If you don't count babysitting, which for two years before I got a real job helped my family to put food on the table, I've been working for 33 of my 49 years. Include babysitting, which paid better than my first real job, and it goes to 36 of my 49 years. My family of origin was blue collar and the work ethic was passed down as if it were a dominant genetic trait, much like my brown eyes. I don't recall a time in my childhood when my Dad worked only one job; My Mom always worked, too. It was the 1960s and I thought only fictional Moms, like TV's Donna Reed, stayed home during the day; I was shocked in elementary school to find out many of my friends had mothers who didn’t have paid jobs.

I grew up believing if you don't work, you don't eat and that education was going to be my ticket to an easier life.

I never considered not going to college, even though I would be the first person on my Mom's side of the family to do so; everything I imagined doing with my life started with an education. And when I got my first salaried job after college I just knew I’d be set for life.

crossposted on the NoSlaves.com blog

Earlier I wrote a piece exposing Edwards history for promoting more labor arbitraging guest worker Visas, yet in a recent NPR debate he sounds like he might be realizing Americans are being displaced, or at least is feeling the heat.
This is a good thing, certainly most of Edwards positions are more in line with working America (see Clinton on H-1B and yes Obama is about as bad).

From the December 4, 2007 Iowa, NPR debate:

SIEGEL: A question for Senator Edwards. If you're elected president, you'll hear competing claims about H1-B visas for highly skilled workers. People like Bill Gates will tell you we should have much, much more of them to bring in more highly skilled workers. Critics of that will say no, the United States is training other countries' engineers and in fact those workers are working for less than American-trained specialists and engineers would.

What would you do as president? Expand H1-B visas or scale them back?

crossposted at the NoSlaves.com blog

With friends like these who needs enemies? The IEEE-USA issued a statement supporting turning our University system into a glorified green card machine. They also have literally teamed up with a corporate lobbyist organization, the SIA, to issue their policy position.

crossposted at NoSlaves.com blog

This is real quick because you need to take action fast.

We now have 13 Governors lobbying for more H-1B guest worker Visas.

Here are our Benedict Arnold Governors selling out their constituents Please note that a major corporate lobbying firm is where this letter is posted. Nice huh, to have United States Governors speak from a corporate lobbyist propaganda web site?

Cross posted at NoSlaves.com blog

A new study from Bond University says almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways. From Bad Bosses Get Promoted.

Even the BBC is asking what is going on with America's economic policy by the question: The end of the American dream?

Thomas Paine's Corner

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=168

By Jason Miller

A few days ago, one of my closest friends hit me with a heavily loaded question.

“Are you a Communist?” she queried.

To which I replied:

Cross-posted to DailyKos and America in Solidarity.

Earlier this week, the Employee Free Choice Act failed to gain the 60 votes it needed for consideration by the United States Senate. While this was not unexpected, the defeat of the bill represents a failure by many of those in Washington to stand up for the rights of ordinary workers.

What does China and John Lennon have in common, you may ask. Not much. But if he were alive today he would be doing his outmost to point the finger at China, its slave labor practices and its huge financial involvement in Sudan.

Cross posted on Dailykos

Our goal is clearly NOT TO FIND a qualified and interested U.S. worker.

For those of you reading this diary hoping for some dirt on Senator Specter, I'm sorry to disappoint you.  The only thing Senator Specter is hiding is where he stands on important issues.  Specifically, on the issue of working families and the right of men and women in America to organize at the workplace?  Does he support it?  Is he against it?  I don't know, and that's part of the problem.

Recently Chinese officials have raided Hongtong Shanxi an area of Northern China and rescued almost 500 workers from slavery type conditions. The workers were forced to work in brick kilns, iron mines and coal mines. Some 29 of the workers were children and some were mentally disabled.

Cross-posted to DailyKos and America in Solidarity.

Labor issues are very important to me. That's why, a few months ago, I contacted both of my U.S. Senators to ask them to support the Employee Free Choice Act when it comes before the Senate.

It took quite some time, but I eventually heard back from U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr. The only problem is, his reply didn't address the EFCA. At all.

The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need

copyright © 2007 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

Cross-posted to DailyKos.

Imagine the following scenario: You work a decent, well paying, union job at a local brewery. The town you live in is fairly small, and the brewery provides the majority of employment for the area. You love your job, and you need to hang on to it, in order to keep your family afloat. If you were to be laid off, you likely wouldn't be able to find anything else in the area. Certainly nothing that pays as well.