posted 02-11-2004 10:10 PM            

2/11/04:

Word of possible layoffs at New Venture Gear in DeWitt. The union that represents workers there says the factory's parent company has been investing in overseas plants, in hopes of transferring some of the local work. Union President Scott Stanton says Daimler Chrysler is spending money -- he won’t say how much -- to buy new machines and equipment for factories in Mexico, China and other places where labor is said to be cheaper. Stanton says it's like sending work out the back door, while the company is in transition. Daimler-Chrysler is selling its controlling interest here to a Canadian car-parts company. A deal, still to be finalized.

Union President Stanton believes the company wants to send some of the work done here in central New York to those overseas locations. In particular, he says component parts made in DeWitt could soon be built elsewhere and delivered here to be put into four-wheel drive transfer cases. Scott Stanton, President, UAW Local 624: “We know in order to keep jobs here we have to be competitive, but let’s work on our own process here in Syracuse. Does it anger me when I find out, especially when I have to find out through investigation? It angers me when the company is not up front with us and straight up and letting us know they have considered or tooled up outside vendors to do our work.”

The possible outsourcing of jobs is just one of the issues Stanton is discussing with company representatives. They have not returned our calls. Stanton sent a letter to union members on Tuesday telling them that the union will hold a special conference with Daimler Chrysler. A special conference is the last step before a strike vote.

It's really too soon to say if a strike is coming. The union says that's a last resort and wants to resolve the issues without a walk-out. Daimler Chrysler is still in talks to sell part of its interest in New Venture Gear to a Canadian auto supplier. Despite his concerns, Scott Stanton says he believes that plans for joint ownership of New Venture Gear are moving forward and will help keep the plant in central New York.

posted 02-11-2004 11:25 PM            

Seeing our currency continue its decline is almost like a death toll bell.

Aint Nafta/Gatt/Wto great?

posted 02-15-2004 09:45 PM            

"I talked about salary with a company last week (in March), and they were paying between $30 and $35 an hour," said Donna Bradley, an IT specialist in Mesa, Ariz., who's been out of work since August 2002. "In August I was making $45 an hour."

It didn't matter; Bradley, 49, didn't get the job and is selling her house and moving to Maryland to live with her daughter while she continues to look for work.

posted 02-19-2004 03:17 PM            

By Harsha Sankar

From: WETHEPEOPLE_UNITED@yahoogroups.com

Dear Citizen,

September 30th, 2003

Since NAFTA was passed in 1994, 7.8 million jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector. This onerous agreement should be renamed the Nothing About Free Trade Agreement because it severely curtails competitive free trade. It did hardly anything in just reducing tariffs, quotas, and streamlining procedures. The American worker(scientist-engineer to manual/menial laborer) is still the most productive in the world.Statements citing cheaper labor as the chief reason for this job exodus are merely cop-outs made by the status quo. France and Germany, two premier high-wage nations, greatly increased its trade with other less-developed European countries in 1985 since the formation of the Common Market. Their economies each have since doubled, with the standard of living increasing accordingly.

NAFTA is an 1800 page agreement which, while extremely fertile for U.S.corporate attorneys, bureaucrats, and financial capitalists, is a nightmare for U.S. businesses, investors, and employees. When Americans are burdened by such voluminous and vague regulations and other nations are not, it does not take a scholar to conclude who benefits and who do not. People are fed up with these games.

The greatness of American business icons such as Henry Ford and Bill Gates is they took something which is naturally very complex and incorporated their innovations to simplify it so that nearly everyone can access, utilize, and directly benefit from these scientific technologies. Because of them, driving and computer use is common. Yet our legal system does the reverse so that only the legal profession and their beneficiaries hold the keys to power. Why are tax laws, health- care laws, and laws governing finance so incomprehensible, written with inane jibberish and jargon? Because if laws were few and simple, Americans would not be forced to pay for the mammoth banking, healthcare, corporate, education, and government bureaucracies?

If the laws were uniform and not subject to total metamorphisis and mutations by lawyer dominated governance, stock exchanges, boards of trade, the accounting profession, insurance,companies, healthcare-providers, real estate, lendinginstitutions, brokerage firms,"economic development organizations", and other marginalists could not command such the huge sum of wealth from the productive sectors of society. The bar associations, although cloaked as eagles by themselves, Hollywood, and our miseducation systems, are merely vultures. They have a vampiric effect in that they convert productivity into the forces of parasitism and regression. Unfortunately, as they continue to multiply, so do their feeder industries who rely on such needless formalities so they can carve a bigger share of the pie for themselves. All this does is increase the cost of living for all. 1.7 million more Americans dipped into poverty this past year. According to the P.B.S. McNeil/ Lehrer Report, real unemployment is 18.6%. The infrastucture is in dire need for reinvestment to at least 1.3 trillion dollars as cited by the AP over a year ago. Yet we have lawyers demanding 55 million dollars in the Credit Card suit and incredibly 6
million USD involving California energy companies and their customers for price-gouging and fixing during its brownouts. This at the very least is the kettle calling the pot black.

Americans need to quit watching trash tv shows and should be charged to focus its attention on this broad issue. That is purging the poisoners of our land by working individually and in unison for the emancipation of labor and wealth-creation from the oppression of the aristocracy.

Very Truly Yours,

Harsha Sankar

201 Interstate Drive

Covington,Virginia 24426

posted 02-19-2004 03:58 PM            

(Link contains informative graphs demonstrating this)

"Weak labor market taking toll on weekly and hourly wage growth
Continued high unemployment and the lack of meaningful job growth made 2003 the worst year for weekly wage growth for the typical worker since 1996 (see EPI Issue Brief Weak Recovery Claims New Victim: Workers' Wages). This clearly indicates that the weak labor market is now hurting employed workers as well as those looking for work. In 2003, real (inflation-adjusted) weekly wages fell for low- and middle-wage men and were stagnant or fell slightly for low- and middle-wage women. This trend is in sharp contrast to the significant and sustained real wage growth over the 1995-2002 period when unemployment was falling (see chart below). Despite the acceleration of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in late 2003, the wage growth of production, non-supervisory workers (over 80% of the workforce) actually slowed in this period."