http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/skills-mismatch-unemployment_n_1292273.html?ref=business

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates job openings in manufacturing -- and its numbers are less than half those cited by the Post, which attributed its figures to the Manufacturing Institute, an industry trade group. According to the government data, last year the average number of vacancies was less than 230,000. There are seven to eight times that many unemployed manufacturing workers, Sum said. The Post reported that the shortage of skilled workers has also pushed up wages. But here, too, Sum said, the evidence does not match up.

Since the beginning of the century, manufacturing wages for production workers have barely increased, Sum said. And in the last two years, as employers have said they've been having difficulty filling spots, wages have declined slightly.

"If there was a big shortage of workers, than we should find wages rising. But this just isn't the case," Sum said. "That doesn't mean that specific companies won't ever have trouble finding a machinist, but when you add it all up, it doesn't amount to very much."

Another objection is that a tariff would trigger a downward spiral of retaliation and counter-retaliation with our trading partners, resulting in an uncontrolled collapse of global trade.

But this oft-bandied doomsday scenario is unlikely. Above all, our trading partners know that they are the ones with the huge trade surpluses to lose, not us.....

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day....

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

Companies and other economists say that notion is naïve. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.

In Foxconn City

An eight-hour drive from that glass factory is a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. To Apple executives, Foxconn City was further evidence that China could deliver workers — and diligence — that outpaced their American counterparts.

That’s because nothing like Foxconn City exists in the United States.

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

Foxconn employs nearly 300 guards to direct foot traffic so workers are not crushed in doorway bottlenecks. The facility’s central kitchen cooks an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day. While factories are spotless, the air inside nearby teahouses is hazy with the smoke and stench of cigarettes.

Foxconn Technology has dozens of facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and in Mexico and Brazil, and it assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics for customers like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

http://economyincrisis.org/?s=national+farmers+union

National Farmers Union Backs WTO Appeal
FEBRUARY 16, 2012 JOHN OLE

When the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled against U.S. Country of Origin Labeling laws (COOL), it was a blow to both American producers and American consumers. COOL laws provided American consumers with crucial information about the food they buy, but once again the WTO ruled against the best interest of the American people. Now the National Farmers Union (NFU) is asking U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to aggressively appeal the ruling. The U.S. should appeal this ruling for the good of its citizens, but the United States could solve this and many of its other problems by simply removing itself from the WTO agreement instead.

When the WTO ruled against COOL, it ruled against the idea that Americans should be able to buy from other Americans. In response to the ruling, there has been some talk of reworking the laws to make them compliant with the WTO’s wishes. In the NFU’s statement that followed its appeal to the trade representative, it strongly urged the United States not to weaken the laws.

“NFU has a proud record of supporting COOL. We were instrumental in getting the COOL laws passed in 2002 and again in 2008. We will oppose any attempt to change that law,” NFU President Roger Johnson said.

We currently inspect less than 2 percent of the food that is brought into this country from overseas. These lax inspection policies make it all the more important for Americans to know where their food is coming from. As long as we are members of the WTO, we should take every action we can to appeal this ruling, but an appeal will only address this specific problem. This ruling is just one of many that demonstrates that the WTO framework is not working for the United States.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-20/u-s-appeals-wto-ruling-in-mexico-dolphin-safe-tuna-dispute-1-.html

U.S. Appeals WTO Ruling in Mexico Dolphin-Safe Tuna Dispute
By Eric Martin - Jan 20, 2012 3:20 PM PT

The Obama administration is appealing a World Trade Organization ruling that U.S. curbs on imports of Mexican tuna, which protect dolphins, are more restrictive than needed, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said today.

Sales of Mexican tuna to the U.S. have been limited since 1991 under Commerce Department provisions that determine when products can be labeled as dolphin-safe. The U.S. adopted the rules in response to complaints that Mexico’s fishing techniques hurt dolphins. Mexico said that its tuna-catching practices and regulations meet global standards.

The U.S. and Mexico require inspectors aboard tuna vessels during fishing trips. Both nations are members of the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission, which helps enforce international dolphin-protection standards. The WTO judges in their Sept. 15 ruling also rejected Mexico’s claim that “dolphin-safe” labeling provisions are discriminatory.

“Our dolphin-safe labeling measures for tuna products provide information for American consumers as they make food- purchasing decisions for their families,” Andrea Mead, press secretary for the trade office, said today in an e-mailed statement. “Our decision to appeal the WTO ruling in this case demonstrates the commitment of the United States to our dolphin- safe labeling measures.”

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/12346

*Shrugging off an attack on the Clean Air Act
Wednesday, March 13, 1996 - 11:00
By Norman Solomon The news should have caused a national uproar. In a decision with momentous implications, the new World Trade Organisation ruled that the US law known as the Clean Air Act is unacceptable because of restrictions it places on pollutants in imported gasoline. The decree could result in higher levels of toxic auto emissions. "This is a major blow to the ability of the United States to protect public health", said a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. But, when the news broke in mid-January, it was a fleeting blip on the media screen. Follow-up coverage has been almost impossible to find. The White House preferred that the story disappear, pronto. After all, the World Trade Organisation owes its existence to the GATT trade pact that President Clinton pushed through Congress in late 1994. Back then, Clinton vowed that the accord would not interfere with US anti-pollution laws....