Some of the bigger tech companies, including Microsoft, are currently whining to Congress that there should be laxer immigration rules for computer savvy workers who want to come to the US, because there is a dearth of skilled labor here and jobs are going begging. Of course, what Big Tech doesn’t mention is that the “shortage” is largely artificial because they don’t want to pay experienced American workers a salary commensurate with their skills and experience when they can hire a person from another country and pay him/her a fraction of what the job is actually worth. Big Tech wants to basically “outsource” computer jobs into America.
This pisses me off.
Sweet Babou is a software engineer. He is now in his mid 30’s (yes, I’m a cougar) so he has lots of experience and has become “pricey” compared to recent college graduates and overseas labor. If he (God forbid) lost his job then it would be hard as hell for him to find another one. As a non-fiction writer I bring home tens of dollars a year, but I am still not able to become the primary breadwinner. We would be hurting fast. There are MILLIONS of Americans in similar positions. After all, the economic recovery has only been good to the 1%, and none of that has “trickled down” to Joe Average because trickle down economics is as much bullshit as austerity practices when it comes to helping the economy.
Why will no one listen to Paul Krugman? Why?
Anyway, when I am fighting for labor unions I am also fighting for my family. It is labor unions who are in the best position to force capital to share some of the lucre it hordes with the people who actually do the fokking work. When labor workers are compensated fairly, jobs across the whole market are compensated more fairly. I’m starting to think that the tech industry would be smart to unionize, too, since there is clearly no job sector safe from the predation of the 1%, who are always trying to serve Mammon by accruing wealth at the expense of the masses.
Hmmmm … maybe Bill Gates’ assault on teacher’s unions via “education reform” is not done in ignorance of the fact that test scores suck because of poverty more than any other factor, but is instead a knowing attempt to bring down one of the last strong workers organization. It does make me wonder.
*ponders*
i pout. this is ridiculous. p.s. my union is so weakened it allowed us to lose seniority and be docked and demoted based on one annual review.