Some 14 million Americans are jobless, but there just aren’t enough qualified sheepherders or goatherders to meet demand. The federal government, therefore, is allowing ranchers to “import” foreign shepherds to temporarily tend their flocks, but only if they comply with the full range of regulations specified by the official Labor Certification Process for Employers Engaged in Sheepherding and Goatherding Occupations. For 60 years, in fact, the federal government has actually regulated sheep and goat shepherds to ensure that nonimmigrant foreign workers don’t dare deprive Americans of the job. The U.S. …
House Republicans are attempting to live up to their pledge to cut $100 billion from the federal government’s current fiscal year 2011 budget. One of the funding categories being placed on the chopping block are the employment and training services run by the Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration (ETA) which provides a host of Workforce Investment Act (WIA) job-training programs and other employment services. Compared to President Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget request, the plan is to cut $2.8 billion from programs that, according to a January 2011 …
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis rewarded six former staffers from her congressional office with political appointments and huge raises upon taking over at the Department of Labor. The appointees had significant pay increases averaging 50 percent upon changing jobs; one employee’s salary nearly doubled. Solis, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California, began hiring the employees shortly after she was confirmed by the Senate in February 2009. Political appointments are non-competitive government jobs that differ from career positions, which often involve a long hiring process. The information …
In January, President Obama pressed for an $800 billion economic “stimulus” package to turn the economy around. Though the bill largely consisted of increased spending on traditional liberal priorities, the President claimed that it would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs. The President’s economic advisors predicted that unemployment would rise to 9 percent by 2010 if Congress did not pass the stimulus bill, but that with the stimulus unemployment would stay below 8 percentage points.
Today may well turn out to be a major turning point in the history of the labor movement, and not because Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) will face questions at her Secretary of Labor confirmation hearings in the Senate. No, the bigger story is the voice vote conference call Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern has scheduled for 2 pm today. If things go the way Stern plans, the SEIU board will approve the forced break up of the third largest SEIU affiliate in the country, SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West …
