OT: On the killing floor; immigrations impacts on wages

[livinincali]

[quote=CA renter][quote=Mayze]CA renter,

I have been in manufacturing for many years, starting with an internship in Ford’s Dearborn plant in the 70’s. I would never work in a unionized shop because of all of the inefficiencies that were ‘won’ by the unions in negotiation with management.

At the same time, I share your dismay at the wealth concentration that occurs when labor is exploited.

The best that I can come up with is legally mandated minimum compensation, but that is open to corruption as well.

The question is: how do you get the capital voice and the labor voice working together for both short and long term success for the enterprise, employees, and investors?

You’ve stated a convincing case for labor’s need to have power. How does that power not be abused, just as capital’s power is now being abused?[/quote]

Good question. IMHO, the answer lies in the *balance* of power, with checks and balances that make sure neither side is able to fully exploit unilateral power. It is the balance of power that keeps corruption in check (as much as possible), and ensures that the majority have a voice in how the economy works for everyone involved. As of now, the power is almost entirely tilted toward capital. That’s what’s causing so many of the problems in our economy, IMO.[/quote]

Part of the problem though is labor isn’t really fighting capital directly anymore in most cases. The most powerful labor unions are going to the government for more money/resources and while they might prefer the government getting those resources from the capital owners they’ll take it from where ever they can get it. I think that’s why labor unions have lost the sympathy of the common man. The common man sees labor demanding more taxes and when capital shows up to push those taxes onto the common man the common man sees both groups being greedy bastards.

[CA renter]

Again, the public unions, for the most part, have NOT been asking for more over the past few years. Many of them have **voluntarily** made concessions in order to help their public employers out. They often understand the situation, and have either taken cuts or are extending existing contracts without raises or other increases.

That whole, “the unions are sucking us dry!” meme is coming from the (VERY well-funded) Privatization Movement. These people/entities are NOT taxpayer advocates (no matter what they officially call themselves); they are simply looking to take a greater share of the public resources and cash flows, and public unions are the only thing standing in their way.

Hapless Joe Sixpack has been duped. It’s the people behind the Privatization Movement who are responsible for the declining wages and benefits in the private sector. Public employees and their unions have been fighting for many years against the very things that have been pulling J6 under.

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Just one example of what I’m talking about (please read the entire article, too):

“Having solved the problem of people not wasting enough time on the internet, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now tackling his first real-world political cause: immigration reform. With a slick new non-profit group funded by tech millionaires, Zuckerberg is rallying Silicon Valley’s elite into a political force they hope might one day rival Wall Street. Zuckerberg’s political moves are of a piece with his career as a tech mogul: hugely ambitious, painfully awkward, entirely self-interested, and surprisingly successful. And he’s just getting started.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg unveiled the vehicle of his political will: FWD.us, a bipartisan, non-profit political advocacy group that sounds like an iPhone app. FWD.us has attracted big names from both politics and technology, including former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, Romney adviser Dan Senor, LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman, and Google chairman Eric Schmidt. The group hopes to raise $50 million to fund its lobbying for the passage of comprehensive immigration reform, which is currently making its way through Congress.

Why immigration? We need those smart foreign brains: In a Washington Post op-ed announcing FWD.us, Zuckerberg wrote that “in a knowledge economy, the most important resources are the talented people we educate and attract to our country.” To that end, FWD.us says on its website it aims to “establish a streamlined process for admitting future workers” and increase the number of H-1B visas that let companies hire high-skilled foreign workers to “continue to promote innovation and meet our workforce needs.”

The implicit argument behind FWD.us is that the U.S. doesn’t have enough high-skilled domestic workers to meet tech companies’ needs. This is a myth, and Zuckerberg and FWD.us are just the latest tech players to promote it. In fact there is no shortage of domestic IT workers, as shown in a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. While there is an unusually low unemployment rate among American tech workers (3%), they haven’t enjoyed the large salary increases that would signal a shortage. There is also little evidence that the foreign workers tech companies hire are any better than Americans. The real reason tech companies want to hire more high-skilled immigrants is that they can pay them less than Americans, since immigrants are in a more economically precarious position. More than 80 percent of workers hired under the H-1B program are paid less than their American counterparts, according to the EPI. This kind of outsourcing benefits tech companies while hurting domestic tech workers.”

http://gawker.com/mark-zuckerbergs-self-serving-immigration-crusade-484912430

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