Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, President Trump, Henry Heimuller, VP Pence, Pat Robertson, Debi Corsiglia’s dog, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Standard Disclaimer.
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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs By Tammy Maygra
Before his inauguration, Donald Trump said there would be “consequences” for companies that shipped American jobs overseas. Recently laid-off employees at IBM, GE, and Microsoft might wonder what those consequences are. Trump’s constant lies before he became president continues on today. Each of those three companies announced in 2017 that they’d be offshoring jobs. And they’re not alone. The Department of Labor data reveals more than 125,000 Americans were eligible for job training assistance in 2016 because they lost their job to a worker abroad or were otherwise displaced because of global trade. What about that Mr. President, what’s your excuse now? I will have to be fair--- some of those jobs eventually come back to the U.S. In 2016, the country brought back more manufacturing jobs from overseas than it sent abroad, according to the Reshoring Initiative. But others never return, leaving workers and their communities dealing with the fallout. Here are 14 companies, both large and small, that have recently decided to cut costs by cutting American jobs and sending the work overseas. Carrier: December 2016, Donald Trump famously claimed he had stopped Carrier from sending more than 1,000 jobs to Mexico. The high-profile rescue made for good press, but there was a nasty truth lurking behind the hype. For one, the actual number of jobs saved from offshoring was closer to 800. In addition, some jobs were still lost. Carrier, a subsidiary of United Technologies, moved ahead in 2017 with plans to send hundreds of other jobs at the Indiana plant to Mexico. The lost jobs at Carrier are just a fraction of the more than 5,000 positions parent company United Technologies has sent overseas in the past couple of decades, according to a report from Public Citizen, even though the company was awarded roughly $6.5 billion in government contracts in 2016. Morgan Stanley Factory jobs aren’t the only ones that companies are sending abroad. White-collar workers are at risk, too. In 2016, Morgan Stanley said it planned to save as much as $1 billion through a combination of technology and offshoring jobs to lower-cost cities, such as Mumbai and Budapest. They’re not the only bank looking to move work abroad. UBS and Goldman Sachs were maneuvering similar moves. IBM IBM is talking out both sides of its mouth, at least according to critics. In late 2016, the company promised to hire roughly 25,000 more workers in the U.S. But at the same time, it was also laying people off and shipping their jobs overseas. Over the past few years, hundreds of IBM employees have been laid off because their jobs shifted to countries, including Costa Rica, Egypt, Argentina, and Brazil, according to Public Citizen’s Trade Adjustment Assistance database. University of California, San Francisco Big companies have been offshoring workers for years, but now even schools are getting in on the cost-cutting action. In 2016, roughly 80 tech workers at the University of California, San Francisco learned they’d be losing their jobs to workers in India, the Mercury News reported. As often happens in cases of offshoring, the laid-off workers were asked to train their cheaper replacements before being shown the door. A practice which many huge companies do, and is just one more slap in the face to the American worker. Batesville Casket Company Even the funeral industry isn’t immune from pressure to cut costs and offshore. In November 2016, 200 workers at the Batesville Casket Company in Batesville, Mississippi, learned they’d be out of work when the company’s factory shut its doors for good. The wooden caskets previously made in the U.S. will now be assembled in Chihuahua, Mexico. Yet the price of the caskets will not be reduced. Mondelez International Oreos might be delicious, but they might not be made in the U.S. In 2016, Illinois-based Mondelez International announced it would be moving production of Oreo cookies from a factory in the Chicago area to one in Salinas, Mexico. Half of those employed at the plant — 600 people — would lose their jobs. (Other U.S. factories in New Jersey, Virginia, and Oregon still produce Oreos.) In 2015, the company — which also makes products like Triscuits, Ritz Crackers, and Chips Ahoy! — announced it would be outsourcing many white-collar jobs at its headquarters to contractors overseas. I say no to the cookie company,. AT&T Sometimes, employees don’t take threats to move their jobs offshore sitting down. In March, the Communication Workers of America and AT&T struck a deal that included a promise to bring back 3,000 call center jobs that had previously been moved abroad, Fortune reported. But that deal only covered workers in certain Southern states, and the two parties are still in tough negotiations elsewhere. In May, some workers went on the three-day strike to protest outsourcing. The union claims the company had moved 12,000 call center jobs to countries including Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines since 2011. Verizon AT&T isn’t the only telecommunications company that’s battled its workers over offshoring. In 2016, 36,000 Verizon workers went on strike for six weeks. One of the sticking points in contract negotiations between the union members and the company was the issue of jobs moving abroad. The Communications Workers of America said the company was hiding the extent of its offshoring and that workers in call centers in the Philippines were making just $1.78 an hour and were sometimes forced to work overtime without extra pay. How great Verizon is, they charge you an arm and leg for services, and expect the American consumer to out up with foreign workers who cant speak decent English to take their calls, and expect Americans to put up with the aggervation. Microsoft In 2015, Microsoft opened a new factory in Wilsonville, Oregon, where it planned to make its giant, touchscreen Surface Hub computers. The facility was supposed to herald a new era in domestic tech manufacturing. But in July 2017, the company announced it was closing the plant. More than 100 workers and contractors will lose their jobs when production shifts to China. Yet Microsoft is one of the richest company’s in the world. No loyalty from this company to its consumers. No surprise here. Rexnord In 2016, Wisconsin-based Rexnord said it would close its Indianapolis ball-bearing factory in summer 2017 and move production to Mexico. Three hundred people at the factory, which is about a mile from the Carrier plant, will lose their jobs. In December, the president-elect fired off an angry tweet about the situation, but it wasn’t enough to save the Rexnord jobs. QVC In 2016, QVC announced it would lay off roughly 100 people at its headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The company intended to move those jobs — as well as dozens in the U.K., Germany, and Italy — to Poland. The affected workers were in HR, IT, finance, and legal roles. Illinois Tool Works Illinois Tool Works used to employ 60 people to make filtration products at a factory in Mazon, Illinois. Not anymore. In 2016, the company announced the facility would close. The jobs moved across the border to Ciudad Juarez, the company claims that wages are about four times cheaper in Mexico, thus making the company even more profits. These American companies want the American people to purchase their products at the same price as if they were still in the country. Just because the company moves out of the country does not mean that they will reduce the cost of their product to the American consumer. I would say if you want the American peoples dollars then employee Americans to do the job and pay them a decent wage. Trumps speeches are total lies he has done nothing to save American jobs, his trade war has cost American jobs, farmers are losing their farms because of trump policies and the greed of the rich corporations. We live in a world where money runs everything a and the nature of man is to want more than he needs, until man changes his issue of wanting to be rich and then richer, jobs will continue to go where the wages are cheap, to go where these companies can exploit workers, this is the reason American jobs are gone. It is not because of labor unions-- it is proven the American worker is the most productive worker in the world. Out sourced jobs is simply because of greedy corporations.
Tammy
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