Chrysler has given its workers the day off on Tuesday to vote, according to a tweet from Ralph Gilles, Chrysler’s vice president for product design.
Chrysler gave its entire work force the day off to Vote Today! Let’s go! #America
— Ralph Gilles (@RalphGilles) November 6, 2012
Employment for Americans with an associate’s degree or some college has increased by 578,000 the past six months to 35.2 million, while payrolls for those with at least a bachelor’s are up by just 314,000 to 46.5 million, Labor Department figures show.
The trend underlines that some of the midskill jobs that disappeared in the recession are coming back and it may signal more lasting growth in such occupations. They include operators of computerized factory machines, heating and air conditioning repair people, X-ray technicians, medical records specialists and low- to midlevel managers.
In recent years, “The share of these jobs has not grown (sharply) relative to (those requiring a bachelor’s),” says Anthony Carnevale, head of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “But they may have begun to do that.”
Photo: Bainport.com
An American factory is being closed, with all it’s jobs outsourced to China. Not breaking news, but it’s important news in the context of this election. The factory is located in the northwestern Illinois town of Freeport. Before the end of the year the factory will be closed, all it’s workers out of a job. It’s a Sensata Technologies factory. It’s workers used to make auto-senors. Today, they’re training their Chinese replacements. Chinese workers who back home will earn 99 cents an hour, working 12 hour shifts, housed with 2-3 workers crammed into a single room in barracks. Mitt Romney says America needs to learn to compete with foreign countries in free trade. Compete in what? A race to the bottom? Compete with workers making 99 cents an hour housed 2-3 to a a room, while we need to earn enough to try to pay our mortgages? You can call it “free trade”, but it sure as hell isn’t fair trade. We’re supposed to compete with those wages, those worker conditions, no OSHA rules protecting the workers, no Workman’s Compensation if those workers are injured on the job, no environmental rules against dumping pollution into the air and streams? That isn’t free trade, it isn’t fair trade, that’s completely unacceptable trade. I hope the Obama Administration taxes those Chinese made auto-sensors all to hell with tariffs. Let’s see just how clever Sensata/Bain Capital thinks they are when they have to pay more for those Chinese made sensors than if they’d been made right here in the USA. You can read the stories from Sensata Freeport IL factory workers directly at Bainport.com.
Continue reading »
Transcript of speech as written on following page.
Continue reading »
Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker is lying, not leading.
From Greg Sargent:
This new ad from the Republican Governors Association backing up Scott Walker in Wisconsin is getting a ton of media attention today, but no one seems to want to point out that the spot is premised on a serious distortion that borders on an outright falsehood …
Some on the right have argued that the position of the unions isn’t actually a concession, because rolling back bargaining rights is the only way to put the state on sound fiscal footing over the long haul. But even if one were to accept this to be the case, the ad is still a demonstrable and very serious distortion. It’s a matter of simple factual reality that unions have agreed to the benefit concessions Walker wants — whether or not you agree that this is enough on their part.
The larger point here is that these facts are absolutely central to the ongoing public opinion war in Wisconsin. Labor and Dems worry that the message in the ad — that public employees need to pony up just like everyone else — is a powerful one. At the same time, the right knows that if it’s broadly understood that labor has already agreed to the fiscal concessions Walker has asked for, that could be lethal to their side. Armed with this info, the public is more likely to conclude that Walker’s proposal is all about destroying unions, and to reject it as extreme.
Also, the Dane County District Attorney found the prank call conversation between “David Koch” and Gov. Walker alarming:
Dane County, Wisc., District Attorney Ismael Ozanne says he found nothing criminal in the conversation Gov. Scott Walker (R) had a with a prank caller posing as David Koch last week, according to WisPolitics. Nevertheless, Ozanne told reporters on Tuesday that he found some of Walker’s comments “very concerning and sometimes quite alarming.”
Ozanne singled out a comment Walker made that he’d “thought about” planting troublemakers in the crowd. Although the DA said there was no evidence a law was broken, he said the comment “speaks directly to character.”
The DA said he’d also looked into the state Senate Democrats’ walkout, after inquiries from citizens, and found nothing illegal there, either.
“They are working within the rule of the house to make their voices heard,” he said. “Because that frustrates the majority is not a crime.”
A Wisconsin Republican Rep is bothered:
And yet another poll, Wall Street Journal/NBC:
Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable,” 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits. …
The poll shows 68% of the respondents would like public employees to contribute more for their retirement benefits and 63% want these workers to pay more for their health care. Only 29% and 34% find these moves either “mostly” or “totally unacceptable.” A clear majority, 58%, also find it acceptable to freeze government workers’ salaries as governments get a handle on spending, whereas 40% think that would be unacceptable.
Similarly, 77% of the 1,000 adults interviewed for the poll think unionized state and municipal employees should have the same rights as those union members who work for private companies.
Joe Scarborough’s wishful thinking.
