However Only Mexicans, Cambodian Refugees & WHITE People are actually Guaranteed Employment!!
I wanted to re-post this information just to remind the American People that Widespread EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION is Alive & Well in this Country; especially in the Southern States.
Now When is Congress going to begin Enforce Federal Employment Anti-Discrimination Laws already on the books, so that American Businesses receiving Tax Breaks & Tax Subsidies will NOT be allowed to Practice the Illegal Activity I have described in this Job Advertisement?
FYI:
This is a REAL Company in South Carolina. And YES the Site Manager at this Office Location is Blatantly Conducting Employment Discrimination against BLACK Applicants. I was Informed so I checked it out for myself.
$7.00 - $8.00 Per Hour plus Bonuses/ 40-Hours Weekly/ Temp-to-Perm
All BLACK Applicants Must be willing to Complete a Writing, Literacy & Math Test.
All BLACK Applicants Must be willing to Submit to a Drug Test, Criminal Background Check & possibly a Credit Check too.
All BLACK Applicants Must be willing to Submit to an E-Verify Immigration Status Check.
I'M TOTALLY SERIOUS!!
However.......
Mexicans, Cambodian Refugees & WHITE People don't have to worry about such things (Writing, Literacy & Math Test, Drug Test, E-Verify Immigration Status Check, Criminal Background Check & possibly a Credit Check.)
Because at DSMI Staffing (ROSS) on 1000 Retail Drive in Fort Mill, South Carolina Only Mexicans, Cambodian Refugees & WHITE People are actually Guaranteed Employment.
(I REPEAT: THIS IS A REAL COMPANY IN SOUTH CAROLINA.)
The 2012 June Jobs Report remains at 8.2% but it's 14% & Higher for Blacks. Even College-Educated Blacks. Can you say Political Employment Discrimination?
The 2012 June Jobs Report remains at 8.2% with only 80,000 Private Sector Jobs Added to the U.S. Economy.
Is it because there are NO Jobs out there?
NO! There are plenty of Jobs waiting to be Filled.
Instead the Low Jobs Numbers are due to Widespread Employment Discrimination.
To help Defeat Pres. Obama this Fall many Large Corporations are Refusing to Hire BLACK Applicants.
This includes College-Educated, Qualified BLACK Applicants.
It really irks me when Politicians & Business Experts go on Cable TV and claim that WHITE People are being Hired because they are more Educated than BLACKS & Latinos.
That is a LIE!
WHITE People are Hired more Frequently and paid decent Wages often with NO College Degree and NO Previous Experience.
Businesses are NOT Nervous about Hiring.
Businesses are just Supporting Mitt Romney by NOT Hiring BLACKS because most BLACKS Support Pres. Obama’s Re-election.
Remember Romney telling a Reporter: "Corporations are People My Friend"?
WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!
FORWARD!!
HELP RE-ELECT BARACK OBAMA IN 2012!
GET YOUR STATE-APPROVED ID CARDS NOW AND GO TO THE POLLS THIS NOVEMBER EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO CRAWL THERE!
Overall unemployment remained at 8.2 percent in June, but the jobless rate for African-Americans increased by almost a point to 14.4 percent, the Department of Labor announced Friday in its monthly employment report.
The unemployment rate of 8.2 percent suggests the economic surge that seemed to be happening earlier in the year has largely stalled. In the first three months of the year, the economy grew by an average of more than 200,000 jobs a month, compared to less than half that from April-June.
At the same time, the picture is much better than a year ago, when the jobless rate was 9.1 percent.
The increase in the black jobless rate will raise concerns, because other demographic groups did not show similar surges in unemployment. Unemployment among whites is 7.4 percent and 11.0 percent among Hispanics.
Black unemployment was 13.6 percent in May. The black jobless rate is traditionally double that of the rate among whites, but the rate in the last three years has been historically high.
“There are some fluctuations in the employment statistics for blacks, but essentially for blacks as well as the rest of the country, the economy is in a holding pattern,” said Algeron Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity and the Economy program at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. “We haven’t seen any real significant change for the first half of the year.”
Politically, the report presents a challenge for President Obama, who is on a two-day campaign bus tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania. No modern president has won reelection with a jobless rate higher than 7.4 percent, but it is increasingly unlikely the unemployment will dip below that number by November.
Republicans in Congress said the report showed the president’s policies aren’t working.
“This crawling pace is not enough to get the millions of Americans who are unemployed back to work or provide long-term growth. We’ve seen month after month of dismal jobs numbers,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.”
White House officials noted that economic growth is continuing, even as they acknowledged that challenges remain.
“The economy has now added private sector jobs for 28 straight months, for a total of 4.4 million payroll jobs during that period. Employment is growing but it is not growing fast enough given the jobs deficit caused by the deep recession,” said Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.
President Barack Obama downplayed a weak jobs report Friday as he wrapped up a two-day bus tour to critical states in the November election, while Republicans pounced on the news to declare the president's policies have failed.
Stock prices plunged on the report that the economy created 80,000 jobs in June, well below the number needed to bring down the 8.2% unemployment rate.
At a campaign event in Poland, Ohio, Obama said the job growth -- while smaller than needed -- continued a trend that has added 4.4 million jobs in the past 28 months following what he called "the worst economic crisis of our lifetime."
"That's a step in the right direction," Obama contended.
Republicans, however, called the weak growth a result of Obama policies that don't work.
Certain GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney called the jobs figures a "kick in the gut for middle-class families," blaming Obama's policies for continued high unemployment and saying it was "time for Americans to choose whether they want more of the same."
"His policies have not worked," Romney said at a brief news conference in New Hampshire, where he is vacationing with his family.
Referring to more than three years of unemployment higher than 8%, Romney said "the evidence is in, again and again and again" and added that the continuing high unemployment rate "pretty much defines lack of success."
Other Republican leaders echoed Romney's remarks, with House Speaker John Boehner taking a jab at Obama's comment last month that when compared to public sector job creation, the private sector was "doing fine."
"Today's report shows the private sector clearly isn't 'doing fine' and that President Obama's policies have
failed," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus' statement said, "The Obama economy is defined by chronically high unemployment."
Also Friday, an independent group co-founded by conservative operative Karl Rove said it was launching a new ad targeting what it claimed were Obama's excuses for the bad economy.
Crossroads GPS said the spot was the first wave of a $25 million ad buy starting July 10 and running through early August in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia -- all swing states that both Democrats and Republicans will heavily contest in the presidential election.
In speeches in Ohio and Pennsylvania to conclude the bus tour, Obama referred to the negative ads by Republicans and told supporters not to get discouraged.
"You'll hear the same thing from them over and over again, because they know that their economic theory isn't going to sell," the president told a Pittsburgh event.
"So all they've got to argue is the economy's not moving as fast as it needs to.
Jobs aren't growing as fast as they need to. And it's all Obama's fault. That's basically their only message."
Obama briefly mentioned the new jobs report in Ohio and didn't refer to it specifically in Pittsburgh.
Instead, his full-fledged campaign speeches emphasized restoring opportunity for the middle class, in contrast to what he characterized as Republican policies that favor corporations and the wealthy.
In Ohio, Obama joked with the crowd, kissed at least one baby and outlined his vision of middle-class opportunity while making sure to note his administration's help in reviving the U.S. auto industry, which is big in the state.
He rebuffed GOP criticism that his policies are wrong, blaming political stalemate in Washington for the failure by Congress to pass needed job creation measures he has endorsed, such as ending tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas.
"This election is about how we break that stalemate," Obama said. "It's in your power to break the stalemate."
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, accused congressional Republicans of obstructing economic progress by focusing on partisan politics, such as a planned House vote next week to repeal the health care reform law in what would be a purely symbolic gesture.
"It's time for Republicans to abandon their agenda of obstruction and delay, and work with Democrats to create jobs and strengthen the middle class," said a statement by Pelosi, D-California.
Republicans accuse Democrats of similar tactics against measures passed by the GOP-majority House that have died in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
However, former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman publicly criticized his party Friday for failing to focus "on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the United States -- future based on problem solving, inclusiveness, and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as our fiscal and economic deficits."
In a statement announcing he won't attend the GOP convention in August, Huntsman called for "a return to the party we have been in the past, from Lincoln right on through to Reagan, that was always willing to put our country before politics."
After Obama returns to Washington on Friday afternoon, he will sign a giant transportation bill that includes funding for road and bridge construction and repairs -- a component of Obama's jobs plan that Congress passed last week as part of a package that included holding down interest rates on federal student loans.
Both components were top priorities for Obama and passed after lengthy negotiations in Congress that were delayed by partisan posturing.
All polling so far shows a tight race between Obama and Romney, and that voters consider the economy the top issue.
Obama contends the economy continues to show slow growth after the deep recession he inherited, while Romney argues the president's policies deter job creation.
In his remarks Friday, Romney specified what he called excessive corporate taxes and regulatory burdens as the main culprits.
"The president's policies have not got America working again," Romney said. "The president's going to have to stand up and take responsibility for it."
Obama, however, said the policies espoused by Romney and Republicans -- such as cutting taxes and removing regulations -- failed under the Bush administration and only would help the rich get richer while keeping the middle class stagnant or worse.
"We saw us fighting two wars on a credit card," Obama said of what happened before he took office.
"The tax cuts turned a surplus into a deficit and the lack of regulation resulted in what happened on Wall Street and we ended up with the biggest crisis we have ever seen. It ain't right. It is not a smart theory."
At the heart of the issue are the differing philosophies of the two parties, with Obama and Democrats advocating a combination of strategic spending, increased revenue and entitlement reforms to reduce budget deficits and the national debt while Romney and Republicans focus on shrinking government.
Health care reform also has emerged as a major point of contention, especially after last week's Supreme Court ruling that upheld the signature legislation of Obama's presidency so far.
The Romney campaign has been dogged by conflicting stances on the issue, which is a vulnerability for the former Massachusetts governor who implemented a similar plan in the state but now calls for repeal of the federal law known as Obamacare.
GOP leaders emphasized that the high court ruling that the law's most controversial section -- the individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance -- amounted to a kind of tax was evidence that Obama deceived the nation in 2009 by denying it was a tax increase.
However, a top Romney adviser -- seeking to protect the candidate from Democratic charges that he implemented a similar tax increase in Massachusetts -- insisted that the individual mandate was not a tax but a penalty, as argued by Obama.
Romney then had to declare publicly that the Supreme Court ruling means the mandate is a tax, but added more confusion by making clear he disagreed with the high court decision.
Obama kept up the pressure on Romney on the issue, assailing him in an interview airing Friday for reversing his position on the penalty provision.
A short portion of the interview was distributed by Obama's campaign early Friday.
The remainder of the interview with WLWT-TV in Cincinnati was not immediately available.
Romney "was one of the biggest promoters of the individual mandate," Obama said in the interview. "In Massachusetts, his whole idea was that we shouldn't have people who can afford to get health insurance to not buy it and then force you or me, or John Q. Public to have to pay for him when he gets sick."
Now, Obama said, Romney's reversal from "penalty" to "tax" raises the question of "are you doing that because of politics?"
"Are you abandoning a principle that you fought for, for six years simply because you're getting pressure for two days from Rush Limbaugh or some critics in Washington?" Obama said.
Romney's campaign responded that Obama "told the American people that Obamacare was not a new tax, then sent his lawyers to convince the Supreme Court that it was a new tax, and now is insisting -- again -- that it is not a tax."
"Americans deserve straight answers from their president," a campaign statement said.
When asked about the issue, Romney said Friday that he always maintained that health care should be managed at the state level, like his program in Massachusetts, rather than at the federal level under Obamacare.
Obama's solicitor general argued before the Supreme Court in March that the individual mandate could be viewed as constitutional under Congress' taxation power.
Donald Verrilli said the fee would be collected by the Internal Revenue Service on April 15, the day Americans pay their federal income taxes.
Asked by Associate Justice Samuel Alito "can the mandate be viewed as a tax?" Verrilli responded, "I think it could."
In his speech at the Ohio school, Obama raised the issue again, saying to cheers that including the individual mandate with its penalty provision was the right thing to do.
The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage.
Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.
“They work hard and play by the rules,” President Obama said about a group of workers who often feed patients, tend wounds or help with physical therapy. “Today’s action will ensure that these men and women get paid fairly for a service that a growing number of older Americans couldn’t live without.”
These workers, according to industry figures, generally earn $8.50 to $12 an hour, compared with the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women, nearly 30 percent were African-American and 12 percent Hispanic. Nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps.
While industry experts say an overwhelming majority are paid at least the minimum wage, many do not receive a time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week. Twenty-two states do not include home health care workers under their wage and hour laws.
“The job they do is a real job and they deserve the same basic rights as any other workers,” said Steven Edelstein, national policy director of PHI PolicyWorks, a nonprofit group that seeks to improve conditions for home care workers. “This industry has one of the nation’s fastest-growing work forces, and the challenge is to make these better jobs if we’re trying to attract good people to come and provide the services.”
According to the federal government, six million of the 40 million Americans older than 65 now need some form of daily assistance to live outside a nursing home. That number, government officials say, is expected to double to 12 million by 2030. Republican lawmakers and business groups criticized the proposed rules, which might be modified after a 60-day public comment period. Industry officials said the proposals would push up costs and might cause home care agencies to reduce the hours of aides who work more than 40 hours a week and instead hire more aides.
“The president’s goal is commendable, but the likely result of this new rule is reduced hours for home care workers and higher costs for taxpayers,” said John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is chairman of the House Education and the Work Force Committee, and Tim Walberg, a Minnesota Republican who heads the panel’s subcommittee on work force protections. “Moreover, our nation’s elderly may pay the greatest price in the form of more costly services and fewer opportunities to obtain the care they need in the comfort of their own homes.”
William A. Dombi, vice president for law at the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, said workers might not receive much overtime pay as a result of these changes. “These new rules might come out with everybody behind,” he said. “Workers might not get the hours they want and agencies might have higher administrative and recruiting costs.”
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said any increased costs would be modest. She said it was hard to project exactly what employers would do, whether they would have many employees continue to work overtime or would hire additional workers to minimize overtime. She estimated that Medicare or Medicaid, which cover 75 percent of the nation’s home care costs, would pay $31.1 million to $169.5 million more each year toward home care aides, which she said would represent 0.06 percent to 0.29 percent of federal and state outlays for home care.
Secretary Solis said the proposal would ”level the playing field for staffing agencies, who will no longer be pressured to underpay their competitors on wages to gain an edge.”
Noting that nearly 90 percent of the nation’s home care aides work for agencies, Labor Department officials said such aides would receive the new wage and hour protections. The department said some companions employed by individuals for activities like helping them take walks or engage in hobbies would still be exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage.
In 1974, the Labor Department exempted “companionship” workers from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a move that focused on baby sitters at a time when the home care industry was in its infancy.
In 2007, the Supreme Court issued a decision involving a New York home care aide, Evelyn Coke, who often worked 70 hours a week, ruling that she was not entitled to overtime pay under existing regulations.
The court said it was up to Congress or the Labor Department to change the rules.
The NAACP & SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) are both Irrelevant in the 21st Century because these two "Civil Rights" Organizations have lost their Original Focus & Mission i.e., Fighting Racial Discrimination which is Still a Major Problem in the South.
The Strategy for Fighting against Racial Discrimination must Change, however the Focus on this issue should NEVER have been diverted.
NEVER!!!
Just because America now has a BLACK President does NOT mean Racial Discrimination in the Work Place has stopped.
Especially as it relates to Hiring & Firing.
High BLACK Unemployment for the last 3 Years is NOT due to Unqualified BLACK Applicants.
Instead it is largely due to Widespread Employment Discrimination as a result of Retaliation against the Election of a BLACK U.S. President.
Now here it is the year 2012 and many BLACK Supporters of Pres. Obama's Re-election campaign Can NOT Financially Support him because they are BROKE.
In addition those new Voter ID Laws will make it more Difficult for BLACK & Latino Obama Supporters to Cast Ballots for him in November.
Widespread Employment Discrimination & Voter Suppression are what the SCLC and NAACP should have been Focusing on for the past 3 years.
Instead they are pushing Gay Rights!
If the SCLC & NAACP wants to push Gay Rights why NOT do so After the 2012 Election when Pres. Obama's 2nd Term is Secure?
Its because of these reasons many BLACK U.S. Citizens No Longer see the Relevance for either of these supposedly "Civil Rights" Organizations.
Whenever someone has lived a solid and productive life, the pastor at his or her funeral may turn to Matthew 25:21 to offer a few words the good Lord may utter as the person's spirit ascends to heaven: "Well done, good and faithful servant!"
In the pantheon of civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference stands tall as one of the greatest groups ever to advance the cause of civil rights, helping bring the hatred and bigotry of Jim Crow to its knees.
From its marches and protests to its negotiations with political and business leaders and its efficient work with other civil rights groups, the SCLC's work has been legendary.
Yet 55 years after its co-founding by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it is an organization that makes headlines today more for infighting among members and the revolving door that its top leadership positions have become -- all while crucial social justice issues continue to fester for African-Americans and others.
Whether we want to admit it or not, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference has been devoid of a Christian spirit for a long time. It is leading nothing and doing nothing.
The fact that I'm writing these words may be painful to civil rights stalwarts (and Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity brothers of mine) like longtime activists the Rev. Joseph Lowery and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, but sometimes the truth hurts.
On Monday, the SCLC is set to announce that former CEO Charles Steele is returning to helm the organization he served as president from 2004 to 2009.
In the four years since he left, the SCLC has gone through four leaders, including the Rev. Bernice King, who, in a strange debacle, was chosen as CEO in 2010, but never assumed the post after a conflict with the board. Her cousin Isaac Farris, a nephew of Dr. King, was chosen to lead the group about a year ago, but he was replaced. In the past several years we have seen split factions among the board, leading to competing board meetings; the doors to the headquarters being chained to keep others out; even arguments at board meetings where some members nearly came to blows.
This is nothing but drama, mess, childish antics or whatever you want to call it.
It is a severe stain on the life and legacy of King and the many others who stood with him during the darkest hours. When your group is known more for fighting among its leaders than fighting racism, sexism and inequality, you serve no real purpose.
One of Steele's accomplishments when he took over the first time was building the organization a national headquarters that the group owned.
He did so, debt-free -- but who cares about a building when an organization has no mission and no relevance? Who really cares if the organization's leaders proclaim a desire to be solvent when the SCLC has lost its soul?
I've meet Charles Steele and we've had many discussions.
He's an honorable man. But the issue here isn't who is the leader.
Instead, it's a group of people on the board of directors who aren't leading the group anywhere but further into the grave.
I'll be perfectly honest: The SCLC has been persona non grata on the media platforms I have that reach millions of African-Americans.
Booking someone from the group on my Sunday morning news show on a black cable network, TV One, or my daily news segment on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a syndicated radio show with a huge black audience, would be a waste of time.
Why am I going to waste valuable time advancing the latest initiative from the SCLC when it's likely to go nowhere due to constant infighting?
The list of issues the SCLC could be addressing is vast, from the scourge of inner-city violence that continues to take away another generation of black kids, to a high school dropout rate that is shameful.
If the SCLC wants to get back to basics and play a crucial role in the 21st century, Steele is going to have to rid the group of the spirit of dissension that is running through its veins.
He is going to have to show a new generation of pastors across the country that aligning with the SCLC has value other than raising their blood pressure.
As a Christian, I desire the best outcome for the SCLC. But frankly, I have no faith that the organization has put its past drama behind it.
And until it can prove to me and others that it wants to be taken seriously, the SCLC will be just like the Congress for Racial Equality or the now-defunct Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- groups that had their glory days during a different era, and saw them end.
New York’s biggest investment houses are shifting jobs out of the area and expanding in cheaper locales in the United States, threatening the vast middle tier of positions that form the backbone of employment on Wall Street.
The shift comes even as banks consider deeper staff cuts here, which could undermine the state and city tax base long term.
“Places like New York or London will remain financial centers, but most of the players are taking a much harder look and asking whether they can move large numbers of jobs,” said James Malick, a partner at the Boston Consulting Group who advises banks on relocation. In addition to higher taxes in the New York region, employers face real estate and labor costs significantly above the national average.
Consultants say they have seen a sharp pickup in this trend, known as near-shoring, as opposed to offshoring overseas. Goldman Sachs, during a presentation to investors in late May, even boasted of the cost savings that relocating jobs can bring.
“Some functions need to stay in the United States, but they don’t need to be in New York City or near the client,” Mr. Malick said. And with most investment giants facing anemic revenue and more stringent regulation that cuts into trading revenues, relocation is more tempting than it was before the financial crisis.
Low-level jobs have already migrated to call centers and back offices overseas, while top-end traders and bankers are secure in the New York area, experts say. Instead, services like accounting, trading and legal support, and human resources and compliance are being shifted to places like Salt Lake City, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Fla.
Garry Douyon enjoyed his job helping process trades and working with clients and traders at RBS in Stamford, Conn., earning nearly $100,000 a year, but when the firm decided last fall to move his team to Salt Lake City with a salary of $60,000, he said he really didn’t have much of a choice.
“I didn’t even consider moving,” said Mr. Douyon, who founded a biofuels company, All-City Clean Energy, in Brooklyn with four partners. “I liked RBS but I have my roots here, I have a home, I have kids in school.” A few members of his team decided to go, he added, but most chose to stay in the New York area.
The potential shift has profound implications for New York’s tax base and economy because of Wall Street’s outsize financial profile. Last year, the industry contributed 14 percent of New York State’s tax revenue.
After peaking at 213,000 in August 2007, securities industry jobs in the state fell more than 15 percent in the wake of the financial crisis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since then they have risen nearly 12,000, but at 191,200, employment is well below pre-crisis levels. By contrast, over the same period, Delaware gained 1,300 securities jobs while Arizona picked up 2,600.
The federal government does not specifically track securities jobs in Utah, North Carolina or Florida, popular locations for near-shoring. But data from firms illustrates the trend.
Since the end of 2009, Deutsche Bank’s work force in the New York area has fallen to 6,900 from 7,400 even as its staff in Jacksonville rose to 1,000 from 600. Credit Suisse’s staff in the New York region has dropped by 500 in the past four years, but the firm has added 450 positions in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, in the area of Raleigh, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill. And last year, Bank of New York Mellon cut 350 jobs in New York City while hiring 150 people in Lake Mary, Fla.
New York’s status as a financial capital is not likely to fade, and the state’s share of securities jobs in the United States has held steady at about 24 percent in recent years. “Even as the securities industry goes through a difficult time, New York remains the financial capital of the world and I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” said Thomas P. DiNapoli, the New York State comptroller.
But regional offices perform more and more of the sophisticated work usually associated with Wall Street and nearby trading hubs like Jersey City and Stamford. This parallels a shift in some technology jobs away from Silicon Valley to Portland, Ore., and cities in Texas, said Michael Shires, a professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine, who prepares an annual ranking of the best cities for employment.
“I expect to see an acceleration,” he said, noting that while these middle-tier jobs may lack the salaries and glamour usually associated with Wall Street, “these are the support people that actually make the stuff work.” What’s more, there are many more positions in the middle of the jobs pyramid at Wall Street firms than at the top.
Deutsche Bank’s office in Jacksonville started out in 2008 as a back-office service center, according to bank officials. Since then, technology workers, legal and compliance staff members, and trading support jobs have been added. More recently, some traders who deal directly with clients are being located there. Lower costs and taxes are behind the moves, the officials said.
J. Keith Crisco, the North Carolina secretary of commerce, visits New York three to five times a year, meeting with executives from firms already in North Carolina, like Credit Suisse, while reaching out to prospects. Another trip is planned this month.
North Carolina provided Credit Suisse with roughly $14 million in incentives to bring it to the state.
Delaware, which announced in April it had lured up to 1,200 JPMorgan Chase jobs to the state, is set to pay the giant bank $10.1 million in cash incentives. Alan Levin, director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, estimates the typical salary for those jobs at $78,000 a year.
“These jobs will be here for a long time,” he said. “We want to create not just jobs but careers.”
The erosion of middle-tier jobs in the financial sector is not limited to New York. In a presentation to analysts in late May, the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, described what he called the firm’s “high-value location strategy.” By looking outside hubs like New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, he said, the firm could save 40 percent to 75 percent on job-related expenses.
Over a third of Goldman hires in 2011 and 2012 have been in cities like Bangalore in India, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Singapore, Mr. Cohn said. Utah, with looser regulation and lower taxes than New York, has been a particular area of growth for Goldman.
While Goldman’s work force in the New York area has been flat since the end of 2009 at just over 10,000, full-time employees in Salt Lake City have doubled to 1,400, making that office Goldman’s sixth-largest globally. In addition to its technology and operations staff, Goldman has expanded activities like research and investment management there.
These days, Mr. Douyon is building a refinery at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that aims to make biodiesel from waste products like vegetable oil and grease from restaurants. While he says it is a more flexible way of life and, he hopes, more lucrative, he still feels the tug of the trading floor.
“To be honest, I miss working on Wall Street,” he said.
Senate Republicans have blocked a bill that calls for equal pay in the workplace.
As expected, the vote Tuesday fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation. President Obama and his Democratic allies argue that the legislation is needed to protect people who try to find out how their pay stacks up against their coworkers. Republicans said it puts too much burden on employers.
The vote was the latest effort by Democrats to protect their lead among critical women voters this presidential and congressional election year. Republicans are focusing on the No. 1 concern for all voters: jobs and the economy.
Obama strongly supports the bill. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has not taken a stand but his campaign says he favors pay equity in the workplace.
Across the United States more than 2,700 companies are collecting state income taxes from hundreds of thousands of workers – and are keeping the money with the states’ approval, says an eye-opening report published on Thursday.
The report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization funded by Ford, Surdna and other major foundations, identifies 16 states that let companies divert some or all of the state income taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks. None of the states requires notifying the workers, whose withholdings are treated as taxes they paid.
General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and AMC Theatres enjoy deals to keep state taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks, the report shows. Foreign companies also enjoy such arrangements, including Electrolux, Nissan, Toyota and a host of Canadian, Japanese and European banks, Good Jobs First says.
Why do state governments do this? Public records show that large companies often pay little or no state income tax in states where they have large operations, as this column has documented. Some companies get discounts on property, sales and other taxes. So how to provide even more subsidies without writing a check? Simple. Let corporations keep the state income taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks for up to 25 years.
It was not always this way. Letting companies keep their workers’ state taxes apparently began in Kentucky two decades ago as a way to retain jobs.
Last July when I wrote about six big companies that pocket Illinois state taxes I knew there was more to this. But I had no idea how pervasive these diversions were until I read an advance copy of the 39-page report by Good Jobs First.
CORPORATE SOCIALISM
Deals cut with the states over the past two decades diverted $5.5 billion from public purposes to private gain, the report says. Close to $700 million more was diverted last year, Good Jobs First estimates.
New Jersey approved $73.2 million in new deals in 2011 on top of $178 million diverted that year alone under previous deals. I calculate that at nearly $80 per household in corporate welfare based on New Jersey’s 3.1 million households.
These deals typify corporate socialism, in which business gains are privatized and costs socialized. They also mean government picks winners and losers, interfering with competitive markets. Leaders in both parties embrace these giveaways because they draw campaign donations from corporate interests and votes from people who do not understand that they are subsidizing huge companies.
Michael Press, a Connecticut consultant on tax incentives, says such deals, however troubling, are an inevitable result of the U.S. Constitution setting up competition between the states.
“In an ideal world we would not provide any corporate subsidies,” Press told me. “It looks like corruption. But if you do it right, if you only target those companies whose behavior you change to create jobs or keep jobs in your state then these targeted temporary arrangements are cheaper – much cheaper – and can be more effective than an overall reduction in tax rates.”
The mission of Good Jobs First is making economic development subsidies accountable and effective. In years of working with their data I have always found it sound. While Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First’s founder, has rooted out all sorts of hidden subsidies over the years, he emphasizes that he is not inherently hostile to them, only to secrecy, waste and what he calls job piracy and job blackmail.
“Job piracy” occurs when one state diverts taxes to lure an employer across state lines. AMC Entertainmentannounced a deal last year to move its corporate headquarters from Kansas City, Mo., to a nearby Kansas suburb. In return, Good Jobs First said, Kansas will let the multiplex chain keep $47 million of state income taxes withheld from its workers’ paychecks, a drain on public finances that did not create any jobs, but does enrich the Wall Street firms that own AMC including arms of J. P. Morgan, Apollo Management, Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group. AMC declined to answer my questions.
“Job blackmail” occurs when a company threatens to close a plant unless it gets tax money.
In Illinois, the law requires companies to threaten to leave before they can keep taxes withheld from paychecks. Motorola Mobility, now being acquired by Google; the truck maker Navistar; the German manufacturer Continental Tire, and three auto makers – Chrysler, Ford and Mitsubishi – get to keep $346.8 in taxes over 10 years because they threatened to leave Illinois. Navistar can pocket $62.1 million even if it fires a quarter of its Illinois workforce, its contract shows. A recent deal gives Sears $150 million, Good Jobs First reported.
PROMISES OF JOBS
Promising to retain jobs can be lucrative. General Electric invested $126 million updating part of its Ohio operations. In return, GE gets a tax credit equal to $115.3 million of its worker taxes, recovering 92 percent of its investment. A sweet deal for GE, but not its competitors.
Gary Sheffer, GE’s top spokesman, said the company told its workers about the deal. In all, he said, GE is investing around $300 million in Ohio and “the resulting taxes the state will receive will far exceed the tax credits provided to GE.”
That response, I think, misses the point – GE should pay its own bills without taking welfare.
Many figures in the Good Jobs First report are from disclosure reports some states make. Others come from news accounts and company announcements.
Total revenue losses are higher than the report states. First, some states hide the costs. Phil Mattera, the research director at Good Jobs First, said he lists the cost as zero for states that hide the numbers.
Good Jobs First wants to end these diversions, but failing that recommends mandatory disclosure to the workers as the first reform. I concur. It’s the first step in ending corporate welfare as we know it.
The United States Department of Labor has reached a $3 million settlement with the ground delivery unit of FedEx to resolve allegations that the company discriminated against 21,635 job seekers at two dozen FedEx facilities in 15 states.
The Labor Department reached the agreement with FedEx Ground Package Systems after saying it had found evidence of discrimination in hiring on the basis of sex, race and national origin. The office monitors employment practices at the nation’s 200,000 federal contractors, which employ roughly one-fourth of the nation’s work force.
Under the settlement, department officials said Wednesday, FedEx has agreed to make wide-ranging changes to correct any discriminatory hiring practices and to extend job offers to 1,703 of the rejected workers as positions become available.
Patricia A. Shiu, director of the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said it was her office’s largest settlement since 2004, when it reached a $5.5 million settlement with Wachovia Corporation after asserting that more than 2,000 of the bank’s female workers had been underpaid.
“When you do business with the government, we expect you to do the right thing,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in a statement. “That includes giving all Americans an equal shot at a good job. It’s about more than just the law — diversity is smart for business.”Patrick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for FedEx Ground, said the company believed that the Labor Department’s position was not supported by the law.
“The bottom line is we admitted no wrongdoing,” he said. “The allegations and the whole drive for the settlement were based on a computer statistical analysis, rather than on any individual complaints or investigation.”
He added, “We agreed to the $3 million to avoid what would have been a prolonged and much more costly resolution process.”
Ms. Shiu said her office first uncovered evidence of discrimination at FedEx seven years ago during a regularly scheduled review, finding discrimination against blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Native Americans compared with similarly situated white applicants. She said women also faced discrimination and were sometimes automatically ruled out for positions requiring the lifting of heavier objects even when they could have handled such objects.
Ms. Shiu said “the beauty” of the 4,000 regular audits her office does each year was that they could find evidence of discrimination even when people have not filed complaints and did not realize they had faced discrimination.
She said that of the 21,635 rejected applicants covered by the settlement, 61 percent were female, 52 percent African American, 14 percent Hispanic, 2 percent Asian and 1 percent Native American.
As an example, a department spokesman said that the audit of a FedEx Ground facility in Grove City, Ohio, found that discrimination had affected 3,898 applicants. The department found that 29.8 percent of the 6,178 men who applied were hired, compared with 18.7 percent of the 2,277 women. It found that 33.2 percent of the white applicants were hired, 21.9 percent of the blacks, 18.7 percent of the Hispanics and 15.7 percent of the Native Americans.
Under the terms of the settlement, the spokesman said, the 3,898 rejected applicants at the Grove City facility will receive a total of $617,260 in back wages and will be extended 312 job offers.
Ms. Shiu the evidence was based on not just statistical discrepancies, but also interviews with applicants and FedEx officials.
“This agreement will make a difference not just at the affected facilities but throughout the country so that this kind of hiring discrimination doesn’t happen anymore,” Ms. Shiu said. Michael J. Zimmer, an employment discrimination professor at the Loyola College School of Law, said that the $3 million settlement was modest, but more important was FedEx’s promise to revamp its hiring practices.
“In employment discrimination, hiring cases are very unusual — almost all of the cases are terminations, sexual harassment or promotions,” Professor Zimmer said. He noted that rejected job applicants often do not complain about discrimination because they fear that being perceived as troublemakers will hurt their chances of getting hired elsewhere.
Former Charlotte City Council member Warren Turner, fired in July 2010 from his job as a state probation officer, has been reinstated.
Turner began working again with the state probation office earlier this month as a judicial services coordinator in Gaston County.
Pamela Walker, the N.C. Department of Public Safety's deputy director of communications, told the Observer in a prepared statement Friday that Turner had been reinstated after the N.C. Department of Correction reviewed the appeal of his firing.
"After careful consideration of the issues raised by both Mr. Turner and the DOC, the parties have reached a mutual settlement agreement," Walker said in the statement. "The department reviewed Mr. Turner's level of career experience and agrees to his reinstatement."
The settlement agreement calls for Turner to receive back pay between the time of his firing and reinstatement. The state also will pay $10,000 to Turner's legal counsel to cover the cost of his appeal.
Walker said the settlement that led to Turner's reinstatement was reached before the appeal came before the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings.
She also said Turner's annual salary of $41,451 is the same pay he received as a probation officer.
Judicial services coordinators are responsible for the intake of new probation cases, preparing pre-sentence reports and conducting initial risk-needs assessments.
Turner, 47, could not be reached for comment Friday. His attorney, Eric Montgomery, declined comment.
Montgomery said in 2010 that Turner would appeal his firing. He said the reasons listed by the DOC in the letter to Turner were "procedural BS."
Montgomery said the DOC decided it wanted to fire Turner and then looked for a way to do it.
Turner and his attorney have repeatedly said Turner didn't do anything wrong.
Turner, after eight years on the City Council, lost his bid for re-election in 2011. His last term was marred by accusations of sexual harassment.
A city investigation in 2010 found Turner had made sexually inappropriate comments to at least five female staff members. Turner denied the allegations. The City Council declined to censure him.
Turner was fired from his probation officer job for missing meetings or drug screenings with at least 14 probationers, according to a termination letter released by the DOC.
The DOC said Turner falsified at least one record of a home visit with a probationer. The agency also said Turner reported visiting with probationers on days that he was on leave or wasn't scheduled to work.
Turner also had been told not to conduct city business on state time, but then spent hours on his city-issued cellphone conducting city business during state work hours, according to the DOC. His actions, the agency said, were a "blatant disregard" of the earlier warning.
The DOC said it didn't find any evidence that Turner had made sexually inappropriate comments or harassed female probationers.
The Observer reported that in 2009 Mecklenburg County officials told Charlotte City Manager Curt Walton that they believed Turner had misrepresented himself as a county building inspector.
A woman told the Observer that Turner visited a construction site on South Tryon Street and showed his gun to laborers working there. She said he told them he was a building inspector and threatened to put them in jail if they didn't stop working on the house.
After the report, the DOC moved Turner to a desk job and took away his state-issued gun and car pending an investigation. The termination letter didn't address the allegation that Turner showed the laborers a gun.
Turner began his new job as judicial services coordinator Feb. 6. Coordinators do not carry weapons.
Turner has said repeatedly that he did nothing wrong.
Turner, a Democrat, had been a probation officer for 20 years. He was first elected to the City Council in 2003.
An ongoing political dispute over the Obama administration's new mandate on contraceptive coverage has reached the federal courts, with the Justice Department on Friday urging judges to stay out of the controversy until a compromise can be worked out.
At issue is whether religious institutions should be exempt from mandated employee coverage for birth control and other reproductive care. A North Carolina college has sued, saying it should not be obligated to provide such services in violation of its religious beliefs.
But the Justice Department told a federal judge in Washington on Friday that any coverage requirements won't be enforced until next January, essentially buying time to settle any differences between the parties out of court.
"Students may receive health coverage either by contracting directly with an insurance issuer (in which case plaintiff [college] does not itself provide the insurance), or from plaintiff through a self insured plan," said the filing.
"In either event, plaintiff is under no federal obligation to provide its own plan that covers contraception or other recommended preventive services, and thus lacks standing" to sue.
The president announced a compromise last week in the dispute.
Under the new plan, religiously affiliated universities and hospitals would not be forced to offer contraception coverage to their employees. Insurers will be required, however, to offer complete coverage free of charge to women who work at such institutions.
Female employees at churches themselves will have no guarantee of any contraception coverage-- a continuation of current law.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced Obama's compromise last week soon after the president's announcement, saying the proposal raises "serious moral concerns," according to a statement posted on its website.
Half of all Americans polled say they oppose the Obama administration's new policy, according to a new CNN/ORC national survey.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has filed a series of lawsuits, arguing that even the revised polices on contraception access would constitute a violation of their clients' faith.
Belmont Abbey College is a Catholic-affiliated liberal arts institution near Charlotte, North Carolina. The school claims that under current law, they are not free from the "religious exemption" and would be forced to provide contraception to its employees and students.
They say the law, even with the compromise offered by the White House, does not address their First Amendment concerns.
The final version of the contraception requirement goes into effect next January. The administration argues Belmont and other institutions may be "grandfathered" out of current compliance, and that the school lacks "standing" or authority to press its claims now in federal court.
The administration said that under a safe harbor provision, no group can be forced to provide birth control at least until year's end. Federal officials said they are confident they could work out legal and philosophical differences to ensure broad compliance.
The case is Belmont Abbey College v. Sebelius (1:11-cv-1989).
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