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Win-Win-Win: Boeing sells weapons to China, lays off US workers the next day, US military gains recruits
One Day After Securing A Huge Deal With China, Boeing Lays Off 1000 American Workers
Boeing just laid off 1000 workers in Southern California, according to the Orange County Register.
The move comes just a day after Boeing agreed to a $19 billion deal with China to produce 200 airplanes for the country.
The layoffs affect workers in the company's Long Beach, Anaheim, and Huntington peach facilities. The bulk of the layoffs will occur in Long Beach, where 900 will lose their jobs.
The company has been consistently cutting jobs in Long Beach. It had 20,000 employees there in 1990 and now only has 7,000, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram.
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How long has this shit been going on? 20 years, and really more. It's what Haiti, f.e., has been used for by manufacturers of the US and probably some European countries for longer than 20 years, now.
And offshoring of jobs, as well as outsourcing work, continues and will continue. Even the IRS began outsourcing work to accountants in foreign countries, rather than hiring accountants who are U.S. citizens and/or permanent or landed immigrants in the U.S.; however the latter people are referred to in official terms, permanent or landed immigrants and, therefore, residents who simply haven't become citizens, yet.
But a third way was also used to replace U.S. citizens and perm. residents for jobs performed in the U.S. The jobs were still performed in the U.S., but foreign workers were imported on so-called "temp" status in order to replace the need to hire U.S. citizens and perm. residents, as well as graduating students, including foreign ones who had spent a LOT of money to study in American universities and colleges for several years in order to get degreed and to then hopefully get jobs in the U.S. The H-1B importation program and recruting RACKET was notorious among IT professionals, but while we were the hardest hit, we weren't the only sector or skills sector that was hit with this scheme. Many corporations had downsized their HR departments and used recruiting firms, instead; and these firms, most of them, sought to make a real profitable racket of the H-1B program. They also used the NAFTA TN-1 visa to import workers from Canada, but they were/are far less profitable than H-1Bs, the majority of whom came from India.
About the best resource person on the topic of the H-1B visa, as well as L-1 and I believe another worker importation visas, is Professor Norman Matloff of or at UC Davis. Doing a Web search using his name and "H-1B" or H1-B, some variation thereof, but I think he uses "H-1B", will turn up enough links, including to the related section he has in his UC Davis Web site. There also used to be a Web site called "H-1B Hall of Shame", but anyone who'd read there, if it still exists, would find some dumb content because a serious number of American IT workers stupidly flamed about the impact of the H-1B program, i.e., racket that Pres. GHW Bush began on hehalf of one of his sons who was then working for some law firm, and which Pres. Bill Clinton doubly and then triply worsened; worsening the situation for American IT workers and graduating students (in related fields of study, as well as C. Sc.), that is.
And there was also a Web site called Numbers USA, which I think was numbersusa.com. There might have been some nonsense there as well about the H-1B program, but perhaps not. There definitely was some at the hall of shame Web site, though not because the editor or webmaster of the site wrote that stuff. It's what I call comments from juniors or naive IT professionals who didn't understand what the racket was really all about. They treated it as racial discrimination, when it was about $$$ racket and was also related to globalization. It had and has nothing to do with racism. $$$ is what counts to the elites; $$$ and power.
You will [never] find that sort of naive crap with Prof. Norman Matloff, who's been the longest activist against the H-1B program, except, as he has long said, for around 15,000 visas per year in order for U.S. employers to be able to import foreigners with degrees above the bachelor's degree in computer science and, I suppose anyway, computer engineering, for he said that there was a real lack of Americans with this level of academic advancement. But he was totally against the visas being used for importing foreigners of lesser education. And he became active about this as of when Pres. GHW Bush was creating the program/racket.
At that time, it was the US Dept. of either Commerce or Labor which totally opposed the H-1B program's establishment, and the argument was basically identical to the one of Prof. Matloff, except that the government dept did not include allowance for importing foreigners with master's degrees and PhDs. The government dept's opposition was [total].
The government is run by the rich, by big and rich corporations, the financial elites or wizards, and they run it for themselves; NOT for us.
They have been our enemies for over a century and that's referring to only part of the whole history, for it's been longer. They [are] enemies. They're against appropriate, just, as well as actually necessary regulations. They always want to be able to run their enterprises and enrich themselves however they please, and that can not possibly make for an ally relationship between them and us.
China and India, alone, have roughly a third of the total human population. Asia, according to one or two articles that I read at www.globalresearch.ca last year or the year before, has around 75%, or maybe that many includes Africa. I think to have read that South America has around 500mn, the US has around 300mn, Canada has around 33mn, and I'm not sure about southernmost No. America, but Mexico City used to have around 25mn; it's not a total of 1bn. And all of Europe has less than 1bn, I believe.
There's a lot of market potential in the East or what we call the East of this planet. An article at Global Research last fall, actually, I think it was an article by Pepe Escobar and it was at TomDispatch.com, reported that China's economy has been growing by around 6 to 8% per year and that the rate might rise even higher. Apparently a lot of the population there is finding work and as they find employment that pays above cost of living, they'll have disposable income and will feel free or free-er to spend.
Market is money in the charlatan's as well as business-person's minds; and even good intentions can lead to paving unfortunate, harmful, damaging paths. The East has more or a lot more market potential and I posted about this back in the 1990s when the H-1B racket was hitting or hurting me. We already knew about globalization back then and all a person needed to do was to play "connect the dots". The term "globalization" might not have been used, but if we knew enough about what was going on, including in sectors or skill sectors we didn't work in (it's always good to be broadly, enough, informed), then we could easily understand the use of the term when its use did begin or became commonly known, i.e., "popular".
Globalization has been going on for at least two decades, but I don't know when the term started to be used or when it became commonly known. It was known at the end of the 1990s though. If recalling correctly, then that's when the anti-WTO protest(s) occurred in Seattle and they were about the danger of globalization, this program led y neoliberals. Neocons, neoliberals, what's the difference; like the lack of any of significance between the Dem. and Repub. Parties, both of which work for the rich corporate and financial elites and NOT for us? Of course.
The elites define the course and voters are peons electing their favorite enemies, evils and so-called lesser evils, who are no less evil, but who Dem. supporters like to call less evils. Well, the voters vote for these so-called representatives, political, which of course also means economic; since the economic elites run the government and the politically "elected" work for those elites, NOT for us. They always (nearly always) lie; to us, that is.
This war game has been going on for ages against humanity, but we still have herds, huge herds of peon voters who elect and re-elect their or our predatory enemy, who prey on everyone; not only on the peon voters who elect them, directly (politicians) and indirectly (the top elites), but preying on [everyone], including the alert and wholly innocent among us.
It's still better to be alert, vigilant, and innocent, for at least then you have the satisfaction of having known that shit was going to happen when the herds of voters voted in foreseeably wrong ways.
Voters really need to develop some real courage and start giving Ralph Nader very serious consideration. He's not against corporations. He isn't against the government helping them. He's said this. But when he did say this, he also said that the government must not do this while helping to screw the population. I wholly agree. The problem is the government being controlled by and run for [only] the interests of the rich and rich corporations or business. Iow, his view about this is a holistic one; rather than one-sided or partisan. He is not some fanatic for consumers or the general public to any extremes whatsoever. He knows that business is important, certainly needed. He's just for fairness, seeing to proper business-population and business-government relations.
He's the soundest and most well-rounded in uderstanding, outlook, analysis, et cetera, candidate I know of in the U.S., and I'm not sure that there is better anywhere else, in any country. He sees the big, whole picture, is very well-rounded, say, and his ethics are unreproachable. There is not a better candidate, if he chooses to try to run again, in the country. There may be other good ones, but none being able to best him; definitely not. He's said enough for open-minded and truly independent-minded Americans to be able to see that there is no better political candidate or representative, and he is a representative, for what he says represents the real views and hopes of not a majority, but nevertheless many Americans. He isn't the or any problem at all; it's voters who are the problem, repeatedly fooled by evil, for those who are fooled, that is. There are also many who wittingly support the courses of evil, as well. (We find a lot of that through "our" so-called media.)
Washington does NOT work for us. It does NOT work for the USA. It works for Wall Street and the other biggies!
And there's nothing [new] about that.
During the first half of the 1990s, maybe 1993, DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, which was then famous for its VAX computers and VMS OS, operating system, laid off something like 3,000 to 4,000 dedicated and very experienced employees. They were not only being laid off though. They or many of them were being replaced with contractors; in the U.S. and certainly Massachusetts, where HQ was located (if the company also had plants in other states and/or countries). Many of the then former or soon-to-be former employees of high expertise wanted to apply to be hired on contract, but they were rejected. The company set a policy that employees being laid off or cut could not be considered for any of the contract jobs they would've been experts for. Many or all of them would've gladly applied, but were told that they would not be considered; that they were not eligible.
Somewhere around that same period, 1992, 1993, 1994, around that time, P&W, Pratt & Whitney, laid off thousands of employees, and (reportedly or apparently) hired many contractors, while cut employees probably were again refused for the contract jobs. From what I gathered, they were also treated as ineligible for hire on contract, anyway.
Other corporations have similarly acted, but the government also has. When working as a computer contractor/consultant in the second half of the 1990s, I remember having read about government employees being cut and replaced with contracted workers, and the govt employees being cut were denied eligibility for the contract jobs. Those employees officially had to have been unemployed from the government for either one or two years before they could apply for contract jobs with the government and be, in theory anyway, really considered for hiring. I'm pretty sure to recall that they had to have been unemp'd from their former govt jobs for at least two years.
All of this is extremely screwed up. Why not let employees being cut apply for and be re-hired on contract basis? No mature adult business person could deny this right and the excellent fit. Who better is there to hire than someone who's been doing the same work well for the same employer? The person has already proven that they can and do do the job thoroughly, to full company or employer satisfaction.
That sort of situation stinks; there's something very rotten about it and it smells of racket. Getting the details of what lies behind such decision-making, however, is another matter. It stinks, but I don't know what the unreported reasons are; only being able to [guess] that there's something racket-like about it.
My last IT contract was with P&W in Hartford. One day out on break an employee of apparently many years at the company remarked about me being contractor and very many former employees having been cut, having said this in a reproaching way, though mildly; not like attacking me. So I asked when the cuts happened and it was years earlier. I was evidently not hired to replace anyone who was recently cut and replied in this sense to the woman. She smiled, was friendly about this. But it was a good reminder about companies laying off large numbers of employees and, sooner or later, hiring contractors to do the work employees would've done.
I prefer contract jobs, but wouldn't want to be used for cutting employees; esp. not employees who should be given top priority for rehire as contractors. Contracting was not being scab, not for me. But employers can use contractors in this manner without contractors knowing about it.
When employees are laid off and contractors are going to be hired to do the same or similar work, then the former or soon-to-be former employees should have the first chance for these jobs. If that policy is not in place, then we have racket, again; certainly injustice anyway.
As for Boeing manufacturing airplanes for China in China, I don't see a problem with this, for if China is going to pay BIG money for these planes, then Chinese workers should be employed. It's like American corporations in Canada employing Canadians for production in Canada. There's a real problem for American workers in this, but I don't think the problem is with the hiring of foreigners for production in their own countries even when the companies they work for are foreign. The problem, if I'm not mistaken, is at another level.
Perhaps that level is a lack of regulation by the government, U.S. Maybe the government should strictly regulate globalization of companies with multi-national business. Perhaps the government should create and enforce a regulation saying that American corporations can sell to foreign markets, but all production must be in the U.S.
I don't know what the fair answer is, but American business has had foreign production for a very long time; at least decades, and actually longer when we consider, f.e., Haiti. However, I believe that foreign countries where foreign companies establish plants for production for products that will be sold in those countries in considerable number have the right to require that people of those or these populations be hired for this production.
What's really bad is American companies producing in foreign countries where labor is relatively to very cheap and then selling the products back in the U.S.
That leads or contributes to "phantom GDP", which Paul Craig Roberts and others have written about, and it's bullshit GDP. But it also means exploitation of foreigners. I read last fall that American manufacturers producing with "slave" labor in Haiti selling their products as "Made in America" or "Made in the USA" in the US, f.e. Haitians get paid maybe 75 cents to make a coat that sells for $175 or so in the US and there's something awfully f*cked up about these numbers, though it's not much or really worse than the American rap artist who had T-Shirts made to popularize himself, paying Mexicans something like 15 cents per hour or 15 cents per T-shirt, which he sold for around $20 apiece.
American culture? Scum culture!