Thread: Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor

All comes back to Obamacare. They won't have to pay the Obamacare penalty on newly amnestied illegals.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

All comes back to Obamacare. They won't have to pay the Obamacare penalty on newly amnestied illegals.

Excellent point Newmexican.

Posted on September 11, 2013 by John Hinderaker
powerlineblog.com

Byron York makes an excellent point: the very companies that are aggressively lobbying for immigration “reform,” which means importing tens of millions of new immigrants, overwhelmingly low-skilled, having been laying off many thousands of already-existing Americans:

On Tuesday, the chief human resources officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald’s Corporation, The Wendy’s Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally. …

Of course, the U.S. unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent, with millions of American workers at all skill levels out of work, and millions more so discouraged that they have left the work force altogether. In addition, at the same time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers.

For example, Hewlett-Packard, whose Executive Vice President for Human Resources Tracy Keogh signed the letter, laid off 29,000 employees in 2012. In August of this year, Cisco Systems, whose Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Weslock signed the letter, announced plans to lay off 4,000 — in addition to 8,000 cut in the last two years. United Technologies, whose Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Organization Elizabeth B. Amato signed the letter, announced layoffs of 3,000 this year. American Express, whose Chief Human Resources Officer L. Kevin Cox signed the letter, cut 5,400 jobs this year. Procter & Gamble, whose Chief Human Resources Officer Mark F. Biegger signed the letter, announced plans to cut 5,700 jobs in 2012.

Those are just a few of the layoffs at companies whose officials signed the letter. A few more: T-Mobile announced 2,250 layoffs in 2012. Archer-Daniels-Midland laid off 1,200. Texas Instruments, nearly 2,000. Cigna, 1,300. Verizon sought to cut 1,700 jobs by buyouts and layoffs. Marriott announced “hundreds” of layoffs this year. International Paper has closed plants and laid off dozens. …

“It is difficult to understand how these companies can feel justified in demanding the importation of cheap labor with a straight face at a time when tens of millions of Americans are unemployed,” writes the Center for Immigration Studies, which strongly opposes the Senate Gang of Eight bill and similar measures. “The companies claim the bill is an ‘opportunity to level the playing field for U.S. employers’ but it is more of an effort to level the wages of American citizens.”

That seems, rather obviously, to be true. Importing tens of millions of new, low-skilled workers at a time of high unemployment will drive wages down. No one can deny that. I can understand why some businesses would prefer for wages to be lower, but why that should be the policy of the United States government is beyond me.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...ion-reform.php

Corporate execs responsible for thousands of layoffs send letter to Congress calling for … immigration reform


You know the old saying about illegals doing the jobs Americans won’t do? Sometimes the reason Americans “won’t” do them is because they’ve been escorted from the premises by security after cleaning out their desks.

The good news? Corporate America’s doing its part to make sure newly legalized illegals don’t end up on welfare. The bad news? Given the state of the Obama economy, the citizens they laid off are probably already cashing unemployment checks.

The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald’s Corporation, The Wendy’s Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally…

In addition, at the same time the corporate officers seek higher numbers of immigrants, both low-skill and high-skill, many of their companies are laying off thousands of workers.

For example, Hewlett-Packard, whose Executive Vice President for Human Resources Tracy Keogh signed the letter, laid off 29,000 employees in 2012. In August of this year, Cisco Systems, whose Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Weslock signed the letter, announced plans to lay off 4,000 — in addition to 8,000 cut in the last two years. United Technologies, whose Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Organization Elizabeth B. Amato signed the letter, announced layoffs of 3,000 this year. American Express, whose Chief Human Resources Officer L. Kevin Cox signed the letter, cut 5,400 jobs this year. Procter & Gamble, whose Chief Human Resources Officer Mark F. Biegger signed the letter, announced plans to cut 5,700 jobs in 2012.

In fairness, the money saved from paying lower wages to legalized illegals can be used to expand operations, which means creating more jobs … which will presumably also be filled by newly legalized illegals. But who knows? Maybe there’ll be a few crappy part-time jobs created too that can be staffed by Americans who don’t mind reduced hours in the name of ObamaCare compliance.

By the way, has Syria finally killed off amnesty, at least for the rest of the year? Reform advocates are nervous that there’s too much on Congress’s plate and too little time left in the session to get through it for the GOP to take up a hot potato like immigration when they don’t have to. The silver lining if the GOP had voted for a Syria attack is that it would have made them wary about further angering the base by voting for amnesty too, but now that that’s off the table, they still have some political capital to spend. Will there be any left after the bound-to-disappoint debt-ceiling saga plays out? Fingers crossed for “no”!


http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/1...ration-reform/

US
‘Duck Dynasty’ drafted into amnesty campaign



09/11/2013

Neil Munro
White House Correspondent



The corporate parent of the company featured in the hit TV show Duck Dynasty is backing the controversial push to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws and to double the inflow of new immigrants.

The Duck Dynasty show features Willie Robertson and his extended family of bearded Louisiana rednecks. Robertson is the CEO of Duck Commander, a company based in West Monroe, La., which manufactures duck-calls used by hunters to attract ducks.

But Robertson’s company is actually a subsidiary of a high-tech corporation, Alliant Techsystems, a billion-dollar corporation that manufactures space rockets, radar-hunting missiles, huge quantities of ammunition and sporting goods, and employs 17,000 people.

Christine Wolf, ATK’s vice-president for human resources, signed a Sept. 10 letter to the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, urging him “to fix the broken immigration system and work with the Senate to ensure that a bill is signed by the President this year.”

The immigration rewrite passed by the Senate in July would provide a staged amnesty to 11 million illegals, double the inflow of immigrants to 46 million by 2033 and double the resident population of university-trained, blue-collar or agricultural guest-workers to more than 2 million. The increased inflow would add one immigrant for every two American births.

The GOP-led House has developed a series of immigration bills, but the GOP leadership has not announced plans for a floor vote.

“Even with the economy still recovering, many of our companies continue to have difficulty finding sufficient American workers to fill certain lesser-skilled positions,” said the Sept. 10 signed by Wolf and roughly 120 other executives at major companies. “Our global competitors understand that attracting top talent from around the world is vital to a country’s economic success,” Wolf’s letter said.
An ATK representative declined TheDC’s request for comment.

Some of the companies that signed the letter have recently laid off thousands of Americans.

Hewlett-Packard, for example, fired 29,000 people in 2012. United Technology is laying off 3,000 this year, and American Express is firing 4,500, according to a survey by the Washington Examiner.

The corporate decision effectively shoves Robertson and his family of bearded Louisiana rednecks into a campaign bus already filled with Northeast progressives, West Coast corporate executives and D.C. lobbyists for Hispanic special-interest groups.

“I don’t know what the Robertsons think about immigration or anything else, but [the parent corporation’s] push for amnesty and huge increases in immigration doesn’t seem to be consistent with Duck Commander’s brand image or the expectations of its customers,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

“There’s a danger this could turn into Chick-fil-A in reverse for them,” he said, citing progressives’ media-generated scandal about the fast-food company in 2012.

Robertson’s assistant, John-David Owen, did not respond to an email inquiry from The Daily Caller.

In August, Duck Dynasty garnered 11.8 million viewers in its first show of the fall season. “Premiere Shatters Cable Records,” declared the headline in Variety, the industry’s trade magazine, which describes the show as a “redneck reality smash.”
Polls shows most Americans strongly oppose the increased inflow of foreign workersscheduled by the bill. However, many Americans are willing to back an conditional amnesty of illegal immigrants, but only the government follows through on promises to end to further illegal immigration.

In June, a small poll of 500 likely voters in Louisiana showed lopsided opposition to the pending Senate bill’s increased immigration flow, and 81 percent opposed the bill’s doubling of guest-workers.

Left-wing and right-wing advocates for American workers fear that a business-backed immigration rewrite would worsen Americans’ wages and employment opportunities.

However, company executives also back the bills because immigration increases the number of U.S consumers who buy apartments, cars, food, TVs and other basics.
Boosting the population of consumers makes short-term sense for executives, said Roy Beck, director of NumbersUSA, which is working to reduce immigration rates. “If you’ve got a rapidly growing population, then even inefficient and nonproductive businesses tend to survive,” he said.

However, shareholders and executives will lose in the long-run, he warmed.
“You may be importing a lot of new customers… but in the end, you’re importing a lot of people who will require a bigger government, and an electorate that will increasingly vote for legislators who are not pro-business,” he said.

“But for business, it’s all short term,” he said.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/11/du...esty-campaign/

Cheesecake Factory, Hallmark, Disney, and Others Now Pushing Amnesty

Illegal Immigrant Lobby to Stage National Demand for Amnesty, Work Authorization