Go read zete, we explained this in the other thread. What are you, stupid?

IBEW, for one. Point taken, though.

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Your representatives on Philadelphia's City Council are at odds with our new mayor over whether many reforms he has proposed should become law. Please write to them and tell them what your priorities are.

Indict State Senator Vince Fumo into The Crooked Pol Hall of Fame.

Read this. (above)



Cause it's the huge truth here.

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If history in the last 100 years is any lesson... when the economy depresses wages hard enough, at some point the drive to organize will go up.

Offshoring and outsourcing have not spread far and wide enough yet to get enough people to consider that option, but it's always there on the table. But we don't really need to worry about that. Economics is already at work to marginalize offshoring.

Now that credit is drying up and more people can't leverage debt, spending will pull back. Look at the US export market. This year has been a big year for exporters. Next year will be even bigger now that imports (except for China) are getting expensive. Travel outside the US is also getting quite expensive as is traveling within the country.

Offshoring and outsourcing still requires people fly to and fro, consultants are usually in the middle (overbilling and padding hours) and where I have seen offshoring happen in large amounts, it just isn't producing an oomph on the balance sheet as you think it does.

Now that the dollar is getting more and more worthless, a company that could afford a maximum of 100 Indian hires 6 years ago can now barely get 50 today. Sure, that's still cheap enough that you could still lay off 30 U.S. people and give them severance, but those offshore contracts get renegotiated on cycles no longer than 18-24 months.

Those 30 US people will sit and draw unemployment for 6-12 months, some longer. And those 30 people severely pull back from their spending given their circumstances--retarding consumer spending by just that much more.

Besides, I've never seen any company get a 3+ year offshoring contract. Currency exchange rates fluctuate too much that folks like Wipro and Tata won't take the risk.

If your company is large enough to have a Risk Management Officer (or a person with such a similar title), you'll probably be meeting with that person a LOT if you ever embark on an overseas project. The financial risk is real, and the legal quagmire is even worse.

Try doing a HIPAA project with an overseas contractor or with a partner who is doing offshore. It's fun! [And funny when the medical provider/payor who is doing the outsourcing gets burned by it]

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Buh-bye.

It's also partially because offshoring isn't as pronounced as it used to be. qualified labor in India is drying up (as their own economy grows), companies are having quality control problems. Cheap dollars make US made products cheaper for other countries.
It's interesting you say that when the economy is depressed enough the drive to organize goes up. I don't know whether there's truth to that or not. I do know that the great Depression saw a surge in organized labor not necessarily because of economic conditions but because of political ones. FDR decidedly gave favor to organized labor (as opposed to individual labor). Large labor organizations and giant corporations were key to his plan to have wages and prices set each year according to government arbitrated meetings. the idea was to prop up wages and thus buying. Of course, it was not only found unconstitutional, but such practices have generally been failures. On a side note, the most notable resistor to said plan was Henry Ford who was subjected to a government funded smear campaign. If you ever have a chance, you should check out propaganda form that day (and not just the anti-marijuana stuff). pretty weird, to me at least.

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"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"

KYW Newsradio
Posted: Thursday, 13 December 2007 10:42PM

City Council Reaches Convention Center Labor Deal


by KYW's Mike Dunn

City Council members reached a deal late Thursday which they hoped would settle a dispute that's threatened the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Council members agreed to drop language to the deal that encouraged the use of non-union workers for the Convention Center expansion. Language to which the building trade unions objected.
Instead, they approved what officials say are strong provisions aimed at increasing the use of minorities and women in that workforce. Convention Center CEO Al Mezzeroba:
"It will mean that we will build a union building, and it will also mean substantial inclusion from the minority components of the city."
Other parties in the deal, including the unions and the Governor, planned to take a closer look at the language, but Mezzeroba said it will allow the project -- the biggest ever in the state -- to move ahead.

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According to the Inky today, the bill says Council agreed to drop the non-union amendment if the unions disclose the demographic makeup of their membership and adopt the following minority hiring goals: 25% African-American, 10% Hispanic, 5% Asian and 10% female and hire 350 minority and female apprentices and submit quarterly progress reports to Council.

The unions, last week, said that they cannot produce figures saying how many minorities or women are members. Can they do it now?

The Gov is pissed and still has his meeting scheduled for Monday. He has threatened to pull state funding for the expansion if they don't settle this.

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I find myself increasingly tired of Rendell.

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"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"

Great, so we're going to be stuck with a giant hole in the ground for ten or so years.

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The idealistic are no longer concerned with influencing public opinion and creating a free world of responsible and ethical social choices, but rather imposing opinion through legislation, mandating these ethics, and outlawing choice in what the loudest sample finds offensive.

Ban the Bans. It's a slippery slope between Idealism and Fascism.

That isn't going to happen. The job is going to get built union or not at all and any politician that votes for non union can forget about the next election. They can also forget about the unrealistic hiring goals. The politicians are too stupid to figure it out but the demographics of the workforce won't support 50% minorities and 50% majority workfoce. There isn't enough skilled minorites period. The Flyers have a better shot of having 50% minorities.