Bush Enacts Last Minute Legislation to Abuse Migrant Workers and Pander to Farm Owners! Dissing American Workers, Regardless of Economy!

President Bush should be charged for his criminal pandering to Big Ag Business! As my long time readers know, I am a former Migrant Worker, as was my family including my Beloved Father and Mother!
There has been a long history of abuse in our country of Farm Workers. And this month, President Bush has continued this evil tradition!
The Bush administration has announced new rules this week to make it easier for farm owners to bypass American workers, exploit Guest Workers and provide very poor working conditions! Here are two reports of this story:
The New York Times reports:
LOS ANGELES — The Bush administration announced new rules on Thursday that it said would lessen the bureaucratic burden on employers seeking to hire foreign farm workers. Advocates for the workers, however, contended the changes would depress wages and working conditions...The changes apply to a guest worker program known as H-2A, after the visa that allows farmers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis for field jobs they cannot fill with Americans...Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group that opposes the changes. He said, “The intent is a massive expansion of the guest worker program by enticing employers into a program with low wages and poor working conditions.”
Harvesting Injustice reports:
“This parting gift on behalf of the Bush Administration to our nation's farmworkers is irresponsible and completely unacceptable. The H-2A guestworker program is already rife with abuse. These changes will only make a bad program worse. That's why today, Farmworker Justice is releasing a special report, Litany of Abuses: Why more -not fewer-labor protections are needed in the H-2A program. This report explains the current protections within the program and highlights some recent court cases illustrating the harm caused to both U.S. farmworkers and guestworkers alike. We urge you to take a look at the report then act now to urge Congress to take action to stop the Bush Administration from formally issuing the regulations. There are reasonable alternatives to solve the farm labor crisis that have won bipartisan support. The Bush Administration's harmful changes are completely unnecessary.”
The regulations go into effect on Jan. 18, 2009, just two days before President Obama is inaugurated. Bush, in this last minute, lame duck moment, is pandering to PAC Contributors and Farm Owners. This change is bad for American Workers and Bad for migrant workers. Who does it benefit? Big business farm owners, the Lobbyists and the pocket-books of the RNC.
Kudos to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog and Harvesting Injustice for their investigative reporting!

Michigan´s Conflicting Economic Story: Losing Auto & Manufacturing "Union Pay Scale" Jobs; Workers leave State vs taking Low Wage Jobs!

As I study the Economic News about Michigan, I can only be heart-broken. I am a Michigan girl at heart, born and raised in the shadow of the Capital. What is curious to me are the conflicting stories. Below I am sharing three articles. The first two focus primarily on the Auto Industry, GM laying off thousands of workers and staffing new jobs at half the salary. The third about the AgJobs Labor Shortages and Michigan´s quest to immigrate in migrant laborers from Texas and Mexico.

My question is, if the ROOT CAUSE is Business Profitability and Government policies, and we compound this with there are in fact jobs Americans won´t do (e.g. AgJobs, Manufacturing Jobs at Non Union Scale), then what will be the impact if there are no more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. at Union Scale?

Newsweek Reports: ECONOMY - Driving Towards Disaster By Keith Naughton Newsweek Web Exclusive - Jan 28, 2008 Michigan has been an economic wasteland for virtually the entire decade. Its fortunes riding shotgun with America's ailing auto industry, Michigan has lost more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 1999. Its unemployment rate, 7.6 percent in December, has been at or near the highest in the nation since 2003. FOR SALE signs dot the landscape, even in the neighborhood of GM chairman Rick Wagoner. But there are few buyers: Foreclosures have quadrupled in the last two years, according to the Web site RealtyTrac.com. The Sunday Detroit Free Press recently printed a 121-page section listing thousands of homes facing foreclosure. And in the last year, 30,500 people have left Michigan, Census officials estimate. "Michigan is the worst economy in the country, by far," says economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. "But the financial pain Michigan is suffering now will become evident in many other parts of the country by this summer." ...Sure, the auto industry is to blame for Michigan's malaise. (Just last week, Ford, which lost $15.3 billion in the last two years, offered buyouts to all 54,000 of its U.S. factory workers). But many of the factors that drove Detroit into the ditch--$100-a-barrel oil, the credit crisis, globalization--also are preying on the rest of the nation.

WSJ Article: Ford Looks to Trim Up to 13,000 More Jobs One of Ford's goals with the latest buyouts is to replace many workers with new employees who will earn a lower wage under terms of its recently negotiated labor agreement. New hires will earn a little more than $14 an hour, about half of what current union workers earn.

From Dispatch.com:

Michigan officials seek to attract Hispanic farm workers
Associated Press - Friday, February 16, 2007 7:02 AM
Michigan officials are trying to lure more migrant farm workers to the state this year, hoping to avoid labor shortages that hurt the agriculture industry last harvest. The marketing pitch is "Venga a Michigan", which is Spanish for "Come to Michigan." The slogan is part of a promotional effort that Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth is using to try to lure potential workers to the state. Department officials last week visited nine sites throughout Texas, targeting areas with large Hispanic populations that also have high unemployment rates. The goal was "to promote Michigan agriculture and the various services available," Rick Olivarez, a state monitor advocate, said during a meeting this week of the Michigan Interagency Migrant Services Committee. The Michigan group met with 400 to 500 families, according to The Muskegon Chronicle. State officials are planning a similar recruiting trip to Florida later this winter. Agriculture is the second-largest industry in Michigan. According to state census estimates, approximately 90,000 migrant laborers -- including their families -- come to Michigan each year. State officials want to avoid a repeat of last year, when some employers had difficulty finding enough migrant workers, Olivarez said.