“President Donald Trump on Tuesday will order federal agencies to look at tightening a temporary visa program used to bring high-skilled foreign workers to the United States,” Steve Holland reports for Reuters. “Trump will sign an executive order on enforcing and reviewing the H-1B visa, popular in the technology industry, on a visit to the headquarters of Snap-On Inc, a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, senior administration officials said.”
“Senior officials gave few details on implementation of the order but Trump aides have expressed concern that most H-1B visas are awarded for lower-paid jobs at outsourcing firms, many based in India, which they say takes work away from Americans. They seek a more merit-based way to give the visas to highly skilled workers,” Holland reports. “His order will call for ‘strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labor from abroad for the stated purpose of creating higher wages and higher employment rates for workers in the United States,’ a senior official said.”
“Instead of directly ordering a change to the H-1B visa program, Trump is taking a more cautious route that will likely take some time to produce actual results. He will ask those federal departments to propose reforms to ensure those visas are awarded to the most skilled or highest paid applicant,” Holland reports. “The senior official said that under the current system foreign workers are often brought in at less pay to replace American workers, ‘violating the principle of the program.’ Indian nationals are by far the largest group of recipients of the H-1B visas issued each year to new applicants.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The following editorial was published by The New York Times‘ Editorial Board, June 16, 2016, five months prior to the U.S. Presidential election:
Visa Abuses Harm American Workers
There is no doubt that H-1B visas — temporary work permits for specially talented foreign professionals — are instead being used by American employers to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Abbott Laboratories, the health care conglomerate based in Illinois, recently became the latest large American company to use the visas in this way, following the lead of other employers, including Southern California Edison, Northeast Utilities (now Eversource Energy), Disney, Toys “R” Us and New York Life.
The visas are supposed to be used only to hire college-educated foreigners in “specialty occupations” requiring “highly specialized knowledge,” and only when such hiring will not depress prevailing wages. But in many cases, laid-off American workers have been required to train their lower-paid replacements.
Lawmakers from both parties have denounced the visa abuse, but it is increasingly widespread, mainly because of loopholes in the law. For example, in most instances, companies that hire H-1B workers are not required to recruit Americans before hiring from overseas. Similarly, companies are able to skirt the rules for using H-1B workers by outsourcing the actual hiring of those workers to Tata, Infosys and other temporary staffing firms, mostly based in India.
Criticism of the visa process has been muted, and reform has moved slowly, partly because laid-off American workers — mostly tech employees replaced by Indian guest workers — have not loudly protested. Their reticence does not mean acceptance or even resignation. As explained in The Times on Sunday by Julia Preston, most of the displaced workers had to sign agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers as a condition of receiving severance pay. The gag orders have largely silenced the laid-off employees, while allowing the employers to publicly defend their actions as legal, which is technically accurate, given the loopholes in the law.
The conversation, however, is changing. Fourteen former tech workers at Abbott, including one who forfeited a chunk of severance pay rather than sign a so-called nondisparagement agreement, have filed federal claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saying they were discriminated against because of their ages and American citizenship. Tech workers from Disney have filed federal lawsuits accusing the company and two global outsourcing firms of colluding to supplant Americans with H-1B workers. Former employees of Eversource Energy have also begun to challenge their severance-related gag orders by publicly discussing their dismissals and replacement by foreign workers on H-1B and other visas.
Congressional leaders of both parties have questioned the nondisparagement agreements. Bipartisan legislation in the Senate would revise visa laws to allow former employees to protest their layoffs. Beyond that, what Congress really needs to do is close the loopholes that allow H-1B abuses.
— The New York Times‘ Editorial Board, June 16, 2016
SEE ALSO:
Tech industry frets over possible H-1B visa program changes under President Trump – January 28, 2017
President Trump eyes an H-1B visa aimed at ‘best and brightest’ – January 27, 2017
Silicon Valley chiefs frozen out of President Trump’s White House – December 3, 2016
Silicon Valley uncertain after Donald Trump wins U.S. presidency – November 10, 2016
Silicon Valley donated 60 times more to Clinton than to Trump – November 7, 2016
99% of Silicon Valley’s political dollars are going to Hillary Clinton – October 25, 2016
Apple CEO Tim Cook and the rest of Silicon Valley throw big money at Clinton and pretty much bupkis at Trump – August 23, 2016
Donald Trump’s most unlikely supporter: Silicon Valley billionaire Pete Thiel – July 21, 2016
Tech investor Peter Thiel’s embrace of Donald Trump for U.S. President has Silicon Valley squirming – July 20, 2016
An open letter from Apple co-founder Woz, other techies on Donald Trump’s candidacy for U.S. President – July 14, 2016
Apple refuses to aid 2016 GOP presidential convention over Trump comments – June 18, 2016
Apple and Silicon Valley employees love Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump? Not so much – May 6, 2016
Trump: We’ll get Apple to manufacture ‘their damn computers and things’ in the U.S.A. – January 18, 2016
Since well before the election, I’ve been explaining Trump’s position and why the likes of Tim Cook supported his crooked, perennial failure of an opponent:
For Silicon Valley and Apple’s Tim Cook, it’s all about H-1B visas and cheap labor.
American companies and their shareholders, in general, want skilled labor as CHEAPLY as possible. That’s a main reason why Tim Cook, Apple and other tech firms backed the loser Clinton – they wanted unlimited H-1Bs to continue, so they can pay Ajeet from India half what they’d have to pay Tom from Tulsa who can’t find a job after graduating from college and has to live in his parents basement because Apple got Ajeet from India to do it on the CHEAP.
H1-B visas for skilled workers DO NOT EQUAL uneducated illegal aliens streaming across the southern border intent on cashing in on American taxpayer’s largesse while setting up shop in the domestic drug trade and/or other crimes (gangs, rape, robbery, etc.).
Trump is for upholding the laws already on the books designed to protect our borders and our nation’s sovereignty.
The laws already on the books are doing little, and if the decision is to let other people do the deciding, it sounds like just more of the same. If this will “take some time to produce actual results”, that just means more and more Americans are going to find themselves out of work before any relief comes.
Excellent post, totally agree.
Certainly spot on.
I’m sitting down with a 25-year old scotch and friends and actually in a rare moment agree with the NYT …
And, no doubt, you will turn on a dime and disregard perfectly sound logic and facts posted in the NYT if it conflicts with your worldview.
You and your ilk only agree with sources of information that agree with you. The problem is that you and your ilk have not proven to be paragons of truth or wisdom, so your sincere beliefs often have little foundation in reality.
“And, no doubt, you will turn on a dime and disregard perfectly sound logic and facts posted in the NYT if it conflicts with your worldview.”
As usual, you and your ilk (TXuser, Predrag, etc.) PRETEND to know all about us non-Libtards. To set you straight, which I know in advance will have zero effect, at the very least will be out there for the record.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes editorial (in-house) opinion as factual news. Hint: objectivity.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes half-truths totally slanting the news coverage and denying readers the full story.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT DOES NOT PUBLISH favorable Republican news without partisan slant.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes scandal stories 90% of the time directed at Republicans and ignores Democrat scandals 90% of the time. Following is a short list: IRS under Lois Lerner pleading the fifth; Susan Rice lying activities in Benghazi and the election spy monitoring; the Clinton Foundation money trail and I could go on but will refrain because the list is way too long.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes 24/7 support as an arm of the Democrat Party. Just read the President Trump headlines since he was sworn in, case closed.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT does not practice TRUE diversity. With a few token opinion conservative voices — you most likely will have little chance to get hired as a reporter at 242 West 41st St. in Manhattan if you don’t tow the liberal line. Political diversity and personal identity is mostly non-existent if you can think for yourself. Imagine that?
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes Pulitzer story entries that almost attacks targets other than Democrats, Democrat special interests, Democrat politicians and continue to ignore the most political corrupt couple in U.S. history for three decades.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes stories that are only important to liberals in urban areas while ignoring the vast makeup of the U.S. that Shrillary called “deplorables” and handed the Presidential election to Trump. The paper of record has never been so clueless and negligent as to NOT report on real people as it is today.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes numerous graphics charts and maps in excruciating detail with polls leading up to the 2016 election that gave ZERO chance of Trump winning and crowning Shrillary in a landslide months before the election. Objective political reporting at the NYT is dead.
I will turn on a penny when the NYT publishes anonymous sources LEAKED ILLEGALLY that ONLY damages politicians that do not align with their political alliances and editorial direction. Ah, that would be the Democrat party, Melvin.
Probably forgetting a few, but enough said.
“You and your ilk only agree with sources of information that agree with you.”
That’s funny. Sounds like you are describing yourself. I can think REALITY for myself snowflake, and it doesn’t hurt not one particle.
As to the rest of your post. Accusations that we and my ilk are NOT paragons of truth and wisdom is TOTAL hogwash! You got it backwards party of FAKE Hollywood and FAKE media and most important — FAKE REALITY.
I am ALWAYS on the side of foundation in truth and reality. Breaking news: Democrat Dogma is not at all concerned with inconvenient truths …
“25-year old scotch and friends” — that sounds like a good name for a Fox News segment…
For once I have to agree with you.
Great idea to be aligned with the largest and most credible cable news operation in history …
Fake news!
Fwhatever, I down voted you for the content of your post, for the frequency in which you have thrown the *same exact content* in our faces over the past year, and because you are…well, you.
In general, I am in favor of regular reviews of U.S. laws, regulations, and policies to ensure that they are effective, functioning as intended and that the unintended impacts are identified and deemed to be acceptable. These reviews should also address whether or not updates are required (due to new technologies, for example), or if they can be eliminated because the need has either been addressed or no longer exists. These things are reasonable to me and most other people.
But your post includes some other issues which may sound reasonable from their titles (end welfare abuse), but are actually code for efforts to rapidly and callously dismantle critical social safety nets. I am wholeheartedly in favor of structuring social programs to incentivize able individuals to work, for instance. But the typical GOP objective for these social programs is to kill them off so that they can offer more tax cuts to the wealthy while leaving millions in desperate circumstances.
The American system is not optimized by minimizing taxes, and tax revenues must be commensurate with spending. This is where the GOP platform becomes incredibly hypocritical. You do not have the guts to actually reduce spending and face the public backlash, but that does not stop you from implementing tax cuts that inflate the deficit.
Despite claiming the crown of “fiscal conservatism,” the GOP is highly complicit in inflating the annual U.S. deficits and accumulated national debt through tax cut and spend policies. Both Republicans and Democrats have to learn to make the hard decisions and accept the fiscal sacrifices necessary to develop sound, long term fiscal policy. It has been over five decades and I have not seen it happen yet…
If I was forced to train somebody to take over my job, I’d train them to F it all up, then tell management to ki$$ my a$$, take that job and shove it where the sun don’t shine, keep their stupid severance too……
….and then throw the tea into Boston Harbor. 🙂
…and then throw DavGreg in after the tea.
That’s not nice. You weren’t reprimanded enough as a youngster.
…and then throw Solid in after DavGreg.
If you practice really, really hard, maybe you could spend as much as 5% of your time NOT being a Belligerent Asswipe.
That’s funny. botty is now making fun of historical events leading up to the Revolutionary War which led to the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.
Also, I can’t believe that I wasn’t thrown in before DavGreg or solid. My botty bitch-slapping must be slipping lately.
trondude,
I’m glad that you are independently wealthy, but most of us rely on employment (wages, benefits, severance, and good references) to feed our families. Many Americans can’t sit on their couches and clip coupons from corporate bonds, because they are too busy clipping grocery coupons so they can eat. The horror of the “train your successor” situation is that real-world workers don’t have the power to refuse.
While the visa programs can be abused, and are by the Indian labor contractors in the cases cited, most worker visas are just a case of hiring the most qualified applicant regardless of nationality. The fact is that there are too few domestic workers for some critical positions in American businesses. Anybody who thinks Apple can operate a multinational company without a multinational workforce really just wants Apple to fail.
If the current Administration were serious about filling that gap, they would be talking about providing training for the less-qualified American workers, not cutting back government spending in every area except defense. The coal mines are never going to be hiring as many people as they were in the 1940s, and it wouldn’t be good for America if they did. Unemployed coal miners need to go into some other field, but they need training first.
Demanding that American businesses hire unemployed Americans (who are often unemployed for good reason) is just another form of affirmative action quota to guarantee jobs for unqualified applicants. In some cases, the visa applicants are already working for the company abroad, and need to be redeployed to America as part of a company strategy that the Federal Government should not be impairing.
In this case, short-sighted America First policies can assure that America is last in the long run.
talk about being prejudiced. Wow.
I challenge anyone reading this to take a visit to any local University that has a School or College of Engineering. Walk over there and take a look around. Who do you see?
Not many American kids, very few African-Americans and it is largely a Sausage Fest (all guys). Most of the students are foreign born and either first generation off the boat (or plane) or foreign students enrolled here.
Given that, who exactly will be filling the STEM jobs in the United States. The Fratboys and Sorority Sisters all want to sell Real Estate, Sell Stocks or Manage someone else’s company. In a country full of people bitching about economic inequality and no good paying jobs, there are unfilled high tech jobs going unfilled for a lack of qualified applicants.
Our government is handing out Pell Grant money to unprepared kids and adults to study for Degrees in career fields that are already over supplied with qualified workers. They are also churning out people with “degrees” that are not accredited by the accepted Credentialing Authority in that field. America does a really shitty job of matching people to jobs and preparing ambitious people to the training that will meet the needs of the market.
As to all the bitching about employers. Most states have laws that establish At-Will Employment. That means the employer can terminate you at any time for whatever reason, without cause or excuse. Likewise, you can leave at any time without notice. The bottom line is the job is not your to lose- they can replace you tomorrow.
A private employer can and should be able to hire anybody they want, just as you can choose what bank to use, what stores to shop in and what town you live in. Trump is just playing to his poorly educated base of desperate fools that are not prepared for the workforce requirements of 2017 and beyond.
Too many Americans are lazy and just want to mail it in. They do not want to go back to school, to learn new things, to develop new skills, to assume new challenges. Why would anyone want to hire or retain such people- especially in the hyper-competitive world we live in?
You want to know why the Green Card holder in line ahead of you is walking out to a new Audi while you have a Chevy Cruze or worse? He/She paid attention in class, worked hard and jumped at the chance for a better life and situation.
The truth of the matter is that the job market for high paying careers is increasingly global and companies cannot afford ticket punchers anymore. I would rather a huge influx of highly motivated immigrants than a wall keeping them out and protecting the fat and lazy who refuse to realize it is not 1965 anymore.
Visa Abuses Harm American Workers
There is no doubt that H-1B visas — temporary work permits for specially talented foreign professionals — are instead being used by American employers to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Abbott Laboratories, the health care conglomerate based in Illinois, recently became the latest large American company to use the visas in this way, following the lead of other employers, including Southern California Edison, Northeast Utilities (now Eversource Energy), Disney, Toys “R” Us and New York Life.
The visas are supposed to be used only to hire college-educated foreigners in “specialty occupations” requiring “highly specialized knowledge,” and only when such hiring will not depress prevailing wages. But in many cases, laid-off American workers have been required to train their lower-paid replacements.
Lawmakers from both parties have denounced the visa abuse, but it is increasingly widespread, mainly because of loopholes in the law. For example, in most instances, companies that hire H-1B workers are not required to recruit Americans before hiring from overseas. Similarly, companies are able to skirt the rules for using H-1B workers by outsourcing the actual hiring of those workers to Tata, Infosys and other temporary staffing firms, mostly based in India.
Criticism of the visa process has been muted, and reform has moved slowly, partly because laid-off American workers — mostly tech employees replaced by Indian guest workers — have not loudly protested. Their reticence does not mean acceptance or even resignation. As explained in The Times on Sunday by Julia Preston, most of the displaced workers had to sign agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers as a condition of receiving severance pay. The gag orders have largely silenced the laid-off employees, while allowing the employers to publicly defend their actions as legal, which is technically accurate, given the loopholes in the law.
The conversation, however, is changing. Fourteen former tech workers at Abbott, including one who forfeited a chunk of severance pay rather than sign a so-called nondisparagement agreement, have filed federal claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saying they were discriminated against because of their ages and American citizenship. Tech workers from Disney have filed federal lawsuits accusing the company and two global outsourcing firms of colluding to supplant Americans with H-1B workers. Former employees of Eversource Energy have also begun to challenge their severance-related gag orders by publicly discussing their dismissals and replacement by foreign workers on H-1B and other visas.
Congressional leaders of both parties have questioned the nondisparagement agreements. Bipartisan legislation in the Senate would revise visa laws to allow former employees to protest their layoffs. Beyond that, what Congress really needs to do is close the loopholes that allow H-1B abuses.
— The New York Times‘ Editorial Board, June 16, 2016
You posture yourself as a Libertarian Conservative but then want to force private companies to conform to a political directive from government? That is a non sequitur if there ever was one.
A private company should be able to hire any one they damn well please that is qualified to do the work. If that means getting a Green Card for someone from overseas who can do, so what? They can bring the person here or send the job overseas- you make the call.
If Free Markets work, then a free job market does as well. One of my problems with the so-called Free Trade deals is that companies are free to do as they wish but citizens are chained to the soil like serfs bound to the land of their master. The same is true of our tax system- if I live overseas, how is Uncle Sam or any state entitled to a slice of my income? Are we bound to the land of our birth like a fucking slave?
Apple as a corporation could move overseas and there is not a damn thing Donald J Trump or anyone else could do about it, but you as a citizen of these United States cannot. Do you not have a problem with that?
A person wishing to renounce his or her U.S. citizenship must voluntarily and with intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship:
1. appear in person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer,
2. in a foreign country at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate; and.
3. sign an oath of renunciation.
As far as income taxes, all that is required is to file a final return for the part of the year when you were still a U.S. citizen. That final return also includes Form 8854, which lists what, if any, exit tax is due.
If upon giving up US citizenship you own assets with unrealized gains of less than $626,000, you will not owe exit tax, no matter how wealthy you are.
You are still entitled to your Social Security monies which the U.S. gov’t forced you to pay into, horrible returns and everything.
You are not free to renounce your citizenship or to leave the country. The Feds charge you and the fee was recently massively increased. Renunciation of U.S. citizenship was free until July 2010, at which time a fee of $450 was established and has been increased to $2,350. That is a tax regardless what they call it.
You have to be accepted by another country in order to move, but money can go anywhere the same for corporations. If you think you are free to leave, go to the Canadian or Mexican border and ask if you can stay indefinitely.
Americans are taxed even if they live overseas, something not common to other countries.
“…something not common to other countries.”
..then why don’t you do every American a goddamned favor and move to one of those “other countries.” You are a traitor to American sovereignty, American labor and American security.
Get the fück out and stay the fück out, the rest of us want to save the greatest experiment in individual freedom ever created.
Cheerleading for your fans? Rah rah Botty. How about some substance instead of a tantrum?
Because tantrums and nastiness are all Belligerent Asswipe is about.
Take a chill pill. I never said I wanted to leave the US so do not jump to conclusions.
What I said is our laws are wrong and our treaties are wrong. What I advocate for is the ability of any person who can support and sustain themselves independently to be able to move worldwide to seek jobs, employment and economic opportunity without the interference of government. Along with that, an individual would pay taxes to the country they live in- not the country of their birth.
This would not allow freeloaders in and it would not keep any motivated and ambitious person out. The point of taxes is that under the US system you are little more than a serf- bound to US taxation for your life unless you renounce your citizenship.
Apple, like other companies, is free to relocate or locate as they please. Would it not make sense for people to have that same ability?
Your last question: no. The reason being multi-citizen disloyalty undermines the unity of a sovereign nation…it’s as healthy to sovereignty as adultery is to marriage.
PS: Apologies for going-off on you yesterday, but if we don’t hang together, we most assuredly will hang separately.
There is a major difference between a “free domestic market” and a “free worldwide market.” The former is in the best interests of the USA; the latter is not, because all of the other participants in that so-called market don’t abide by the rules. For example, cars produced in Germany and Japan each come with about a $2000 government subsidy, in the form of the national health care system of the source country, where in the USA the automaker must pay that cost.
You actually think domestic markets are free markets? You must be living in dreamland. All washington does is manipulate markets.
emmayche,
Are you under the impression that German and Japanese doctors don’t charge for their services? Those countries do not have free health care; they have tax-supported health care. The employer “subsidy” for national health care is more than offset by the higher taxes those countries collect to provide a social safety net.
Even in the U.S., the automaker does not pay the entire cost of health care, because:
1. Employers can provide cheaper coverage with much higher deductibles and copays than would be tolerated in any other developed nation, shifting the cost of care to the employees and the government, and
2. Employers can deduct the cost of providing employee benefits from taxable income, shifting a portion of the cost to the public.
Smaller U.S. employers have no obligation to provide any employee benefits at all, while all German and Japanese employers are required to pay taxes for social services.
Other nations “don’t abide by the rules” applicable in the U.S. because they have their own rules. That doesn’t mean that global markets regulated by treaty are not essentially fair.
Not true:
They abide by the rules or a nation can file a suit against them as can any company that experiences a loss due to a government’s policy. It is called Investor-State Dispute Resolution and is handed under the WTO.
As to National Health Coverage, the US is just about the only developed nation that lacks it and we pay far more per citizen for care and get significantly poorer outcomes for it. The only thing between Americans and Medicare for all is the Republican Party and their paymasters.
DavGreg,
Don’t confuse Trump supporters with facts. They enjoy arguing that America cannot compete because of its high taxes, even though we rank 63rd, behind such economic powerhouses (/s) as Tonga and St. Vincent.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio)
The Trump supporters argue that Americans cannot compete with imported labor that is willing to work for less than most Americans. It never occurs to them that the Americans might be demanding more than the free market value of their labor. The laws of supply and demand apply here, just as they do to other marketable commodities. Those who purchase labor will pay no more than the lowest wage that an adequate supply of competent workers will accept.
Why do foreigners accept less than Americans? An Indian immigrant in Silicon Valley has exactly the same basic needs for food and shelter as an American, but expects fewer luxuries. If the Americans could reduce their expectations to a level sustainable by the free market for their services, they could have the jobs instead of the Indians.
That is precisely the argument that Trump supporters make for why it is a bad idea for the government to enforce a minimum wage for folks who work at Hardee’s/Carl, Jr’s. Why is it a better idea to enforce a minimum wage for folks who work at Apple? Perhaps because a Republican is more likely to be a software engineer than a hamburger flipper.
The Trump supporters point out the high unemployment rates in certain parts of our country. Obviously, if the average rate is 4.5% nationally, and the rate is much higher in your home town, there must be someplace well below the average. Indeed, Silicon Valley, Austin, and other high-tech centers have quite low unemployment; in other words, they have a labor shortage. If they did not, there would be no need to recruit foreign workers.
So why do the unemployed elsewhere not move there, like the Indians moving to America or the Chinese following electronics assembly work from one town to another? Perhaps because there are politicians promising that the old jobs are coming back to their old locations, so there is no need to move or to obtain training for a new job.
I do not think that consistency is an illusory virtue. If you believe in free markets, you should fight government intervention all the time, and not make exceptions for the times when Big Government is helping you personally.
Let the truth be told!
How is he going to get his next wife to USA without the help of this visa??
Better be a working poor than not working at all (?).
Like in every country around the world, the immigrants make the jobs nobody else wants.
You’re entirely OFF TOPIC. I agree with your point. But it does not apply to the purpose of H-1B visas.
Are They Qualified?
If there aren’t qualified potential employees in the USA, then what? Cut the education budget even further? I don’t think so.
Most foreign hired employees stay in the USA and add to our quality of life.
What’s NOT good is hiring foreign workers in order to pay lower wages than US employees. There’s no ‘make America great again’ down that road.
“Are They Qualified?
If there aren’t qualified potential employees in the USA, then what? Cut the education budget even further? I don’t think so.”
We (U.S) graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program.
No one said anything about cutting education. Cutting high salaries and enormous taxpayer funded benefits to the highest paid teachers with the lowest test scores in ALL G7 nations, is not a bad idea though.
“Most foreign hired employees stay in the USA and add to our quality of life.”
Broad happy talk, but OK. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program’s lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two.
“NOT good is hiring foreign workers in order to pay lower wages than US employees. There’s no ‘make America great again’ down that road.”
Totally agree! …
I said something about cutting education budgets because that’s the face in the USA. You joined in by suggesting the further demeaning of the teaching profession by way of cutting ‘high salaries’ ad nauseam.
I as a kid would have considered going into teaching, but even way back then it was blatantly obvious that no teacher was going to get the respect they deserve. I don’t deal with that. Neither does anyone else who’d make an excellent teacher. If the teachers in the USA suck its because the profession does not attract anyone who would be a best quality teacher. Only what’s left over end up teaching. That explains the worst-in-class test scores inside the USA.
Check the respect afforded to teachers inside countries with high test scores. You’ll find it’s profoundly higher than within the USA.
“You joined in by suggesting the further demeaning of the teaching profession by way of cutting ‘high salaries’ ad nauseam.”
My special lady friend is a lifelong teacher, no disrespect intended. Salaries are indeed way to high, when you consider bang for the buck. I won’t go into what she thinks of teacher politics.
As I have posted numerous times — the U.S. easily spends TWICE as much money than the rest of the G7 nations combined on education and for decades record the lowest test scores. This is NOT a problem for you? Accountability for taxpayer dollars is NOT a concern for you?
“If the teachers in the USA suck its because the profession does not attract anyone who would be a best quality teacher. Only what’s left over end up teaching. That explains the worst-in-class test scores inside the USA.”
Dude, get real. The profession attracts anyone with a degree who is connected to the school board, irregardless of COMPETENCE, to secure a high paying job with lavish benefits and no yearly goal reviews once you get into the union — FOR LIFE. Easy street when you consider simply pass them on.
“Check the respect afforded to teachers inside countries with high test scores. You’ll find it’s profoundly higher than within the USA.”
Agreed! 😊
I covered this topic and covered it well. I’m not going to bother enjoining a discussion of what I did NOT say. I stick to exactly what I stated.
But I will point out that if a business is run well and fairly, there’s typically no need for a union. It’s usually when a company goes parasitic on its employees that a unions appear and become critical.
Do I like what follows the formation of unions? Rarely. They too often become their own form of parasitism. No thanks. I entirely agree about ‘FOR LIFE’ jobs without accountability/removability. Absurd to the point of dangerous. But I have kind, competent, enthusiastic friends who swear by them (including the teacher’s union).
People are a problem. Organizations of people are therefore a problem as well.
Thanks, DC.
In a rare moment I agree with everything you posted … 😎