Hire who?
Sometimes I see small eruptions of sentiments to hire only Americans (and legal residents of course). You'll see new sites like hireamericans.org arrive. While I certainly understand the emotional pull and the therapeutic value of these sites, in my opinion, they will have very, very limited success. There are a couple of limiting issues. First, this action is targeted at the very bottom of the food chain, meaning that it effects will be limited. It would be far more effective of course to get some of the hire American clauses on sporadic bills to actually stick enough to get enacted.
The second and saddest reason is that Americans are not politically active as a culture. Even when there is activity that is directly against their vested interests, they rarely react. In my experience, you'll find only a few percent of people will be active enough to even respond to political stimulus. Of that group, only a tiny fraction would actually become politically active. I would expect such pitiful numbers to apply to any "buy American" initiatives.
- rebornindependent's blog
- Login or register to post comments
-
Comments
getting people to take action
It seems, still the most effective group to take any action are unions. But then that depends upon union leadership. Even worse, most Americans are not in a union and when it comes to Professional careers, STEM, the numbers are beyond pathetic. AFL-CIO DPE was reasonably active for professional workers but it seems the bulk of their activites are always about getting more members through "amnesty", which puts American workers in direct opposition, often of labor unions. Now on H-1B, L-1 and other guest worker Visas, the AFL-CIO at least has actively lobbied, in our interests too, for reforms....
In terms of "buy America" well, nuf said with Walmart being the number 1 retailer and now it's plain hard to find American to even buy.
Some good news is Ford is opening up some battery and electric car plants in Detroit, and that's the bottom line, we need U.S. corporations to open up manufacturing in the U.S. and hire U.S. and then we can also have made in the U.S.
getting involved
I would say that I am pretty surprised that IT Professionals are not out there standing in front of Corporations picketing with banners saying no more outsourcing, but I wouldn't necessarily agree that American's don't want to get involved Politically because look at the Tea Party movement for example. Also, I just received an email from PETA asking all their members to attend an organized event. I think what IT Professionals are missing is a group similar to PETA where emails are sent to members to attend different functions to try to bring their concerns into the public eye. I think right now all there is for IT Professionals are blogs to post on but no real group that get's out there and tries to make changes like PETA does.
For example, I'm an unemployed Business Systems Analyst looking for a job and I should be getting phone calls, emails and job offers but instead I'm getting maybe 1 or 2 job postings a day that are Contract only. It seems outsourcing has really changed the IT industry to contract only jobs that pay no retirement or benefits.
welcome sandalwood!
I agree and one of the purposes of this site is to try to get people to organize and pipe up. Right now it's a community blog, but the site is powerful enough if we get people using the site, I can add things like email alerts, action items and even faxes (although faxes costs money, so that's the drawback!)
Right now if people just write about these ridiculous things then others might read them and sign up, join in.
For example, we have ZERO job growth for a decade. That's ZERO, that alone, one would think we'd all wake up and scream that the great worker squeeze, partly through offshore outsourcing jobs, is obviously not working for Americans and for America!