Economic News 2000 February

updated: 2016-08-18

2000-02-01

2000-02-02

2000-02-02
Sara Pitzer _Salisbury Post_
Grinnell announces lay-offs

2000-02-02
Ron Paul
A Republic, if we can keep it
 

2000-02-03

2000-02-04

2000-02-05

2000-02-06

2000-02-06
_Tech Dirt_
Amazon laid off approximately 150 employees this week
"AT&T and BellSouth are both laying off plenty of folks...   According to the California HealthCare Foundation on-line medical sites are not at all careful about their privacy policies."
 

2000-02-07

2000-02-08

2000-02-09

2000-02-10

2000-02-11

2000-02-12

2000-02-13

2000-02-14

2000-02-15

2000-02-16

2000-02-17

2000-02-18

2000-02-19

2000-02-20

2000-02-20
Sara Pitzer _Salisbury Post_
Workers find replacement jobs aren't quite as good
"CG doesn't care how the big picture looks or what the analysts say.   He is not better off...   'I've got a job now', he said, 'but it doesn't pay anything like I'm used to.'...   he hasn't been able to find anything that pays more or uses his skills...   In his view, plant closings and down-sizing are the direct result of plants in foreign countries...   [Fran] Lilly is a senior professional in human resources.   She worked for the Tallahassee Democrat and the Florida Bankers Association and served as consultant to some manufacturing firms over 20 years.   Now she teaches human resource management at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.   She said the shifting demand for more and more technical skills is just beginning...   Even today's higher education won't guarantee employability for long, she said...   In the beginning he had to fill 138 positions with people who could do jobs like run fork-lifts with computers on them.   Within 8 months, he had hired 232 people, many recently laid off from Cone, American & Efird, Fuchs and York International...   Of the 232 workers he hired, Lofthus said 111 did not stay long.   Some of the reasons they didn't work out included expecting the same status and rate of pay they'd had in their earlier jobs..."

2000-02-20
Walter F. Roche & Gary Cohn _Baltimore MD Sun_
Former INS officials siphon millions from start-up visa program (14 pages)
"a small group of former government officials who helped design an immigration program to attract wealthy foreigners who could obtain prized green cards by investing $500K to $1M in U.S. businesses.   The investor visa program was a little-noticed part of the Immigration Reform Act [ImmAct1990], a sweeping law that reshaped the country's immigration policies.   President George Bush called the law 'the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws in 66 years'.   It was, he said as he signed the bill into law on 1990 November 29, 'good for families, good for business, good for fighting crime and good for America'.   While his predictions may yet come true, a review of the decade-old law shows that it has benefited one group not mentioned by the president -- former INS officials and their associates who have pocketed millions in fees from wealthy foreigners willing to invest their savings to join in the American dream.   In the rush to cash in on the law, have left a trail of victims -- from families seeking a new beginning in America to struggling companies needing a promised infusion of cash to keep their workers employed...   Some of the former INS officials who have profited most from the visa vending business were instrumental either in formulating the program or lobbying for favorable interpretations of the program rules that aided their businesses, at times working with the same INS staff they once directed...   One of the most active participants in the visa vending has been Gene McNary, INS commissioner from October 1989 to January 1993.   By his estimate, after leaving the federal government, McNary acted as the attorney on 200 to 250 applications for the program.   The immigration act's main sponsor in the House of Representatives, representative Bruce A. Morrison of CT, went into business with a CA immigration consultant to market the investor visa program within days after his congressional term ended.   Morrison's agreement was dated 1991 Jan. 22, the month he left Congress.   Former officials such as McNary, former INS general counsel Maurice Inman and Diego Asencio, the former U.S. ambassador to Colombia and Brazil, had extraordinary access to and incessantly lobbied former colleagues in the government for preferential treatment and obtained a series of highly favorable but questionable rulings on the requirements for the program that only years later were reversed."
 

2000-02-21

2000-02-21
Gary Cohn & Walter F. Roche _Baltimore Sun_
Indentured servants for high-tech trade Labor: For a rich fee, companies called "bodyshops" supply waves of unwitting immigrants to the nation's computer industry
"When KR was rushed to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, doubled over by kidney stones, he... got a lecture about how the time lost reflected badly on his work record.   KR, then 24, was a systems analyst employed by Tata Consultancy Services [TCS], an Indian firm that contracts with USA companies to provide [cheap, young, pliant, low-skilled] computer experts [with flexible ethics]...   He and more than a half-million other immigrants [guest-workers], many from India, are at the crest of a wave of high-tech foreign workers who have surged into the United States over the past decade at the urging of the computer industry and its lobbyists under a program created by congress in 1990...   In violation of federal law, visa holders often collect a small fraction of the salaries they've been promised while doing make-work projects and refining computer skills.   If workers quit, they are frequently sued by employers claiming damages of $30K or more.   Workers who challenge employers are routinely threatened with being sent back to their home-land.   Body shop operators regularly bill U.S. companies at rates 3 to 4 times the salary being paid to their foreign workers.   U.S. workers have been displaced by less costly foreign labor contracted out to H-1B visa holders.   Court records show the visa holders are recruited by contractors, then brought to the United States for assignment.   If no job is waiting, the worker may be placed by another body shop, which gets a percentage of the fee...   Immigration lawyers collect fees of $2K to $2.5K for each H-1B application...   In effect, Krikorian said, the U.S. government provides [the companies who use them] a subsidy in the form of visas...   On arrival in November 1997, he found himself in cramped quarters in a single-family home with 14 other programmers.   He found that his initial salary would be $500 a month -- not the $1K a week he was promised -- and that $200 would be paid as rent.   He learned that his resume, the one officially submitted to U.S. officials as part of his visa application, listed training in several areas that he never had received.   'I saw this resume only after coming to the United States.   When I saw it I was shocked for a minute, as it contained stuff that I never worked on.   I was told not to worry about it, he said, 'as it was done '''to get me here'''.'"

2000-02-21
Sara Pitzer _Salisbury Post_
Life After Lay-Offs
"She was president of the Union of Needle Trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) at Cone Mills' Salisbury plant.   When word came that the plant was closing last year, Chattin told the Post she didn't think finding other jobs would be much of a problem because Burlington and Pillowtex and other companies in the area needed people.   Chattin remembers that now.   'Things looked so good for everybody, but then once we lost our jobs and got out looking, we found out that hardly anybody paid what we made.   And all those other companies had not announced closings.'"
 

2000-02-22

2000-02-23

2000-02-22 19:37PST (2000-02-22 22:37EST) (2000-02-23 03:37GMT)
Greg Lefevre _CNN_
Internet firm offers new employees a leas on a BMW
"The Internet software company [Interwoven] is looking for a few good engineers and is offering 20 BMW Z3 Roadsters as incentives...   To him the car is more than a status symbol.   It's a corporate symbol...   He needs 20 engineers pronto.   Interwoven now has about 250 employees -- not nearly enough to do the work...   Interwoven ran radio ads, newspaper ads and got lots of word of mouth for its Beemer Bonus campaign.   The company has hosted 2 open house events..."
 

2000-02-24

2000-02-25

2000-02-26

2000-02-27

2000-02-28

2000-02-29

2000-02-29
Gary Johnson _New Work News_
Retail sector leads job cut announcements
"According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, retailing has been cutting jobs at a faster rate than other sectors."

2000-02-29
Sara Robinson _NY Times_ pg A12
High-Tech Guest-Workers Are Trapped in Limbo by INS
 

2000 February
Characteristics of Specialty Occupation Workers (H-1B) 1998 May to 1999 July (pdf)
index

2000 February
Ronald Radosh _First Things_ Stephane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin, Ehrhart Neubert, Joachim Gauck, Mark Kramer, Sylvain Boulougue, Remi Kauffer, Pascal Fontaine, PIerre Rigoulet, Yves Santamaria et al.'s _The Black Book of Communisn: Crimes, Terror, Repression_

Caprice Lantz _National Association of Colleges & Employers_
"US Employment: Challenges for International Students"
"According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, from 1999 October to 2000 February, H-1B petitions were approved in the following areas:
* Systems Analysis and Programming (47.4%)
* Electrical/Electronics Engineering (5.4%)
* College and University Education (4.1%)
* Accountants and Related Occupations (3.7%)"
 

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