U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, recently sent two letters to the Obama administration objecting to possible changes that could shut off a major source of workers for the state's seafood processing industry.
At issue is the Summer Work Travel Program, which allows foreign college students to come to the United States on a J-1 visa to work and travel during their summer vacation. The U.S. Department of State oversees the program.
Begich worries the State Department, now considering possible reforms to address worker exploitation complaints and other issues, is about to exclude manufacturing and packing facilities from the program, including fish processors.
That would deny Alaska processors thousands of workers, right on the brink of the summer salmon season, Begich says.
One of his letters is to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who might have a sympathetic ear on this issue. After graduating from college, she worked the slime line in a Valdez cannery.
Mark, right on! Gotta keep the ++++r's down! Amereeka! Made great upon the sweat of a black man's brow. Keep up gawd's work. The whole of the seafood industry predates Apple/Jobs sweatshops. But for nominal labor laws, Chuck Bundrant would still be in the wheel house.
ReplyDeleteWith this recession, it's better those cannery jobs go to Americans.
ReplyDeleteThank You Murkowski?
ReplyDeleteLooking for a Coolie?
A Filipino? A Native?
Hillary slept with Bill too, but of course Begich is as confused as usual.
http://peninsulaclarion.com/stories/122701/ala_122701ala0pm00150001.shtml
“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”
ReplyDeletehttp://capitalcityweekly.com/stories/092210/spe_710777044.shtml
Processing wages have not kept up with inflation. The staring hourly wage at the bigger plants here in Kodiak is basically the same as when I worked there 30 years ago.
ReplyDeletePay a living wage and there would be no shortage.
Miss Rodham was a cannery slimer, until finding her way back to Anchorage and going heels up to the interior light in the back seat in an alley in Anchorage. Sympathetic ear - pass her a joint, maybe you'll get her attention.
ReplyDeleteOf course after her Whitewater escapade, and thinking she could make it in real estate developement, with the peanut farmers 19% interest rate, she had to been stoned, yeaterday, today, and...
ReplyDelete"School Girl" best explained in North Korea, where the WholeWideWorld knows it all, after she set up the Monica escapade, due to that upcoming Little Rock Indictment, at US DOJ.COM!
Secretary of State, like
William H. Seward???
James Madison?
College? Are you sure?
Madison Savings and Loan, where Secreatry of Statem, "IS" NOW, how much for that doggie in the window?
The Harvard Dream Team?
ReplyDeleteAt Begich Towers.
"We cannot but regard Mrs Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," the spokesman said. "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."
God forbid that American college kids would be able to fill those cannery jobs again. Wouldn't want to keep the big processors from thieving from unknowing and english illiterate foreigners who don't stand a chance at standing up for their proper care. 'Bout time to end this federal tax evasion/credits schill and start employing our own! Sonsabitchin' lowlife criminals.
ReplyDeleteFunny Silver Bay recruits all over Eastern Europe & Asia for their processing plant workers.
ReplyDeleteGo to the Lower 48 where there are all those anti-immigration unemployed and fly them to Alaska, you don't need college kids. In fact, there are unemployed people with college degrees.
Buy American, Hire American -- Unless you are some major, big time hypocrite like Wards Cove (we can buy legislation to over turn any US Supreme Court decision), Trident, Silver Bay, etc.
Everyone need's a Coolie...unchanged since 1864.
ReplyDeleteHume Brothers Packing
http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/images/cannery2.jpg
Boy this topic sure brought the wobblies out of the woodwork. Why should the canneries pay more when there are people who will work for less? The same eventually will hold true for the vessels. The world is over populated. There is a surplus of labor.
ReplyDeleteWobblies United!
ReplyDeletehttp://depts.washington.edu/civilr/cwflu.htm
Local 37, where Imelda R. Marcos, needed another pair of shoes. 2700 Pair were never enough!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bulosan.org/html/local_37.html
James, retire, your brain is dead.
ReplyDelete"Boy this topic sure brought the wobblies out of the woodwork. Why should the canneries pay more when there are people who will work for less? The same eventually will hold true for the vessels. The world is over populated. There is a surplus of labor."
ReplyDeleteJames, if you have any job at all, I'm certain that we could import someone from somewhere else to do it for less - no matter what your job is.
"Why should the canneries pay more when there are people who will work for less?" Why should your employer pay you more than someone she could import from Sri Lanka? That someone who will work harder, ask for less, and produce more than you? Yes, the sweat of the black man's brow...
James
ReplyDeleteSettin the bar pretty high there fella.
When Trident Sandpoint brought in a bunch of Sudanese we thought their slogan should be; "Better to work for Trident than be ethnically cleansed"
Are you in HR?
Hell all one needs is another Armin F. Koernig, and you too can fish for a nickel, let er go!
ReplyDeleteF/V Hustler to AFK
ReplyDelete.45 to .05, in perfect sync with
AFU to the UFA
Isn't it great!
And never forget the 2% PWSAC tax, for the big money?
ReplyDeleteOne could sell jelly fish to this fleet.
And that 1973 Chum Price $0.73
ReplyDeleteBut the world is overpopulated?
Yes it is; dipshits united.
Is it 4:20 yet? I need a blunt.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Armin worked in a concentration camp? That's where he got the idea to compound and build superior races, er, runs of salmonoids.
ReplyDeletePWSAC vill rule ze Vorld!
Heil Koernig!
I'm sure none of the "hire American" folks on here typed their complaint on a apple product.
ReplyDeleteAnd that wormhole, in the apple product?
ReplyDeleteTeacher leave those kids alone!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=follow-up-what-exactly-is
James - there is no labor shortage is what you are essentially saying, just cheapskates.
ReplyDeleteBut Silver Bay, Trident and those folks are willing to take as many government handouts as they can get but don't want to pay a decent wage to a US Citizen.
And the Wobblies never got federal earmarks, grants, and contracts -- you need to learn more about history.
An unfortunate fact (imho) is that today's white, middle-class American young people won't do the kind of jobs that are found in seafood processing. The manual, blue-collar stuff is beneath them, even though many jobs on the docks can pay quite well. Getting 80K/year sitting at a desk, preferably for not doing much, is the goal.
ReplyDelete@11:15 am - you should read the link in Wesley's post, it is the international college students who are being exploited under the J-1 visa program that are complaining too.
ReplyDeleteAnd given the high rate of unemployment of college educated students, maybe you should start a business finding them work at $80K per year since a lot of them can't find full-time work except in a fast food joint, the only thing left to them is clerical temp work.
So why are U.S. college students not coming to Alaska for summer employment at the canneries if all they can find is jobs at fast food joints?
ReplyDeleteThe permits are not necessary for US college students, that is the subject of the article.
ReplyDeletePast US college students who worked in Alaska canneries were Republicans until they had a good look at what the conditions were like and they became Democrats - Hilary Rodham Clinton for one.
I'll tell you why - it sucks, get your own extended family from the Lower 48 to work in the plants if you think it is that wonderful.
Spread the wealth - what's yours is ours and what's ours is yours!
ReplyDeleteExcept it isn't all that simple - it's all theirs.
the fish buyers can't make any money paying a competitive price for the rock fish,wouldn't want to offer a decent wage to a dock worker, let alone one from Alaska, or the lower 48 to help this country economy !and there is some kind of tax break that there probably asking for in the legislation.GOD HELP WHO ?
ReplyDelete