Donald Trump’s claim that, because of him, SoftBank would be investing $50 billion in the U.S. and creating 50,000 jobs was greeted somewhat less credulously than his Carrier claims. But it’s still worth an extra look at the details. It’s not just that SoftBank had already planned a major investment fund before the election:
Worse yet, this deal is lose, lose, lose for the domestic economy. First, this inflow of foreign capital will bid up the U.S. dollar, which will reduce the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing by making imports cheaper and exports more expensive. This will increase the U.S. trade deficit and reduce employment in U.S. manufacturing. The U.S. dollar has gained about 25 percent in the past two-and-a-half years, and one-fifth of that increase has occurred since the election. As a result, the trade deficit in manufactured goods increased sharply in 2015 and is poised for another increase after the recent run-up in the dollar. Meanwhile, the United States has lost 78,000 manufacturing jobs since the first of the year due, in part, to the rising trade deficit.
Second, foreign investment in the U.S. economy is dominated by foreign purchases of existing U.S. companies. Between 1990 and 2005, foreign multinational companies (MNCs) acquired or established domestic subsidiaries that employed 5.25 million U.S. employees. The vast majority (94 percent) of jobs associated with those investments were in existing firms acquired by foreign MNCs. However, 4 million of those jobs disappeared through layoffs or divestiture of part or all of those companies [...]
SoftBank provides a clear example of plans to acquire and merge existing U.S. businesses.
● Driving Uber toward unionization.
● Hotel workers defeat boss tactics to win union in Santa Monica.
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● "Get someone up here. We're all dying."
[Oil refineries] also pose an existential threat, as evidenced by the more than 500 refinery accidents reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 1994. The Anacortes disaster occurred five years after the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, blew up, killing 15 workers and injuring 180. It came two years before a fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California, sent a plume of pungent, black smoke over the Bay Area, and five years before an explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, California, nearly unleashed a ground-hugging cloud of deadly acid into a city of almost 150,000 people.
These episodes and others call into question the adequacy of EPA and U.S. Department of Labor rules that have been in place since the 1990s. The former is finishing an update, due out in early 2017, that critics say doesn’t do enough to safeguard the public; the latter is years away from floating a proposal to protect workers.
● Organizing works:
Thousands of airport employees in New York and New Jersey have successfully bargained for a minimum wage of $15 an hour and gained union recognition, in an deal with nearly a dozen airport contractors that could offer a roadmap for unionizing sub-contracted workers across the country.
The agreements are modest but symbolically significant wins for about 8,000 airport workers, who have long been a part of the Fight for $15 movement to raise the minimum wage, but had yet to win industry-specific gains. They now join healthcare workers in seeing progress on pay and conditions after linking up with the organizing effort sparked by fast-food workers in 2012.
● The hidden powers Andy Puzder would hold at the Department of Labor.
● Delivery drivers are suing Amazon over wage theft:
Liss-Riordan explains that Amazon is experimenting with a delivery system where the company contracts with individuals to use their own cars to pick up parcels at Amazon warehouses and deliver them to local customers. The drivers typically sign up for a specific work shift and are paid an hourly wage. They are not compensated, however, for expenses like gasoline, car maintenance, telephone calls, or other incidentals. When subtracting these expenses, drivers often end up earning less than the minimum wage and are denied overtime pay, she says.
● Temp worker organizing faces serious challenges, but it needs to happen.
● Workers Independent News:
