California nurses press for statewide action: “Everyone is stressed out. Everything is more expensive. It can’t continue like this.”
Nurses across the state of California have gone on strike or voted to walk out over inadequate pay, exhausting work schedules and unsafe conditions.
On Monday, 5,000 nurses at Stanford Health Care and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital struck against poor pay and understaffing after more than 90 percent of them voted to strike on April 8. More than 8,000 nurses at Sutter Health Care in Northern California launched a one-day strike against unsafe staffing levels, improper COVID-19 protocols and wages that do not keep up with inflation.
In the Los Angeles area, hundreds of nurses at Cedars-Sinai Hospital held a protest last week after the latter was found guilty of multiple safety violations during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The protest followed an April 11 strike authorization vote in which the majority of nurses voted in favor.
Nurses at the nearby University of California Los Angeles Medical Center are also holding a rally and protest this coming Wednesday for stronger workplace protections against COVID-19, an action that will be mirrored by their colleagues at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.
In Central and Northern California 19,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses have a contract expiration on August 31, and the agreement for 14,600 University of California nurses ends on October. The movement of nurses in the state comes on top of health care walkouts and and strike votes in Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, Washington D.C., Alabama and across the country. This is part of a global movement, including recent strikes in Australia, Sri Lanka, Germany, Italy and other countries.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke to several nurses throughout the Northern and Southern California regions who described their conditions and expressed a growing sentiment for statewide action by nurses.
One Cedars-Sinai worker told the WSWS: “Two dollars an hour [the proposed increase] is not nearly enough. They want to sell us the same thing they did in 2019. But this isn’t 2019! Inflation today is crazy! I used to spend about $100 whenever I went shopping, now it’s closer to $120. I’m buying cheaper food to make things work. I’m glad nurses are striking in Northern California too, I know it’s no better there. We need to all go out together!
“I’ve also found out that Cedars-Sinai, just like Stanford Health Care, plans to cut health care benefits for workers while they are on strike.”
Frank, a nurse at California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) in San Francisco, explained, “Nurses are working full shifts, 8 to 12 hours, without relief. There are also issues with PPE. Nurses are being asked to use N95s they are not fitted for pretty much daily.”
Asked what it is like to live in San Francisco, the second most expensive city in the US, on a nurse’s income, Frank said, “You can either do it with roommates or multiple incomes. If you have a family, that’s really tough. The idea of homeownership has long since sailed.”
Frank expressed sympathy for Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught, who was criminally convicted for accidentally administering the wrong medication to a patient in Tennessee. “RaDonda Vaught definitely made errors. There are routine checks to catch medication errors, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are systematic flaws that pressured her to skip those checks. Accidents like this can happen when you’re in transition.”
Another transplant nurse highlighted the precarious conditions she has faced at Sutter. “I worked at Mission Bernal during the first lockdowns. They closed the whole floor because we did elective surgeries. I had six months of layoff where we didn’t know whether we would have regular work.
“I picked up shifts when I could. I was put on the COVID floor. It was just filthy. I felt it was unsafe for the patients and for us. I eventually was able to transfer to this unit. Thankfully I didn’t get COVID. I was very lucky.
“When COVID-19 began, Sutter didn’t provide PPE. They said surgical masks were okay. Nurses had to buy their own PPE. Sutter also didn’t provide testing.”
Nurses at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center (MPMC) in Burlingame, California, also spoke to the World Socialist Web Site.
Ann echoed many of the concerns expressed by other fellow nurses surrounding COVID-19 safety and PPE. “There have been plenty of times when we don’t have enough PPE. Just in January we ran out of PPE. The hospital was holding onto it but limiting it to us. We were wearing the same N95 all shift. We don’t always have a shortage but even [that] sometimes is just unacceptable.”
Melissa, a nurse at MPMC, spoke on the impact of inflation. “Everyone is more stressed out. Everything is just more expensive, everything costs more. It can’t continue like this.”
Nurses are at a crossroads. If their struggles remain isolated at individual hospitals, the health care chains will continue to impose poor safety protocols and wage and benefit decreases. The unions, including the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UWH), the California Nurses Association, and Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement (CRONA) at Stanford and Packard, are deeply tied to management and the state’s Democratic Party and are opposed to a unified struggle to beat back the giant health care monopolies.
But this is what is necessary. Nurses must form their own fighting organizations, independent of the corporatist unions and the two parties of big business. These rank-and-file committees must form lines of communication between hospital workers and other sections of the working class throughout California and internationally, and prepare statewide strike action to demand adequate staffing, a sharp increase in pay and protections against the continued spread of the deadly pandemic.
In the United States, the coronavirus has taken an enormous toll on health care workers with no end in sight. More than 3,600 health care workers have perished from COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic alone, while the World Health Organization estimated that 115,000 health care workers have died worldwide during the first 17 months.
In spite of these figures and the initial cheerleading of nurses as health care “heroes” in the first months of the pandemic, the hospital chains have made clear that nothing will stop them from sacrificing nurses’ lives and livelihoods at the altar of profit.
These conditions have led to an exodus of hundreds of thousands of nurses from the profession. According to a recently released McKinsey report, the share of nurses nationwide who expressed a desire to leave their jobs in the coming year rose from 22 percent in February 2021 to 32 percent in February 2022, numbers which will only increase as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations rise once again.
Los Angeles County on Friday reported a 52 percent increase in coronavirus cases over the previous week. This increase, though drastic, is still a massive undercount considering the absence of mass testing and reporting. The latest upsurge arrives three weeks after the county lifted all mask mandates for indoor businesses and outdoor events.
San Francisco County now has the highest coronavirus infection rate in California at 18 cases per 100,000, also a massive undercount. At a recent prom dance at San Mateo High School in San Mateo, California, 100 students out of 600 attending tested positive for the virus.
In spite of these developments which will inevitably result in a surge of preventable deaths, the state of California continues to remove all measures to contain the virus or even to report on cases. Five weeks ago, California ended is mask mandate for indoor businesses and schools. This week, the state closed its central COVID-19 testing laboratory.
Furthermore, despite findings released by researchers at University of San Francisco and the California Department of Public Health this week that COVID-19 vaccinations prevented 1.5 million infections statewide and avoided 20,000 deaths, the state is delaying implementation of vaccine mandates for K-12 school children until July 2023.
These deadly conditions, combined with record high living expenses and exhausting working conditions, are driving nurses and other sections of the working class into the greatest movement of opposition in decades.
15 Shocking Facts About The Student Loan Debt Bubble And The Great College Education Scam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ZC0oxnV9s
They have told us that the future of our country walked hand in hand with education - but when the cost of attaining such education causes irreparable financial damages for millions of college graduates, what future do we really have? College tuition has become increasingly burdensome in recent years. In fact, since the 1970s, the cost of tuition for private institutions skyrocketed by 567%, while for public universities, that increase was shockingly higher, exploding by 2,580%, as reported by the National Center For Education Statistics. Almost 30% of the U.S. population currently carries student loan debt. A significant share of these borrowers has been paying their debt for decades. Now, they're reaching their 60s, and they're being forced to use their Social Security benefits to cover their student loans. Five decades ago, the average tuition for private schools hovered around $4,000. Now, some institutions are charging their students $20,000, $30,000, or even $40,000 a year for tuition and fees, and this sum doesn't even count living expenses. To make things worse, college graduates are facing one of the toughest job markets ever. There's a scarcity of good-paying jobs all around the nation, and despite their degree, a large share of young adults are underemployed, or working in low-wage jobs and earning $25,000 or less, which doesn't even allow them to alleviate their debt burden. At least 33.5% of college graduates are underemployed right now, and about 9% are unemployed, Federal Reserve data show. According to one estimate, today, a private school student working on a minimum-wage job would have to work 100 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, just to pay for tuition. All of this makes us wonder: when did getting a college degree stopped being about people's education and started being an industry of debt? The system continues to push the notion that a college education is the key to a good future and that there is plenty of financial aid out there for everyone that wants to go to college. But they fail to mention that you'll probably spend the rest of your life trying to get rid of that debt, and that it will leave you financially drained for decades. Not even bankruptcy can get you out of student loan debt. It will stay with you forever until you finally pay it off. Now, the U.S. economy is facing the biggest student loan debt bubble in the history of the world, and when our new college graduates finally enter the labor market, they rapidly realize that the good jobs they were promised are very few and far between. As millions of Americans wake up to the fact that the tens of thousands of dollars that they have poured into their college educations was not a guarantee of better working opportunities or financial stability, will the great college education scam finally be exposed? How can this nation grow if we limit the growth of our students the moment they enter college? Opting for an education shouldn't result in such acute financial distress. How can our students feel motivated about getting a degree if that means they will struggle financially for decades after graduation? Sadly, if education is indeed the future of our nation and there’s simply no safety net for our students, then we’re doomed to fail. In today's video, we compiled stats that reveal that education in America has become a lucrative industry of debt. Here are 15 Shocking Facts About The Student Loan Debt Bubble And The Great College Education Scam. For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/ And visit: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
While Biden has vowed to flood the U.S. labor market with more foreign workers to compete against Americans for jobs, he has shied away from questions on whether he will eliminate tariffs on foreign imports that were imposed by Trump. Such elimination of tariffs would be a boon to multinational corporations that offshore their production and jobs overseas only to import their products back into the U.S. market, often with no penalties for doing so.
Gallup: Biden Job Approval Down in Nearly Every U.S. Subgroup, Especially Ages 18-64
(CNS News) -- In a new survey on President Joe Biden's job approval, results show that Biden has lost support among every subgroup of Americans cited by Gallup except one. His job approval has fallen across the board.
For instance, Gallup emphasizes that among Generation Z (born 1997-2004), Biden's job approval back in Jan.-June 2021 was 60%, Biden's "honeymoon" period. However, now, in the period Sept. 2021 - March 2022, his job approval is only 39% among Generation Z, a drop of 21 points.
For Millenials (born 1981-1996), Biden had a 60% approval during the political honeymoon time, but now only 41% of Millenials approve of the job he is doing, a decline of 19 points.
For all U.S. adults, his job approval has fallen 14 percentage points, from 56% to 42%.
Black and Hispanic adults also think less of Biden's job performance. As reported by Gallup, "Early in Biden's term, 87% of Non-Hispanic black adults approved of the job he was doing. That fell to 74% in the summer of 2021 and is now at 67%, 20 points lower than in the early stages of his presidency."
"Among Hispanics, Biden's job approval has slumped from 73% in early 2021 to 52% now, a 21-point fall," said Gallup.
The survey firm also lists Biden's decline in a variety of subgroups.
For instance, among men, Biden's job approval rating fell from 49% in early 2021 to 38% now, a decline of 11 points. Among women, the job approval fell from 62% to 46%, a drop of 16 points.
For people 18-29 years old, Biden's job approval is 38%, down 23 points since early 2021. For people 30-49 years old, Biden is down 17 points; 50-64 years old, down 9 points; 65+ years old, down 5 points.
Among white adults, Biden's job approval is now at 35%, down 10 points from early 2021.
For adults with high school diplomas or less, his approval rate is at 37% -- down 15 points. For people with college degrees, down 13 points; among postgraduates, down 10 points.
For people making less than $40,000 a year, Biden's job approval is 44%, which is down 18 points since early 2021. For middle income ($40,000-$99,999), it's down 13 points; upper income ($100,000 or more), it's down 12 points.
For more of the data, see box below. The only subgroup that expressed no change was the Traditionalist Generation (born before 1946). They gave Biden a 48% job approval in early 2021, the same percentage they give him today.
To read the survey, click here.
WH: 'Not a Single Person in This Country Has Paid a Dime on...Federal Student Loans' Under Biden
(CNSNews.com) - "Canceling student loan debt is something that would be good for people all across this country, and, more importantly, good for our economy overall," leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told "Face the Nation" on Sunday.
It might also be good for Democrats eyeing losses in the midterm election, Warren indicated: "As Democrats, we need to deliver. We need to hit costs head-on," she said.
"And we have the power to do that. We've got less than 200 days left, though. And instead of looking backwards, let's look forward. Let's get done what we can get done for the American people who elected us, for the American people who are counting on us."
At the White House on Monday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked if the Biden administration agrees with Warren on debt cancellation:
"What I would tell you is that not a single person in this country has paid a dime on student -- federal student loans since the president took office," Psaki said. "And what we have said is that he (President Biden) would make a decision about any cancellation of student debt before the conclusion of that pause on student loans.
"But I don't have anything to preview for you at this point in time," Psaki added.
Warren told CBS that loan forgiveness is a matter of "racial equity," and Psaki said the president agrees with that:
"Yes, it is a racial equity issue," Psaki said on Monday, "but (it) is also an issue that impacts many individuals, young people, middle-aged people of all races. It is something that he has -- he has played -- has been a vital priority to the president, which, again, is why not -- not a single person has...paid a penny, a dime -- a dime or a penny in student loans since he took office."
President Donald Trump signed a moratorium on student loan repayments on March 2020, when the COVID pandemic took hold, and President Biden has extended that repayment moratorium several times, most recently on April 6.
In his April 6 order, Biden noted that on his first day in office, "I directed the Department of Education to pause federal student loan repayments through September of that year.
"At the time, our economy was barely growing. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans were fully vaccinated. Millions of Americans were struggling to stay afloat. Because of that pause in repayments, 41 million Americans were able to breathe a little easier during some of the toughest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Today, America is stronger than we were a year ago," he said. "However...we are still recovering from the pandemic and the unprecedented economic disruption it caused. If loan payments were to resume on schedule in May, analysis of recent data from the Federal Reserve suggests that millions of student loan borrowers would face significant economic hardship, and delinquencies and defaults could threaten Americans’ financial stability.
"Accordingly, to enable Americans to continue to get back on their feet after two of the hardest years this nation has ever faced, my Administration is extending the pause on federal student loan repayments through August 31st, 2022. That additional time will assist borrowers in achieving greater financial security and support the Department of Education’s efforts to continue improving student loan programs. As part of this transition, the Department of Education will offer additional flexibilities and support for all borrowers.
"I’m asking all student loan borrowers to work with the Department of Education to prepare for a return to repayment, look into Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and explore other options to lower their payments. Vice President Harris and I are focused on supporting borrowers in need, and believe that this pause will provide a continued lifeline as we recover and rebuild from the pandemic."
President Biden has said he would sign a bill, if Congress sends him one, cancelling up to $10,000 in student loans per borrower. So far, he opposes the push to wipe out all student loan debt.
Loan forgiveness ignores tuition gouging
Republicans on House Education and Labor Committee argue that "blanket student loan forgiveness is not a solution."
In a March 1 message, the committee Republicans wrote:
"This administration cares more about appeasing the progressive wing of the Democrat party than offering solutions to address the rising cost of college. Americans don’t need quick fixes and snappy soundbites—Americans need meaningful reform. The federal student loan system must evolve so that it stops providing incentives for colleges and universities to raise the cost of tuition.
“Instead of advocating for sensible policy solutions, Democrats are pushing radical student loan forgiveness schemes. Blanket forgiveness would compound the nation’s 40-year-high inflation rate, while disproportionately benefiting high-income borrowers -- the very people who least need help and are reaping the benefits of the postsecondary education taxpayers provided them.
"It also does nothing for future borrowers as it ignores the systemic problems plaguing the student loan program that created the vicious debt spiral and tuition-bubble we have today. President Biden and radical progressives have nothing to say to the thousands of students taking on education debt the day after forgiveness hits other than 'good luck.'
"Reckless loan forgiveness policies are a short-sighted answer that would crush American taxpayers and leave our higher education system more broken than before."
Analysis conducted last year reveal that 71 percent of tech workers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, while the tech industry in the San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward area is made up of 50 percent foreign-born tech workers.
While Biden has vowed to flood the U.S. labor market with more foreign workers to compete against Americans for jobs, he has shied away from questions on whether he will eliminate tariffs on foreign imports that were imposed by Trump. Such elimination of tariffs would be a boon to multinational corporations that offshore their production and jobs overseas only to import their products back into the U.S. market, often with no penalties for doing so.
By failures of border security, a lack of the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States and huge numbers of visas for high tech workers, the lives and livelihoods of Americans and their children, are being stolen by America’s corrupt political elite who are doing the bidding of those who provide them with huge “Campaign Contributions” (Orwellian euphemism for bribes) pursue legislation that is diametrically opposed to the best interests of America and Americans.
MICHAEL CUTLER
Google Launches ‘Inclusive Language’ Function to Promote Political Correctness
Google has announced the launch of an “inclusive language” function to help users eliminate politically incorrect words and expressions.
The feature is being introduced initially to Google’s “enterprise-level” users and will include both warnings and suggestions as part of Google’s new assisted writing features in Google Docs.
Typing in the word “landlord,” for instance, generates a warning the term “may not be inclusive to all readers” as well as the suggestion to replace the offensive locution with “property owner” or “proprietor.”
Google inclusive language text-editing.
Similarly, Google takes issue with the word “mankind” and proposes substituting it with the more appropriate “humankind.”
Use of “policemen” and “housewife” provokes a correction as well, and Google will urge replacing them with the gender-neutral “police officers” and “stay-at-home spouse.”
Curiously, the new software seems targeted only at a specific sort of communication infractions.
For example, a transcribed interview with ex-Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, in which he uses offensive racial slurs and talks about hunting black people, elicited no warnings, perhaps out of respect for similar language found in rap songs.
The program did, however, propose amending President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address to substitute “for all humankind” in place of “for all mankind.”
Silkie Carlo, of campaign group Big Brother Watch, insisted that “Google’s new word warnings aren’t assistive, they’re deeply intrusive.”
“This speech-policing is profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong, often reinforcing bias,” Carlo said
A Google spokesman [spokesperson] said: “Our technology is always improving, and we don’t yet [have] a solution to identifying and mitigating all unwanted word associations and biases.”
NEO-FASCIST MARK ZUCKERBERG SAYS HE WILL ELECT OBOMB FOR A THIRD TERM!
Barack Obama Calls for More Censorship: First Amendment ‘Does Not Apply to Facebook and Twitter’
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/04/mark-zuckerberg-i-am-senile-joe-bidens.html
JUDICIAL WATCH’S TEN MOST CORRUPT LIST
President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. JUDICIAL WATCH
Zuckerberg’s FWD.us Claims No Amnesty Ensures Midterm Defeat for Democrats
The Facebook-funded FWD.us investor advocacy group is touting the claim that Democrat turnout will drop in 2022 if the party cannot pass an amnesty through Congress.
But that claim is toothless, in large part because recent polls show that many Americans of Latino ancestry are increasingly voting for the GOP, precisely because GOP leaders oppose the amnesty-amplified wave of cheap labor into their communities.
The claim is being made by pro-migration groups, including the leaders of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) which denounced the Senate’s parliamentarian’s decision to exclude the parole amnesty for 6.5 million illegals from the draft Build Back Better spending plan.
NDLON declared Thursday night:
Democrats’ excuses for their failure, for their incompetence, and for their insincerity will be the ammunition used by xenophobes in the Republican Party to retake control of the federal government in upcoming elections. Inaction on immigration legalization risks further propelling Trumpism in every possible way … No more excuses. Where there is a will, there is a way.
The NDLON group represents illegal migrants, most of whom work for very low wages, and none of whom can vote in U.S. elections.
Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) is making the same claim, according to Bloomberg, which reported that he “warned that Democrats would face wrath from voters in the 2022 elections if they don’t secure a citizenship path”
But the NDLON claim is being echoed by the politically powerful investor class, who use imported workers, consumers, and renters to spike the value of their Wall Street investments.
Todd Schulte is the president of the FWD.us advocacy group for investors, which gets about $30 million a year from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to push for more migration. On Thursday night, he tweeted:
Schulte’s deputy also pushed a hard line:
Unsurprisingly, FWD.us has a hidden agenda in the amnesty debate.
The establishment media extensively cover the proposed parole amnesty for 6.5 million illegal migrants. But the media largely ignores two other proposed changes to immigration laws that would deliver huge benefits to West Coast investors who created the FWD.us advocacy group in 2013.
For example, the BBB legislation would allow the White House to provide green cards to millions of favored migrants, including perhaps three million “chain migrants” selected by recent immigrants. This open-doors policy would provide investors with millions of new profit-generating consumers, renters, and workers.
The BBB legislation would also allow President Joe Biden’s pro-migration deputies to sell green cards to at least one million migrants who have taken many of the Fortune 500 jobs sought by skilled U.S. college graduates. This change would allow Fortune 500 companies to hire many more foreign graduates with dangled offers of fast-track green cards. These workers are usually imported via the visa worker programs, such as the H-1B and Optional Practical Training program.
But those two benefits for the Fortune 500 investors may be dropped if the Democrat senators cannot also get their amnesty for illegal migrants.
On Friday, an advocacy group for corporate-funded immigration lawyers urged Congress to keep pushing the green card giveaway, even after the amnesty was nixed:
“The corporate guys are riding on perceived sympathy for the illegal alien population in order to get their immigration giveaways,” said Robert Law, the director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. He continued:
The Hispanic population knows immigration is a pocketbook issue for them as well, and mass illegal immigration — plus legal immigration — hurts the economic opportunities of Hispanic Americans or the black community, or any people who typically are competing at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
The Senate’s debate referee has not issued any judgments on the two green card proposals.
Zuckerberg’s FWD.us network of coastal investors stands to gain from more cheap labor, government-aided consumers, and urban renters. The network has funded many astroturf campaigns, urged Democrats to not talk about the economic impact of migration, and manipulated coverage by the TV networks and the print media.
FWD.us’also spotlights many family dramas amid the inflow of border migrants. This focus helps keep reporters from recognizing the huge pocketbook impact of the establishment’s economic policy of mass migration. The resulting family-drama coverage also keeps many young progressives from noticing that the extraction migration policy drives up their rents and cuts their salaries.
The breadth of investors who founded and funded FWD.us was hidden from casual visitors to the group’s website sometime in the last few months. But copies exist at other sites.
Biden’s Chief of Staff Worked on Behalf of Big Tech for Endless H-1B Visas
Democrat Joe Biden has chosen Ronald Klain to be his chief of staff should he enter the White House in January. Klain worked on behalf of Silicon Valley executives and their interests, which include providing tech corporations with an endless supply of H-1B foreign visa workers and more free trade.
Klain, who was made Biden’s incoming chief of staff this week, served on the executive council of TechNet — a firm that promotes the interests of Silicon Valley’s tech corporations in Washington, D.C. Klain served on the council alongside executives from the Oracle Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Google, Visa, Apple, and Microsoft.
TechNet, most recently, joined a lawsuit against President Trump’s reforms to the H-1B visa program that sought to prioritize unemployed Americans for jobs rather than allowing businesses to continue importing foreign workers.
TechNet is one of the groups that has filed an amicus brief to oppose the new regulations on H-1B visas. https://t.co/ofY4GJ2sVR
— U.S. Tech Workers (@USTechWorkers) November 12, 2020
Trump’s seeking to force businesses to hire Americans over importing foreign visa workers is an affront to Silicon Valley’s tech corporations, those represented by TechNet, who advocate for an endless flow of H-1B foreign visa workers.
There are about 650,000 H-1B visa workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans annually potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program.
Analysis conducted in 2018 discovered that 71 percent of tech workers in Silicon Valley, California, are foreign-born, while the tech industry in the San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward area is made up of 50 percent foreign-born tech workers. Up to 99 percent of H-1B visa workers imported by the top eight outsourcing firms are from India.
TechNet’s listed immigration goals include allowing corporations to dictate the annual level of legal immigration to the United States and the elimination of per-country caps that would effectively let India and China monopolize the U.S. green card system.
The group’s goals on trade are in direct opposition to President Trump’s economic nationalist agenda that has imposed tariffs on foreign imports from China, Canada, Europe, and other parts of the globe.
TechNet’s trade goals include reducing “tariff and non-tariff barriers to information, communications, and advanced energy technology products, services, and investments” as well as “protections for the free flow of data across borders…”
While Biden has vowed to flood the U.S. labor market with more foreign workers to compete against Americans for jobs, he has shied away from questions on whether he will eliminate tariffs on foreign imports that were imposed by Trump. Such elimination of tariffs would be a boon to multinational corporations that offshore their production and jobs overseas only to import their products back into the U.S. market, often with no penalties for doing so.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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