent yourself,'' says Brooks. ''There will be fewer of
those jobs, and companies will pay less for it. Does that sound like a
good long-term job?''
But analysts also say that not every IT job is heading offshore.
Upper-level and management jobs are the ones to have right now.
''This doesn't mean there won't be technical people onshore,'' says
Brooks. ''But the ones onshore will be on the higher end. They'll be
architect oriented, program managers and business oriented... Now
there's a lot less artistry. It's about managing what we have. The new
artistic stuff being handled somewhere else.''
http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/031126_forum.cfm
November 26, 2003
Seattle Forum Addresses Offshoring of White-Collar Jobs
Story and photos by D. David Beckman
WashTech News
'What is really happening in the high-tech industry in this country is
that a once high-wage industry is now becoming a low-wage industry.'
-- Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry
Educational Foundation
Alan Tonelson has seen the futureand it is bleak.
Bleak, at least, for the American middle class, as it continues to
witness high numbers of well-paying jobs disappear, either through
steadily declining wages or the disappearance of white-collar jobs
altogether.
Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry
Educational Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., announced his gloomy
verdict before about 50 audience members at a forum entitled,
"Exporting Washingtons White Collar Jobs." The Nov. 20 forum was
sponsored by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech)
at the University of Washington.
"Offshoring," said Tonelson, "is really just a shorthand term for a
more complex trend. In my view, what is really happening in the
high-tech industry in this country is that a once high-wage industry is
now becoming a low-wage industry."
The reason, he said, is because that is what the leaders of high-tech
industry want. It offers an appealing way to cut costs.
The offshoring of high-tech jobs, which Tonelson called, "relentless,"
represents the ultimate betrayal by globalization of the U.S.
workforce. American workers are being told that sending jobs overseas
will generate new opportunities at home.
American workers are told they will be freed up to perform more
high-level, creative jobs.
Alan Tonelson addresses the audience at the WashTech forum on offshore
outsourcing.
"Leave aside the racist notion that only American workers are capable
of doing creative and fun things. If you think about it, how many of
these creative, fun, superstar jobs are there? Not that many. Most of
these high-tech jobs are composed of boring stuff."
Tonelson, who also authored the 2002 book, The Race to the Bottom: Why
a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking
American Living Standards, shared the podium with former Silicon Valley
high-tech worker Natasha Humphries.
Humphries, a former Palm Inc. employee, testified before Congress in
October about how she was fired shortly after she completed the
training of her Indian replacement.
With the growing number of news accounts about how half a million
white-collar service jobs are following U.S. manufacturing jobs
overseas, Tonelson said more Americans are aware that something is
amiss with the domestic economy, especially when the recent recovery
remains essentially jobless.
Tonelson said that the recovery will be short-lived without dramatic
policy changes in regard to the U.S. economy.
"But unless our national politics change, it is a losing battle."
The way Tonelson sees it, the Bush administration misleads Americans
when it touts recent improvements in the U.S. economy. Most of the
newly created-jobs are relatively low-level service jobs such as those
in retail, banking, or medical care jobs that often pay little
above minimum wage.
Natasha Humphries explains how she was laid off at Palm Inc.
Humphries said she had a feeling she was about to lose her job after
she returned from a 10-day vacation last June. During her absence, her
counterpart in India whom she had trained conducted a software test
plan for her project.
"The plan was executed flawlessly," said Humphries. "How many people
can leave their job for 10 days to someone else offshore and not have
any glitches?" she said.
Last August, Humphries and about 40 percent of her peers, all of whom
held senior positions at Palm, were laid off.
"We were the best of the best, those who remained after scores of
layoffs over a three-year period." Humphries said those in India who
assumed her former co-workers jobs are paid the equivalent of about
$5 an hour, which is considered a good wage in that country.
Dispelling Offshoring Myths
Tonelson said it is a myth that only production jobs are moving
offshore to places such as India or China, while so-called higher-value
jobs remain in the United States. It is also a myth that only
lower-scale, tedious jobs are going overseas while the creative,
innovative work in high tech will be performed in the United States.
Tonelson said the challenge for those directly affected by the
high-tech offshoring trend is to make the rest of the country care
about what is happening. One way is to cite concerns about national
security.
Take the future of Chinese and Indian foreign policy, he said.
"No one knows where these countries are headed in terms of their
relations with the United States. I was in China for about three months
last year, and I can tell you that lots of influential Chinese dont
know."
American companies are sending as much advanced technology to workers
in these countries as they can, Tonelson said, and Americans should be
concerned.
"Ive looked into this in Washington (D.C.), and the situation
isnt being monitored by the U.S. government. They dont want to
know. There are no active monitoring mechanisms in place."
The overwhelming number of jobs sent overseas produce goods or services
for the U.S. market, said Tonelson. Substantive foreign markets do not
exist in China or India, because while foreign workers are well-paid by
the standards of their own countries, by Western standards their wages
are typically too low to afford the goods they produce. If the markets
abroad dont exist, he said, then none of the benefits that the
proponents of globalization tout will occur.
Tonelson said that what happens instead is a disconnect between those
populations in the world that produce, and those that consume. Under
normal circumstances, they are the same populations.
According to Tonelson: "Without production, you cannot pay for your
consumption in a responsible way. The United States is steadily losing
its ability to produce and pay for what it consumes."
At some point, he added, the rest of the world will become wary of
lending more money to a U.S. population that consumes so much more than
it produces.
Tonelson said the countrys current course toward globalization is
creating an economic or financial bubble, akin to the stock market
bubble of the late 1990s. Just as the hyper-inflated stock market
crashed, so will a hyper-inflated global economy.
"If you believe in economics, you know this," said Tonelson. "If you
believe in something else, you can continue to have faith that the
world will continue to lend us money as our credit worthiness gets
lower and weaker."
This brings Tonelson back to the current state of the U.S. economy,
which seems to be showing signs of recovery.
"The last two administrations and the Federal Reserve have done a
wonderful job of walking a high wire, of using financial and economic
policy gimmicks to sustain consumption in this country."
But, says Tonelson, the U.S. government is running low on gimmicks.
While the current recovery could last for some time, the country is
fast approaching what he called "a day of reckoning."
Tonelsons advice: restrictions on U.S. trade flows are essential
from an economic point-of-view, and must be put in place.
"The longer we put off the decision to tighten our belts and start
saving, rather than consuming, and stop sending our manufacturing
capability offshore, the more painful the corrective measures will be."
"Im all in favor of capitalism and free markets because both have
performed miracles in the past. But both must be managed properly to do
that, and they are not."
That means the United States must accept slower growth and
belt-tightening for some time.
http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_1788.shtml
Guest Commentary
Free Trade Area of the AmericasBy SARTRE
Nov 25, 2003, 00:00
Are you ready for the next trade agreement? Before denouncing all those
anarchists for disrupting the peaceful tranquillity of a Miami
afternoon, think about all those additional benefits from an entire
Western Hemisphere expansion of NAFTA. Go directly to the latest
November 21, 2003, third draft of FTAA agreement for proof that America
will be restricted from enacting protective measures to stem the
hemorrhage of the trade deficit.
Article 5. Tariff Elimination Program
5.1. Except as otherwise provided in this Agreement, no Party may
increase any existing customs duty, or adopt any new customs duty, on
an originating good at a level higher than that specified in the
Partys commitments pursuant to the Tariff Elimination Program.
5.2. Except as otherwise provided in this Agreement, each Party shall
eliminate its customs duties on originating goods, in accordance with
the terms established in Annex XX (Tariff Elimination Program).
5.3. [The Tariff Elimination Program shall not be applied to goods that
receive export subsidies] [, except those permitted in conformity with
rights and obligations of the WTO.]
Are you ready for a dramatic increase in outflow of wealth from the
United States to the rest of the Americas? Yep, thats what you get
under the Free Trade deception. Remember all those promises that
exports to Mexico would raise the standard of living on both sides of
the borders? Well, you should already know this sad record. So why do
we, the American public, need another sell out trade agreement?
Obviously the masters of the supra global corporate/state want to
increase their strangle hold on international commerce. Still have
doubts, try this one on for size:
Inter-governmental agreements
7.6.The provisions in this Chapter will not apply to inter-governmental
agreements signed or to be signed by the Parties. A clear exemption for
government monopolies! More to the point: [Article 9. Market Regulatory
Policies and Measures, [Legal][Designated] Monopoli
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