tagged w/ workforce
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Robert Scheer
Four decades ago Richard Nixon, a once famously hawkish Republican president, cut a deal with the Communist overlords of China to reshape the world. The result was a transformation of the global economy in ways that we are only now, with the sharp critiques of Apple’s China operation, beginning to fully comprehend.
At the heart of the deal was a rejection of the basic moral claim of both egalitarian socialism and free market capitalism, the rival ideologies of the Cold War, to empower the individual as the center of decision-making. Instead, the fate of the citizen would come to be determined by an alliance between huge multinational corporations and government elites with scant reference to the needs of ordinary working folk.
It was understood by both parties to this grand concord that monopoly capitalism could be constructed in China to be consistent with the continuance in power of a Communist hierarchy, just as in the West capitalism was consistent with the enrichment of an ostensibly democratic ruling class. Sharp income inequality, the bane of genuine reform movements bearing the names populist, socialist and democratic, came to be the defining mark of the new international order.
The current controversy over Apple’s treatment of its 700,000 foreign workers, mostly in China, is a manifestation of that cross-ideological betrayal. The ironies are manifest. Not the least of which is that businessmen from Taiwan, the bastion of anti-Communist Chinese during the Cold War and still the pretend reason for a U.S. military presence in the region, are the essential organizers of mainland China’s workforce. But in the pursuit of profit, and at a time when the startling success of China’s hybrid communist-capitalist model keeps the U.S. Treasury afloat, few questions are asked.
Indeed, the pressure is now on to better emulate that model within the United States, to keep still more jobs from being shipped abroad. The human rights concerns of the U.S. have by now been opportunistically tailored to exclude any serious concern about the rights of workers to organize unions to make their job conditions more humane. China’s labor practices are now to be admired rather than scorned, lest the American economy decline further in the new world order.
As The New York Times pointed out last month in its devastating overview of Apple’s shift from its once proud claim of making its products in the USA to near total dependence on China: “It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.”
Parse that language to find the excuse to run roughshod over environmental protections, workers’ rights and occupational safety standards in order to allow “flexibility” at the massive Foxconn and other plants in China where robotic work is performed by humans under conditions that even Apple has conceded in an internal audit are unacceptable under modern industrial standards.
In reality the multinational corporations prefer China’s state-sponsored model of capitalism, which assures them an endless supply of docile workers unprotected by those pesky unions and restrictive government regulations. As Steve Jobs told President Obama last year, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” The reason that Jobs supplied in his 2011 approved biography is that the Chinese government is so wonderfully acquiescent to the development plans of foreign corporations. Not as in the U.S., where, Jobs claimed, “regulations and unnecessary costs” make it difficult for companies to operate. That the result of China’s deregulation is poisoned air, worker suicide and a massive waste of resources is deemed to be beside the point.
Oddly enough, Jobs, who succeeded in business without attending more than part of a single college semester, also blamed a U.S. educational system “crippled by union work rules” for what he proclaimed to be the sorry state of our domestic labor force. One of the basic human rights being violated by the Chinese government is that of workers to organize unions responsive to their needs; rather, they are at the mercy of phony organizations tolerated by the Communist government. It is sad, and not encouraging, that Jobs endorsed a blatantly anti-union position by claiming that until the teachers’ unions were broken, there would be almost no hope for education reform.
Considering the workforce employed by Apple, one has to question what sort of properly trained graduates Jobs had in mind. If the habits required of Apple’s workforce in China are to be emulated, the U.S. military, or perhaps our outsized prison system, should become the essential schooling system for American workers to better compete with the properly disciplined assemblers of iPhones in China.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/apples_china_comes_home_to_haunt_us_20120216/Robert Scheer
Four decades ago Richard Nixon, a once famously hawkish Republican... more
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Corporate profits are better than ever. So why are you - and pretty much everyone else - having to work harder and harder, for less and less.......Except what's good for American business isn't necessarily good for Americans. We're not just working smarter, but harder. And harder. And harder, to the point where the driver is no longer American industriousness, but something much more predatory. Increasingly, American workers are falling prey to WHAT WE'LL CALL OFFLOADING: cutting jobs and dumping the work ONTO THE REMAINING STAFF. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/42974-the-speedup-Corporate profits are better than ever. So why are you - and pretty much everyone else... more
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worrg
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12 months ago
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http://bit.ly/ghBRzJ
Top Ways Hollywood can teach all companies to give employees the "red carpet" treatment...see what Emmy-award winning producer says about recognition and rewards in Tinseltown.http://bit.ly/ghBRzJ
Top Ways Hollywood can teach all companies to give employees... more
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Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences.... http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/412-end-of-menEarlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in... more
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worrg
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1 year ago
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Thom interviews Steven Hill about his new book "Europe's Promise is the Best Hope." They talk about how different, and better, European business practices are compared with those in the United States.Thom interviews Steven Hill about his new book "Europe's Promise is the Best... more
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How can teens write the perfect CV and Cover Letter?!
Why can’t many of them write these to get the interview for the job they really want?!
19 year old Eva-Maria breaks this down, and offers expertise and resources she’s used over and over again for herself and hundreds of teens around the world to get the jobs they wanted!
http://www.trustyourfuture.com/cvandcoverletter4teens.htmlHow can teens write the perfect CV and Cover Letter?!
Why can’t many of them... more
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To encourage more to pitch in and share the skilled opportunities with future generations, SkillTV Blog will be hosting a special picture contest. Please submit your entries to Joel@SkillTV.net by August 25th. Then we will allow viewers to vote for their favorite. On Labor Day we will announce the winner, who will receive a brand new Gatorade cooler (great for tailgate parties) compliments of Grainger.To encourage more to pitch in and share the skilled opportunities with future... more
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The UKCES has today revealed its newest initiative in its mission to skill-up the nation’s workforce. The innovative online tool called talentmap, has made the previously confusing task of how and where to get skills advice much more streamlined and easily accessible.
One particularly appealing aspect of this new tool is that it is a resource for all sectors and companies, from SMEs to Blue Chip companies. Whatever the size of a business, finding the correct skills when employing new staff, and skilling-up and training current employees are both integral for any company to grow and prosper. With this in mind, the ease of use and practicality of talentmap ensures it will be on the frontline of skilling-up the UK’s workforce as it hopes to increase in productivity and break into an economic up-turn.
talentmap was the brainchild of Sir Mike Rake (Chairman of BT and UKCES), as he long believed that all the varying initiatives of skills education needed to be collated and simplified to maximise its effect for employers. This is exactly what talentmap achieves, by making skill support available to all age groups (pre-school to adult), all companies (SMEs to Blue Chip) and all skill abilities (general to specialist) all in one easy to use website.
To learn more about talentmap: http://www.talentmap.ukces.org.uk/The UKCES has today revealed its newest initiative in its mission to skill-up the... more
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TVC
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2 years ago
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Hallmark Cards Inc. is cutting up to 750 jobs, or 8 percent, of its U.S. work force, as the nation's largest greeting cards maker struggles with falling sales.Hallmark Cards Inc. is cutting up to 750 jobs, or 8 percent, of its U.S. work force,... more
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I know we don't have any money to be handing out, but how can you bailout the financial district and let them take advantage of taxpayers while continuing their spa and resort trips, but not bailout the American Auto industry which employs over 33% of our nations workforce?
The car companies aren't the ones who got us into this mess, but the financial district and all the corruption did. Yet we give them handouts of 700Billion, and therefore can't afford to bailout American car makers. Does this not make sense to anybody else???I know we don't have any money to be handing out, but how can you bailout the... more
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The jobless figure reached 6.7 percent last month, up from 6.5 percent in October. More than half a million—533,000—were made unemployed during November. It's only the fourth time in the past 58 years that payrolls have fallen by more than 500,000 in a month. “The figures suggest the year-long U.S. recession may approach or even exceed the 1981-1982 downturn in severity, and support expectations that Federal Reserve officials will soon lower interest rates to levels not seen in a half century,” reports the Wall Street Journal. When marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers are included, the rate of unemployed or underemployed workers reached even higher: 12.5% last month, up 0.7 percentage point from October.The jobless figure reached 6.7 percent last month, up from 6.5 percent in October.... more
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A Minnesota judge ruled that Wal-Mart cut short employees' rest and meal breaks and forced them to work off the clock, violating the state's labor laws 2 million times.
The judge's order in the class-action lawsuit against the discount retailer awards the plaintiffs $6.5 million in compensatory damages.
An attorney for the plaintiffs expects Wal-Mart will pay much more than that after a jury in October considers a civil penalties and punitive damages.
Justin Perl, who represented the plaintiffs, says Dakota County Judge Robert King Jr.'s ruling sends a message to Wal-Mart that the company must pay for its mistakes.
The ruling, which was handed to the parties Monday evening, comes after similar judgments against Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania and California. Wal-Mart is appealing those rulings.
A Minnesota judge ruled that Wal-Mart cut short employees' rest and meal breaks... more
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