100 Years Ago, Teddy Roosevelt made a speech for us
New Nationalism was Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive political philosophy during the 1912 election. He made the case for what he called the New Nationalism in a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, in August 1910. The central issue he argued was human welfare versus property rights. He insisted that only a powerful federal government could regulate the economy and guarantee social justice. Roosevelt believed that the concentration in industry was not necessarily bad, if the industry behaved responsibly. He wanted executive agencies (not the courts) to regulate business. The federal government should be used to protect the laboring men, women and children from what he believed to be exploitation. In terms of policy, the New Nationalism supported child labor laws and minimum wage laws for women. Roosevelt supported graduated income and inheritance taxes, workers' compensation for industrial accidents, regulation of the labor of women and children, tariff revision, and firmer regulation of corporations.
Chamber, ACIP Say Foreign Workers Needed, Slam AFL-CIO Immigration Commission Plan
by Stan Sorscher
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Council on International Personnel issued a report Aug. 11 highlighting the importance of highly skilled foreign workers and blasting arguments made by the AFL-CIO in favor of a commission to determine the future flow of guestworkers.
According to the report, titled Regaining America's Competitive Advantage: Making Our Immigration System Work, the “admission of high skilled foreign nationals provides significant benefits to the U.S. economy and much of the criticism levied at such foreign nationals and their employers is misplaced.”
Part of the chamber's report focuses on rebutting a study released in Dec. 2009 by AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees that found that employers who use the H-1B program often abuse the system, by claiming false labor shortages to justify importing workers who then are intimidated and forced to work for low pay.
“Closing the door to highly educated individuals who allow U.S. companies to remain successful and competitive will weaken, not strengthen, our country's economy,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president of labor, immigration, and employee benefits for the chamber. “The best policy for the United States is one that sides with freedom and innovation, not restriction,” he added.
The Best Job Training Is a JobStan Sorscher
Stan Sorscher is Legislative Director at the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), a union representing over 20,000 scientists, engineers, technical and professional employees in the aerospace industry. He has been with SPEEA since 2000.
As the economy struggles, we are told that education will be the key to renewed prosperity. So, I was quite surprised to read in the New York Times about a mother who was accused of over-investing in her daughter's college education, by borrowing to send her to NYU. After graduation, they realized the daughter's employment prospects fell well short of the income she would need to pay off her loans. The article left the impression that the family's resources would have been better spent on some other investment, perhaps real estate, or T-bills. U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT WorkersA $22 million, federally-backed program aims to help outsourcers in South Asia become more fluent in areas like Java programming—and the English language. In an article posted today on its website, Information Week discusses the intention of a Federal Agency to train foreign workers to compete with US IT workers using tax dollars. Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $22 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia. Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent's low labor costs. |
This Time It's Armenia: USAID Funds IT In EurasiaAfter pledging millions to bolster outsourcing in South Asia, federal agency extends largesse to a new recipient. Even as controversy mounts over its funding of IT outsourcers in South Asia, the U.S. Agency for International Development has announced a program under which it will partner with the government of Armenia—a nation anxious to lure computer work from American shores--to promote the development of the country's information technology industry. Level the Playing Field in Trade Policyby Stan Sorcher One popular position on trade is to "level the playing field." I'm not always sure what that means, but I'm in favor of it. Any intention to level the playing field starts with a simple realization -- that rules of trade can favor one outcome over another. For instance, our current free trade policies tip the playing field steeply in favor of more imports, and movement of production to low-wage countries. This is good for multinational businesses and investors, but bad for workers and communities. Trade agreements spell out investor rights in fine detail, while pushing aside environmental conditions, labor rights, human rights and public health. |
