There’s a Fly America Act and a Buy American Act how about a “Hire American Act“?
I’ve been listening to CNN all morning and hearing about the 5 million plus Americans who have lost their jobs in the US. The business that are closing. The States that are in a bind due to reduced revenues due to closed businesses due to lost jobs. It’s just a big ole vicious circle.
I have a “novel” idea. What if we implemented a “Hire American Act”? In a nutshell, if a job is being payed for by US taxpayer dollars, you have to hire US Citizens to work it. Or at the very least a very large percentage of the workforce should be American. This goes for work in the US and around the world. The US is spending billions of dollars building US Embassies, US Consulates and US Military facilities all over the world. Not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. At these facilities the largest group of employees, probably 75% are normally locals or third country nationals.
I understand boosting the local economy. But it’s time to boost our local economy and send that money home not to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bosnia or Mexico. Plus in many job classifications, such as electricians, there are quality and qualifications issues. Not to mention people being kidnapped and brought to other countries to work against their will for The Americans, also called “Human Trafficking”. Yes…your tax dollars do support Human Trafficking!
Also included in this Hire American Act should be the following provisions:
- Only legitimate US companies can bid on US Government contracts.
- No bogus shell companies like KBR’s SEII & OAS will be allowed to supply manpower. The contractor will pay appropriate payroll taxes including state unemployment taxes.
- Employees will be protected by US labor laws. No more threatening to fire people for not keeping their mouth shut when fraud or crimes are committed!
- Employees will be protected by OSHA (safety) protection. (SOME exceptions may apply in a war zone)
- Job position qualifications will be established. Such as electricians much be licensed or have equivalent verifiable training.
- A real workers compensation insurance program needs to be established. The DBA and AIG have got to go. It’s a money pit and it doesn’t work.
If an act like this were passed into law, I think it would level the playing field and make the bidding more competitive. Especially for those companies who would like to bid the work, but just can’t sink as low as KBR can.
This is my personal opinion….I think only “cleared” Americans should be making the food and water for our soldiers. Talk about a weak link in not only the security chain but health and hygiene as well!
Tell me what you think should be in the Hire American Act.
Ms Sparky
Good idea Ms Sparky but they will never do it. They will say its cost prohibitive. They can hire 10 or more Filipino or Nepalese slaves for what they can hire 1 American Labor Foreman. Even if they are not qualified. KBR would rather send out 5 unqualified Sri Lankans to do electrical work that will most likely be jerry rigged than hire one qualified electrician. I think the Human Trafficking bothers me the most. Watching how these people are treated and how they are forced. They may unqualified, but they are fellow humans and do not deserve to be treated that way. And don’t get me started on the rude hateful Bosnians.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Cost prohibitive? The DoD is paying billions now and getting crap. You’re righ about the Human Trafficking. That is very disturbing.
What an excellent idea, let’s get the ball rolling and where do I sign up? I’d be wiling to get a petition signed, call and write politicians and do whatever it takes to get such a bill passed! Furthermore, if an organization of Americans could streamline the process of changing the laws to meet our needs, this country would be a better place. Another place for reform is our prison system, violent criminals, especially child predators, should be given life sentences, and non-violent offenders should be offered rehabilitation! We need a clearinghouse of Americans that can draft laws and then under the pressure of the power of numbers, have the laws changed and take back our country!!
Here!! Here!! I just got this little twinge of patriotism at thought! I believe in the death penalty for child predators….they need to be purged from the gene pool and if someone is sentenced to life in prison, why should the taxpayers foot the bill? Make their families support them.
i agree easy fix death penalty for predators no matter who they are. No chance for appeal period.
OMG….it happened again! We agreed. Better be careful! I think that’s twice now! People are going to start talking!
they will regardless even though you are already spoken LOL.
Can I copy this and send it to my senators?
Ms Sparky’s Response:
You bet. I called a few today myself.
I imagine KBR has everything wrong all the way. Do you guy know that KBR process engineering department in Houston is tightly controlled by non-US people? it’s dominated by engineers who come from India and most of them either came straight from India or via Canada, they are not US citizens. No one caan utter a word to any of these people, if they eye someone they kick him/her out of the company in a blink of eye. No Indian national was laid off during the latest wave of KBR lay offs.
We need to voice our concerns to senators and to all Americans.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Yes..I have heard that. Lay off the American’s first? That’s not very American!!
As much as you talk about kbr you did use them for your own personal benefit correct
Ms Sparky’s Response:
It was a job. $14.90/hour as a journeyman electrician. I just wanted to be patriotic and support our troops. You can’t really get over there without going to work for someone.
I really like this idea, but would the government adhere to it and if they did how long?
Even in the Buy America Act it states:
In certain government procurements, the requirement purchase may be waived if the domestic product is more expensive than an identical foreign-sourced product by a certain percentage, if the product is not available domestically in sufficient quantity or quality, or if doing so is in the public interest.
They already allow our companies to leave the United States and lay millions of people off to go to Mexico and other foriegn countries, lower their quality of product and then ship back to the United States for us to purchase.
They need to raise the tariffs to an outrageous amount to ship their product back to the states so its not worth shipping jobs overseas.
Even if something passes, it seems our government always has a way of wording things so it can be changed at a moments notice.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
We can start and we can try. That’s all we can do!
Sounds great to me, but can we get it accomplished in our lifetime??
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Not if we don’t try! Baby steps.
Here comes the spoiler again.
I have ran into major safety issues on many bases and have dealt with an Irishman and Phillipino who have almost been ran into the ground because they brought up major safety violations and demanded that they be corrected, the biggest problems many of us over here face are US ex-pats who refuse to do the work right or instruct the SCW’s the wrong way to do it and never inspect the work later.
We also have a lot of US ex-pats who live in Taiwan or the Phillipines and such who send their money offshore and pay nothing into our economy either but the simple fact is that good and bad workers come from every country and bad supervisors are the main problem if they never inspect workers or if they are the ones falsifying records or threatening the workers to do what is wanted instead of what is right.
We all make mistakes, even me but I am divorced now so that nullifies it, but if you plan something wrong from the start, it is no longer a mistake.
If a company sends its prodctivity overseas and sells in the US, it should be seen as a foreign company and charged as such, no new rules or legislation required just a rewriting of the companies state of origin and taxes calculated accordingly.
If the rules allow local labor to be used, why are all the SCW’s not from Iraq such as they are on some other sites? I know that some Iraqi SCW’s were killed in the early days for cooperating with us but with things as good a they are now why is there no plan to integrate the locals and build the local economy that way as well?
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Most people are not trained to instruct and inspect. They are electricians or whatever trade….not teachers.
Good luck on raising the tariffs, they’ll call it protectionism…
You know, the new open trade economy, which is ruining our way of life and dumbing our future generations to be only drones for the new ruling class.
Though our Constitution explicitly prescribes it for the national properity and protection.
I would suggest that you start reading your Constitution and demanding that our congressmen adhere to it.
If we did, our military would shrink to only protect our borders and territories. In an ideal situation, it would be the militia that we would be funding and not a standing army.
Let the world take care of itself and let us trade with them, but no aid. Put our own people back to work.
If we pull out of the rest of the world, think about who would be there to fill the gap, economically and physically…
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Very good points.
I received this email from a reader “across the pond” in England. It’s a good comment and I felt it worthy of a response.
Hi Ms sparky
I am disappointed by your hire american act.
As england are part of the allies why should the jobs only be for americans ? If our country can fight along side the usa we are not good enough to help ensure the electrical work is up to standard granted I do not koe anything about your codes but I can recognise a good installation and a dangerous one
Regards
(name removed to protect privacy)
Ms Sparky’s Response:
First, Americans are not being replaced in Iraq by Brits. Americans and Brits work side by side. Americans are being replaced by Third Country Nationals from SE Asia and South Africa. And I’m not just talking about Iraq and Afghanistan. I am talking about US government funded projects all over the world including the US. How would you feel if A bunch of Americans were doing work that was being paid for by your tax dollars at one of your military bases? England has a great licensing program and they are a benefit to the camps in Iraq. Not a problem. But, you would expect Brits to be hired before Americans if British taxpayer money was being used…wouldn’t you? Over 5 million people lost their jobs last year in the US. People are losing their homes. Wouldn’t you think it’s time to be a little protectionist?
I’ll try to make this short but it might not come out that way…….A good example as to the people who are losing their jobs, my husband and I are a great example. We worked for a television production company for 8 yrs. We sacraficed everything even sold our home because we had to live on the road from Jan 28th to Dec 3rd of each year.
We each have 30 yrs. experience driving truck and my husband also has Heavy Eq. experience. I myself was hauling nitro at the age of 19 and my husband had even hauled fuel for the shuttle and also highly explosive fuels. We are very devoted people, I myself even worked driving up to 40 minutes before our 3rd daughter was born.
My husband has won 8 Emmy awards in the past 8 yrs. and 2 of those are for his truck driving abilty. I won 2 emmy awards in 2007 for my truck driving ability. But we cannot get employment in our own country. We are going on 6 months now without working.
Companies who long haul here will not hire us because of the way a law was written, excluding television production drivers from the federal rules and reg. in reference to the amount of hours they can drive. But, people want to read the law and understand it in their own way. It has nothing to do with us, only movie companies who are in a location for a period of time and TV trucks that go to disasters. So they look at us as being inexpeienced. Even though we saved the company truck from being hi-jacked when we went to mexico City last year.
We now live in a 33 ft travel trailer and in another 30 days we will not beable to make the payments. I believe the count for people losing their jobs by now has got to be higher then 5 million as it has been growing at an increased amount every day.
Sorry for making this so long, it just breaks my heart when I see our jobs being given to other countries. We all paid a lot of taxes and to watch it be given to others just chaps my hide.
I grant you, england is a great allie and we are greatful to have them work beside us, but we need to take care of this country. At least the citizens of england can go to a doctor when ill, we americans can’t even do that if we don’t have insurance. We just lost another company recently, Hanes in North Carolina moved their plant to Vietnam. this need to stop, pretty parts of the U.S is going to look like a third world country.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
I totally get it. I called Sears today to find out where my repair man was and talked to someone in India that couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand them!
The unemployment stats only show workers that were actually laid-off by companies. . it doesn’t show the terminations, the worker’s comp cases, the disability cases, the independent contractor’s, the small business owners who have folded, or the owner/operator’s (which would mainly be self-employed drivers) and I’m sure that the unemployment stats don’t show the 3rd and 4th generation welfare recipients either.
So I really wonder what the actual number of Americans not working is??
And we’re still giving jobs away to Third Country Nationals, and giving aid to every nation in the world but our own. . . hhmmm food for thought
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Also you can add people who’s unemployment has run out. They don’t get counted either.
Krash,
Another thing that they do is when they say unemployment is down…they are not telling you how many people have used up their benefits and just can’t collect unemployment anymore.
Also the good ol’ welfare won’t help people who don’t have children at home.
I noticed that they haven’t updated the stats on the unemployed lately. They need to give some of these overseas jobs to the people who are on unemployment and get them back to work.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
That is a very very valid point!
Good points folks. The worst part is that they are giving away the high skill jobs such as electrical and leaving other lesser skilled jobs with US nationals. It is like KBR enjoy having an out the skilled, yet unlicensed, workers are at fault for when things go wrong even when they are not told how to do it but just to get it done however they can with whatever they have.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64651/bennett-ramberg/the-precedents-for-withdrawal has a little piece of the essay on the subject of why nation building, and its costs, can be so effective and why is it better to leave some placves to fend for themselves but, also why it can create a propoganda explosion such as after friendly forces left Cambodia and allowed Pol Pot to move in and begin the rule which ended up with 2 Million deaths and a lot of hatred to use for recruitment purposes.
All nation building/colonial or whatever, countries have had this issue, France, Netherlands, England, Portugal and now the US have to draw the lies on what they willendure in the name of assistance and where they will walk away and leave a possible civil war to rage and to stop the cries now, it is not all OIL based.
People who resign are not shown in jobless figures and neither are those whose benefits have ran out and those who work for companies like KBR who pay no unemployment and so leave workers with little option to be considered as unemployed. The numbers are far higher of course but, disclosing such would surely cause those who are working to hold their monies even tighter and eaked the economy farther. A rare case where ignorance may not be bliss but, can be useful to halt the already disturbing state of affairs.
I shall be with the unemployed soon also, it will be odd to be ou of work, first time since 1988 that I will not have a job lined up befor leaving the current one.
Whether you believe it took 8 or 16 years to create this situation, it is going to take more than a few bailouts to fix, only when company bonuses are based on a 5 year mean average will the leaders begin thinking of long term gains instead of short term bonus returns
Ms Sparky’s Response:
I agree. Well said!
I just heard on the news last night that Obama says that another million will be out of work by the years end.
A friend of mine just called me and said that on the news they stated that there are 6 million unemployed as of the 15th collecting benefits.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Damn!
I just found this on the net and it was written Feb 20, 2004. Nothing was done then about the outsourcing of our jobs, how can we wake up America today. Our country is run by people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. they don’t have any idea as to what it is like to see our jobs go to others. They love in their big homes, drive their expensive cars, and turn their backs on the American people who pay for it.
The Bleeding Of American Jobs
The United States must stop the bleeding of American jobs to cheap-labor countries. If we don’t stop this job loss, we will eventually impoverish ourselves, since the overwhelming number of Americans must work in order to live.
There is only one way to stop this loss of jobs. Scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement, withdraw from the World Trade Organization and do what our Founding Fathers intended for us to do negotiate trade agreements with individual countries.
With those countries whose living standards, wages, health and environmental regulations are the equal of or are superior to our own, such as Japan and Canada and Western Europe, we can negotiate free-trade agreements. Nobody is likely to close an American plant and move the jobs to Germany or Japan, where wages and benefits are as high as or higher than those in the United States.
With cheap-labor countries, however, we must impose not only protective but punitive tariffs. That is the only way to stop American capitalists who care nothing for their workers or for the country from moving jobs to cheap-labor countries.
So-called free trade, as it has been practiced, is a racket. If you haven’t figured that out yet, let me explain it. The free-trade agreement with Mexico, for example, isn’t designed to allow us to import tequila and tamales duty-free. It is designed to allow American manufacturers to close their American plants and relocate them to Mexico where they can pay Mexican workers a pittance and ignore health, safety and environmental regulations. Then their products are shipped back to the United States to be sold at a fat profit.
Ditto with China and the rest of the cheap-labor countries. Most of these countries frankly have nothing to export. What they have is a surplus population and hence a huge supply of cheap labor. If we levy, say, a punitive tariff of $100 a pair on Nike shoes made in cheap-labor countries, I guarantee you Nike will reopen its American plants or go out of business.
As for American companies that farm out service jobs to cheap-labor countries, the answer is a punitive tax; say $5,000 per foreign worker. This would be fair, since there is a public cost for every unemployed American.
Economics is a lot simpler than economists and ideologues would have you believe. Capitalists are motivated by greed. End of story. To change their harmful behavior, you have to take away from them the only thing they care about money.
By negotiating separate agreements with individual countries, as logic dictates, we can avoid the past problems caused by across-the-board protective tariffs. We could, as I pointed out, have free trade with other industrial countries. There is no reason to protect Ford from competition with Toyota. There is a good reason to prevent Ford from moving its manufacturing plants to Mexico.
Today is not yesterday, and today’s problems are not yesterday’s problems. The old argument of protective tariffs versus free trade is no longer applicable in this global economy, dominated as it is by huge transnational corporations. Capital is mobile; workers are not. Profits made at the expense of American workers and the American treasury should be viewed as hateful and wrong.
We now have a choice. We can stick with theory, even though it no longer fits the facts. We can continue to let big corporations buy favors from politicians. Or we can seize control of our own government and impose restraints on corporate greed.
To do nothing is to condemn our grandchildren to a bleak future.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Here Here!! Thanks
Ms Sparky,
This might be interesting. This was part of a letter I recieved from a friend who is from Canada. Looks like Afghanistan jobs are the same.
“unfortunately i never got the truck drivers position i applied for in iraq, and had to take labouring job here in afghanistan, with less money that’s why i am now looking to change jobs , but there is lots of balkans here i.e. macedonians, kosovo’s, bosnians etc , not as many americans as i thought there would be but that’s because they can pay them less”
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Good to know. Thanks
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53H1PN20090418?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
Perhps it is working in other areas. Delta are closing the India call centers, in time we may be able to actually have conversations which make sense again.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Oh thank God!
Its a start, hopefully other companies like HP will follow. I hate so much paying for a lap top computer and then having to talk with someone outside the U.S.
I was watching “Sunday Morning” news and they were talking about these Boston Tea Parties people were having..all they talked about was taxes. Lately on any news I haven’t heard them talking about the outsourcing of our jobs, unemployment, loss of our homes.
I see on the internet petitions trying to stop the outsourcing but they do not seem to be reaching alot of people which just means alot of people are not surfing the internet researching this outsourcing. Not to many signatures.
I just entered “Stop outsourcing of jobs” and found them. I don’t know if people just don’t know what to do or to many don’t worry about it because their jobs are safe for the moment.
Thought you might enjoy this song, you can go to this website and they have a link for download.
http://www.madnamerica.com/index.htm
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Thanks
Hi Ms Sparky
Thanks for the reply
It has been like this in ENGLAND for years.I have been trying to get onto your overseas projects as there is not a lot of work in London as on site in London you are the minority if your first language is english.I am a fully qualified electrician that tends to specialise in testing as it usually pays more and I am being offered jobs at £8.00 an hour a year ago it was between £16.00 – £25.00 we need a ms sparky in England to carry the torch for us.
Regards
Neil