9 Articles Worth Reading
9 Articles Worth Reading
Date: Sunday, January 23, 2005 4:15 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
January 23, 2005 No. 1183
Rob's Comment: Article #3 wins the prize for it's racist statements
about workers in the United States. The Chicago Tribune should be
ashamed, but of course they aren't.
Article 1:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/207379_phone11.html
Pssst! They're listening when you're on hold
It is the opening line on so many phone conversations these days: This
call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes. The taped message
is so common that many callers might assume that no one is ever
listening, let alone taking notes. But they would be wrong. Monitoring
is intended to track the performance of call center operators, but the
professional snoops are inadvertently monitoring callers, too. As more
call centers move offshore, companies are starting to outsource the
monitoring, too. From any corner of the globe, call monitors with just
a computer and an Internet connection can oversee workers virtually
anywhere. For instance, Pike on Long Island listens to service agents
in India who may be talking to customers in Indiana. Monitors in
Britain are likely to listen to customers in New York talking to German
operators in Frankfurt.
Article 2:
http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/news/news.asp?ID=3018
Though becoming more popular for companies exhibiting seasonal labor
needs, the H-2B program has become problematic for many industries
since early 2004. The government-regulated program, which brings legal
laborers into the United States from foreign countries, maintains a cap
of 66,000 visas to be issued to companies looking for foreign workers
to supplement their labor needs. In 2004, the cap was reached on March
9, leaving companies that needed workers later in the year out of luck.
This year, the 66,000-visa limit was reached more than two months
earlier on Jan. 4. As it stands, the United States Citizenship and
Immigration Service has stopped issuing H-2B visas, leaving companies
that had yet to request their workers shorthanded for the remainder of
the fiscal year. ":I expect there will be a much bigger constituency of
individuals and companies advocating for H-2B reform this year than
there were last year,": noted Libby Whitley, president of Mid-Atlantic
Solutions or mas Labor, a Virginia-based H-2B provider company.
Article 3:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501170203jan17,1,6840975.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
`Jobs that Americans won't do' filled by desperate migrants
Bush is calling for a system in which foreign guest workers would have
temporary legal status to work in this country. "We tried to bring in
American people," says Johnson, who stands 5-foot-1 in heels, and grew
up on a farm nearby, "but the American people, they are just lazy. . .
. If they [the Latinos] would get out of here, we would have to close
because we couldn't find enough people.
Article 4:
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050118-125422-9134r
India aviation flies high with U.S. pact
India and the United States reached an air travel pact last week that,
by liberalizing aviation between the two countries, could take the
bilateral air links to new highs. Aviation industries of both countries
agree that it represents a landmark agreement because it would permit
unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and
beyond the other's territory, eliminating restrictions on how often the
carriers can fly, the kind of aircraft they use and prices they charge.
Article 5:
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno=26711
US outsourcing firm to hire 4,000 in India
Sutherland Global Services, a New York-based leading business process
outsourcing (BPO) firm, said Thursday it would add 4,000 more employees
in its India operation as part of the company's expansion plans.
Sutherland, which had an employee base of 1,500 in India in September
2003, has grown rapidly in recent months to become a 7,000 people BPO
organisation in the country.
Article 6:
http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/050114_vfl.htm
Mickey Mouse (And H-1B "Temporary" Workers) vs. American Middle Class
The Walt Disney Company is a microcosm of todays corporate America:
millions paid in salary and bonus for the big boys while the company
downsizes by "laying-off" staff. The remaining employees are squeezed
as hard as possible. Finally, foreign workers are hired on H-1B
non-immigrant visas thus shutting out qualified Americans from
mid-level management positions.
Article 7:
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2165
South Korean Government Tightens the Screw on Alien Workers
[SiaNews Note: BRAVO! I'm here in South Korea, on a teaching visa, and
have been since 1999. The visa overstay penalties here are nearly
US$100 per day. What's wrong with America?! There's no fuss in South
Korea over this anti-illegal immigrant watch; shd be none whatsoever,
either, in the United States.]
The government is making plans to enforce a tightened policy of no
tolerance on migrant workers who are staying illegally in Korea from
early next year. The government says it has no choice but to sharpen
the regulations and their implementation to prevent a flood of
foreigners living lawlessly here.
Article 8:
http://vdare.com/francis/050106_globalization.htm
Globalization Now Eats The Hands That Fed It
If it's a tsunami you're afraid of, what happened in the Indian Ocean
last month is probably not what you should be worrying about. The
tsunami Americans need to fear is the man-made wave of globalization
that has helped gut the American work force by exporting its jobs
overseas in part through the cute little trick known as "offshoring."
Article 9:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?H1A96594Aor
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002155249_mslayoffs20.html
Microsoft lays off 62 testers
Microsoft is laying off 62 test engineers in the second round of cuts
hitting Windows testers in the past five months. The company has
recently sent test work overseas, but a spokeswoman denied that's a
factor. She said automation, not globalization, led to the cuts. But
spokeswoman Tami Begasse said there is no correlation between the
tester layoffs and the company's growing use of workers abroad. She
said the group was restructured because it's automating some testing
tasks.
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/207379_phone11.html
Pssst! They're listening when you're on hold
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Pssst! They're listening when you're on hold
By KEN BELSON
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MELVILLE, N.Y. -- It is the opening line on so many phone conversations
these days: This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.
The taped message is so common that many callers might assume that no
one is ever listening, let alone taking notes. But they would be wrong.
Monitoring is intended to track the performance of call center
operators, but the professional snoops are inadvertently monitoring
callers, too. Most callers do not realize that they may be taped even
while they are on hold.
It is at these times that monitors hear husbands arguing with their
wives, mothers yelling at their children and dog owners throwing fits
at disobedient pets, all when they think no one is listening. Most
times, the only way a customer can avoid being recorded is to hang up.
"You could have a show on Broadway just playing the calls," said Mike
Schrider, president of J.Lodge, a call-monitoring service based in
Hammonton, N.J.
Call monitors eavesdrop on millions of exchanges a year, and listening
to the mumblings and rants of people on hold comes with the job.
Overall, about 2 percent of the hundreds of millions of calls made to
call centers are monitored by a company's own managers or,
increasingly, by third-party monitoring companies.
Tapping into calls from his cubicle in Melville, N.Y., Stuart Pike is
one of an army of listeners employed by these companies. He has an
unrestricted view of how corporate America deals with the public -- and
how the public talks back.
The business of assessing the behavior of operators has taken on a new
urgency in recent years. With so many companies selling similar
products at similar prices, competent and professional customer-service
agents are more and more the difference between a sale and a lost
opportunity, a burnished brand and a tarnished one.
That reality has turned third-party call monitoring into a fast-growing
industry watching over the nation's 6 million call-center operators as
well as hundreds of thousands offshore. And people like Pike, who
listens to about 150 calls a week, have become the equivalent of
factory foremen policing America's service economy.
Recently, Pike stumbled onto a call where a young male customer was
flirting with a female service agent at a cell phone company. After
some giggles and banter, the woman relented and gave her personal phone
number to the customer. Pike quickly alerted the cell phone company to
the phone date.
"You'd be surprised how casual it can get," said Pike, who works at Aon
Consulting, one of the nation's biggest third-party call-center
monitors. "It's like watching TV. There's always something interesting
on."
Some privacy advocates worry that monitors, as well as operators, can
steal customer passwords and other sensitive data. Thus far, few
documented cases of identity theft have been unearthed involving
monitors, and most monitoring companies screen their applicants. State
wiretapping laws generally do not provide protection against recording
of call-center conversations (the taped message at the start of the
call is, in most cases, considered an adequate privacy warning).
Fears of identity theft have not slowed the monitoring business. In
fact, under tighter scrutiny by regulators, most financial institutions
are now taping all their calls.
The growth of monitoring has also been fueled by the advent of Internet
phone technology, which has substantially cut the cost of long-distance
calls and made call monitoring as easy as clicking a mouse.
Sophisticated software that automatically records conversations has
increased the number of calls monitors can assess.
As more call centers move offshore, companies are starting to outsource
the monitoring, too. From any corner of the globe, call monitors with
just a computer and an Internet connection can oversee workers
virtually anywhere. For instance, Pike on Long Island listens to
service agents in India who may be talking to customers in Indiana.
Monitors in Britain are likely to listen to customers in New York
talking to German operators in Frankfurt.
HyperQuality, which is based in Seattle, has 100 call monitors in New
Delhi who eavesdrop on call-center workers around the United States.
In effect, monitors have become referees on an international scale. "We
act as the conscience of the company," said Paul Kowal, the president
of Kowal Associates, an industry consultant and a third-party monitor.
Sometimes, refereeing means reporting off-color calls like the
flirtation that Pike overheard. Plenty of other calls also raise red
flags, including customers and operators who shout, swear, talk
politics or threaten bodily harm. Anyone hanging up -- either an
operator or an angry customer -- sends out warnings, too.
Just a few years ago, most companies simply ranked their operators on
how quickly they picked up calls and ended them. Now call monitors rate
operators by checking off boxes on detailed electronic questionnaires
that assess qualities such as efficiency, conversational skills and
ability to mollify frustrated customers. The scores from each monitored
call are collected to rank an operator's performance.
Operators who can defuse aggression -- a not-insignificant talent --
win plaudits. Operators also have to deal with the slow talkers, the
lonely chatterers and the absent-minded. At night, the drunks come out.
Hearing this hidden side of American commerce turns the monitors into
amateur experts in American phone etiquette.
"Bad calls stick in my mind because I can't believe what I've heard,"
said Renee Rea, who sits a few rows from Pike in a room silent except
for fingers tapping on keyboards.
To do the job, Rea and her colleagues need an aptitude for listening, a
rare commodity in a culture where the opposite of talking is waiting to
talk. Indeed, finding monitors willing to sit in silence all day is not
easy, and turnover is a problem for jobs that involve a mix of
industrial psychology and Marketing 101.
Monitors typically score operators on their "openings," like the
friendliness of their greeting. They flag annoying habits like using
run-on sentences, and even gauge the mood of calls.
Operators are given demerits for transferring customers without asking,
keeping someone on hold too long and blaming others instead of trying
to solve problems.
2. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/news/news.asp?ID=3018
WASHINGTON, D.C. The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) isnt
easing into its first year as a new green industry association. Members
from the new organization, formed by an ALCA/PLCAA merger made official
this month, met last week with representatives from the American
Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) and other industries to tackle
the issue of H-2B. Together, the group discussed problems stemming from
the H-2B visa cap, potential solutions to those problems and
opportunities to collectively bring about changes to the program in the
near future.
Though becoming more popular for companies exhibiting seasonal labor
needs, the H-2B program has become problematic for many industries
since early 2004. The government-regulated program, which brings legal
laborers into the United States from foreign countries, maintains a cap
of 66,000 visas to be issued to companies looking for foreign workers
to supplement their labor needs. In 2004, the cap was reached on March
9, leaving companies that needed workers later in the year out of luck.
This year, the 66,000-visa limit was reached more than two months
earlier on Jan. 4. As it stands, the United States Citizenship and
Immigration Service has stopped issuing H-2B visas, leaving companies
that had yet to request their workers shorthanded for the remainder of
the fiscal year.
":I expect there will be a much bigger constituency of individuals and
companies advocating for H-2B reform this year than there were last
year,": noted Libby Whitley, president of Mid-Atlantic Solutions or mas
Labor, a Virginia-based H-2B provider company. Whitley noted that of
her clients with dates of need earlier than March 1, 2005 and who filed
their applications no later than 120 days prior to that need date, 95
percent received their visas. For clients with later dates of need or
who did not meet deadlines, only 70 percent had their requests granted.
":Last year was the first time the cap was really enforced and we saw
smaller companies or companies using H-2B for the first time be
effected by the cap,": Whitley says. ":This year, more and larger
companies were affected.":
In some respects, Whitley and Planet and ANLA representatives believe
this harder hit could work to the groups advantage in terms of
organizing a grassroots effort for H-2B reform. Though Congress made
attempts last year to temporarily fix the cap issue and make permanent
changes to the program, the 2004 elections prevented more legislators
from taking on the H-2B issue.
This year, with more companies in numberous industries impacted by the
visa cap, the budding coalition hopes to bring H-2B reform to the
legislative forefront.
":Growth in the H-2B program has been enormous in recent years,": says
Jim Holt of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm McGinnis, Norris &
Williams, which works with many ANLA members on immigration issues.
":Its very important to employers in the green industry and many
other industries, but labor unions and anti-immigration groups see the
program as a threat. As we move forward, we need to get more companies
involved in a grassroots effort to make the issue known, and we need to
stress the economic importance of the program in keeping small
businesses functioning. Also, we have to highlight the fact that if
employers cant rely on this program, which brings employers and
employees together legally, more businesses will look for
alternative workforces and end up hiring more illegal labor.":
The combined meeting between Planet and ANLA, held Wednesday, Jan. 12,
was attended by PLANET President Dan Foley, Secretary/Treasurer Maria
Candler; Director of Government Affairs Tom Delaney; members Chuy
Medrano, Cocal Lanscape, Denver, Colo., and Terri Feldhaus, Chapel
Valley, Ellicott City, Md.; ANLA member Pete Haran of Lipinski
Landscape & Irrigation and ANLAs legislative policy committee; and
PLANET government relations consultants David Crow and Laurie Flanagan.
Also attending the meeting were Bob Dolibois and John Meredith from the
American Nursery & Landscape Association, agents who process H-2B
applications, and representatives from state landscape associations,
the cannery business and the horse training and breeding industry.
In organizing a plan that would potentially be proposed to Congress,
the group brainstormed a variety of solutions to the H-2B cap crisis,
including eliminating the cap completely, exempting certain workers and
rethinking how and when visas are counted against the cap. Ultimately,
a multiphase plan was developed that would eliminate the cap over three
years. The group made a presentation of their plan to the Essential
Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) in a second meeting the following
day.
":The EWIC group has been advocating comprehensive non-agricultural
labor reform for many years and it works on a wealth of programs to
help service sector communities,": explains Meredith, ANLAs director
of legislative relations. ":While their biggest consideration is what
is politically feasible, EWIC is well-informed on whos doing what on
Capitol Hill and can help us refine our message and get results.
Because its such a strong group that covers a broad range of
industries, working with EWIC is a logical starting place for our own
H-2B coalition.":
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS COMMITTEES
Type Following joint meetings on Jan. 12 and 13, the Professional
Landcare Network (PLANET), the American Nursery & Landscape Association
(ANLA) and the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition have formed six
collaborative government relations committees for an organized H-2B
reform effort. Below is a list of the six committees and the
association members leading those charges. Individuals or companies
interested in participating on these committees or in the general
legislative effort can contact PLANET at 800/395-2522 or
www.landcarenetwork.org, or ANLA at 202/789-2900 or www.anla.org.
Education of Congressional Staff: PLANETs Tom Delaney and its
consultants David Crow and Laurie Flanagan
Survey Coordination: PLANET President Dan Foley and Secretary/Treasurer
Maria Candler
Grassroots Coordination (monitoring the status of each group): Hank
Lavery with www.RaiseTheCap.org
Media Outreach: Steven McKay with the Cornell Cooperative Extension
Preparation of Background Documents and Lobby Materials: Joanna Hedvall
with the American Immigration Lawyers Association
Foregin Country Outreach: Michael Glah with International Personnel
Resources
During the Thursday meeting, Candler says the group devised an altered
approach to H-2B reform, which will become the cornerstone for an
eventual presentation to Congress.
":After a lengthy discussion, we determined the only viable political
option to address the cap in the short term is to ask Congress to
permanently exempt from the cap workers who have participated in the
H-2B program at any time during the past three years and to direct the
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to immediately resume
processing H-2B applications on the day the bill is signed into to
law,": Candler explains. ":This option was deemed to have the greatest
likelihood of success since many senators and members of Congress are
already working on similar legislation. Workers who have used the
program before have proven that they will return home after their
seasonal work in the United States is complete, which eliminates strong
objections from influential legislators who argue that increasing the
number of H-2B workers will increase the number of illegal immigrants
in the United States. In fact, the opposite is true; the H-2B program
provides a means by which employers can legally access the workers they
so vitally need. The closing of the cap so early in the year could
actually lead to an increased use of illegal workers because no
Americans can be found to do these jobs.":
Additionally, Candler says the group determined the lack of H-2B
workers to be largely a small-business issue that could have a negative
effect on the U.S. economy in terms of job loss and fewer equipment
purchases. For example, companies that are not able to employ H-2B
workers have a directly reduced need for American workers to serve as
foremen or account managers for those crews, resulting in less hiring.
Simultaneously, companies will scale back on expansion plans and
equipment purchases because of their reduced workforces.
Overall, the combined PLANET/ANLA group called for public and
congressional education on H-2B and its impact on the American economy.
PLANET, in cooperation with other groups, is planning to organize a
congressional staff briefing in the next few weeks. Additionally,
PLANET has prepared a survey to be completed by all meeting
participants that will also be passed onto their association members
and clients, as a way to acquire case studies of these economic
impacts. The survey is available by clicking here or by visiting the
PLANET Web site.
Members of the green industry who are interested in working on the
grassroots push for H-2B reform should contact PLANET or ANLA for more
information on how best to get involved. Additionally, all members of
the industry who have been affected by the H-2B visa cap are encouraged
to write, phone and fax their legislators to make them aware of this
issue and its urgent need for reform.
":I may be politically naove, but I told all my clients to fax
Congress three times a week and regularly craft new letters to explain
the issue,": says Bob Wingfield, president of H-2B provider Amigos,
Dallas, Texas. ":Thats where this change has to start.":
Check Lawn & Landscape Online for regular H-2B legislative updates and
suggestions on how you can get involved with this grassroots effort.
Monday, January 17, 2005
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501170203jan17,1,6840975.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
`Jobs that Americans won't do' filled by desperate migrants
By Stephen Franklin
Tribune staff reporter
January 17, 2005
TAR HEEL, N.C. -- She is dizzy, almost wobbly. Her head aches, her
coughing won't stop, and because she doesn't have enough money she has
not filled her four prescriptions nor seen a doctor recently.
But that doesn't stop her.
Soon it will be midnight, and Ipifania Dominguez will be back at work
cleaning up blood, bone and fat in the world's largest pork
slaughterhouse. She'll be back in the "head room," as she calls it,
where meat is cut from pigs' heads.
She'll be back reaching and bending as she scrubs the machines, walls
and floors with a sponge, breathing cleaning chemicals that burn her
eyes, clog her throat and linger, giving her a nauseated feeling when
she stumbles home exhausted.
She'll be back at a job few want except someone like Dominguez, 35, a
Mexican immigrant illegally living in the U.S., who is thankful for the
work that has allowed her to send money home to her six children in
Mexico.
For six hours nightly with no breaks or time to eat, she is clutching a
sponge while shivering in the cutting room's permanent chill for a job
that starts out at six bucks and ninety cents an hour. And she has to
hustle because the factory must be clean for the start of a new day and
the slaughter of up to 32,000 pigs.
People like Dominguez are the ones President Bush was talking about
recently when he spoke of reforming the nation's immigration policy to
allow "good-hearted people who are coming here to work" while stopping
"crooks and thieves and drug-runners."
Bush is calling for a system in which foreign guest workers would have
temporary legal status to work in this country. Under the plan,
employers would have to prove that no U.S. citizens would take the
available openings before they could hire guest workers to perform what
Bush calls "jobs that Americans won't do."
Not everyone agrees with Bush, however.
"It's not jobs Americans don't want to do. These are wages and working
conditions Americans don't want to accept," says Ira Melman, a
spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an
opponent of lowering the barriers for undocumented workers.
"Why not let the free market determine what wages ought to be instead
of flooding the market with low-wage, foreign labor?" he asks.
Hard work has long been a burden, but also a stepping stone for
immigrants. Yet some jobs are so dirty, so tough, so miserable that
only the hungriest or most vulnerable of the newest arrivals do them.
Vulnerable because they do not speak English, cannot offer anything
beyond their arms and backs, and dare not speak out because they live
in the shadows, afraid of being caught and sent home.
Dominguez and 200 others work for a contractor, QSI Inc., which nightly
cleans the Smithfield Foods Inc. plant in Tar Heel, a colossus that
employs up to 6,000 workers and ships 6 million pounds of pork daily.
QSI officials say their workers' papers show they are legally in the
United States. But according to the workers and those who help them,
many of the cleaners are illegal immigrants from Mexico or Central
America, coming from poverty and Indian roots. They use fake
identification documents with fake names to get and keep their jobs.
Dominguez's employer knows her by another name, not Dominguez.
These workers do the jobs turned down by other immigrants who have more
skills and savvy--and more deftly falsified identification papers that
allow them to compete for more desirable jobs.
Chicago's day laborers
In the same boat as these workers are the day laborers, who crowd
Chicago's West Side street corners in bone-chilling cold or on
blistering hot mornings, hoping a contractor will stop to hire them. A
global stew of Hispanic, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Uzbek and Mongolian
immigrants, they often risk their lives on dangerous jobs for little
pay, or no pay at all from a handful of bosses who might cheat them or
desert them if they get injured.
Carlos Meija, a short, muscular 36-year-old undocumented immigrant from
Mexico, is a street-corner veteran. Last year, Meija broke his arm
while on a construction job. He says his boss refused to pay his
hospital bill or help him out financially during the three months he
was recuperating--despite his getting hurt on the job.
On a chilly morning, he huddles at the corner of Argyle Street and
Pulaski Road. It is 10 a.m., more than three hours since the first
contractors came by looking for help, and he still hasn't snared a job.
He is worried. He got lucky late yesterday by taking a job working on a
high, steep rooftop. Not everyone wants such work, he explains.
But this is how he prefers to work. "The work here is better than at a
factory for the minimum wage," he says, his eyes trained on the street.
A van pulls up, and several men pile in, pushing others aside. But then
they hurriedly flee.
"It's no good," a middle-aged man grumbles. "Forget it. It's heavy
work. No breaks. And the pay is no good. Eight dollars."
But Meija shoves his way in, and goes to lift heavy boxes for the next
few hours.
Except for a few homeless and some people out of work and down-and-out,
nearly all of the day laborers waiting on Chicago's street corners are
immigrants, says Jose Oliva, director of the Chicago Interfaith
Workers' Rights Center.
"Immigrants are much more willing to be exploited, not because they
like it, but because they don't see any more options, and they are
really just trying to survive," he says.
There are no statistics on workplace abuse of undocumented immigrants
because many are terrified to report wrongdoing, don't know whom to
call, or, in dire situations, are virtual captives of their employers,
according to immigrant advocates.
"Since their immigration status is an issue, this creates a subclass of
fearful workers on a grand scale. We are talking about millions," says
Lance Compa, a lawyer and labor expert at Cornell University. "It is
worse than 30 years ago. It is like 100 years ago."
In a highly critical upcoming report for Human Rights Watch on the
conditions of workers in the nation's meat and poultry plants, Compa
points to the industries' reliance on immigrants, and especially
undocumented workers who are fearful of speaking up.
Latino workers are a majority in many of these plants, he says, adding
that this is one reason why North Carolina, which has many such plants,
ranked first in the nation in the last decade in the growth of
immigrants. From about 100,000 immigrants in 1990, most of them Latino,
about half a million live in the state today, he says.
Latinos once were a rarity in the swamp lands, pine forests and small
farm towns surrounding Tar Heel in southeastern North Carolina. But
that's no longer true. Now, Latinos work at the poultry-processing
plants and at hundreds of hog farms that serve the Smithfield Foods
plant, where the company says they make up half of the workforce, up
from one out of four employees seven years ago.
Barbara Johnson, 61, a 12-year veteran and trainer on the cutting
floor, remembers when there were "very few Latinos" at the plant.
Latinos fill crucial role
"We tried to bring in American people," says Johnson, who stands
5-foot-1 in heels, and grew up on a farm nearby, "but the American
people, they are just lazy. . . . If they [the Latinos] would get out
of here, we would have to close because we couldn't find enough people.
"The Latinos, they'll stand there in pain all day without saying
anything," she says. "I told them they could say something. But I think
they fear that if they speak out they would get sent back. One day some
of the ladies were crying and saying they want to stay, life is bad
back in their countries."
A woman known to her employer by the pseudonym of Sara Lopez clung in
pain and weariness to her job on the cutting floor because she feared
that she would be fired if she spoke up. Five years ago when she left
her family in Guatemala, she vowed that she would send money back to
her mother and four children.
She is a rarity, a woman--a small, shy 30-year-old single mother--who
made her way on the mostly male trail of undocumented workers coming
from Central America across Mexico and into the U.S., and finally to
this swampy stretch of North Carolina.
The work was hard, cutting meat from the bone, but she learned to
adjust.
Three months ago a pain began in her right shoulder and spread to her
arm. It ached so much she feared that something terrible inside of her
would kill or cripple her.
Finally she told her boss, who moved her to another job. But her arm
still ached, and one day she said she could not do the job. She thought
her boss told her to go home temporarily. But there was a mix-up. When
she came back, they said she had walked off the job, and therefore no
longer worked at the plant.
Smithfield officials said they would not comment on workers' individual
cases. But they said the plant has a low injury rate, and the company
works to keep it that way.
"This work," says the woman known as Lopez, who then turns away to cry.
"This work is very important. I am responsible for my children and my
family."
Smithfield spokesman Dennis Treacy says his firm does not purposely
hire Latinos. "We hire who shows up," he says.
But for QSI Inc., the company based in Chattanooga, Tenn., that cleans
the Smithfield facility and other meat-processing plants across the
U.S., it is a fact of life, says company spokesman Gary Grauman, that
Latinos overwhelmingly apply for its jobs. That is why, he says, about
90 percent of his firm's cleaning workforce are Latinos.
Quality of workers
"We've seen how these people want to come here and work and we embrace
that," he says. "They are good workers. They work hard and they are
reliable."
The QSI workers offer a different explanation.
Their ranks are nearly all Latinos, they say, because nobody else would
do such work. And many Latinos are also new arrivals, desperate to pay
off the smugglers, known as coyotes, who brought them to the United
States, and so they must find a job, any job, soon.
So, too, not all QSI workers are quiet and satisfied.
Several QSI workers who feuded last year with company officials over
pay and job conditions and who were fired, turned to the United Food
and Commercial Workers union, which has been trying to organize the
Smithfield plant for 10 years.
In a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of the
workers, the union said QSI officials threatened to fire the workers as
well as call immigration officials if they tried to join the union.
The company denied the union's claims at hearings last fall, and a
ruling is pending.
At QSI, Saul Ortiz has paid a price for his American job.
He says he is 16 years old, but he seems a very young 16, playing with
a small plush toy while glued to a blaring television set in the
trailer where he lives with his older brother.
He was hired just over a year ago at QSI in Lumberton, N.C., using fake
papers saying he was 25. North Carolina law bars anyone under 16 from
working in such a facility.
He was given a week's training, he recalls, and sent to work with a
crew that appeared to have some workers his age or younger.
He had arrived a few months before from Veracruz, Mexico, after his
family urged him to go live with an older brother and earn money to
send home.
The sight of blood and the chemical odors made him want to vomit when
he began the job, he says. Sometimes cleaning chemicals splashed on his
hands and burned him. And his eyes began to burn.
He was cleaning a machine on the cutting floor, standing on top of it,
when he lost his balance one day last January.
As he fell, his hand got caught in the machine, which rips apart pigs'
skin. It tore the skin off his left thumb and ripped away the bone,
even below the knuckle, leaving a stump.
He went back to work after two months but says he quit because he
needed more surgery on his hand and the work would prevent it from
healing.
At first he didn't think much about the accident. But lately he does.
"I feel anger," he says in a flat voice, shyly looking away. "I'm not
the same. I have trouble buttoning my shirt. Tying my shoes. I am not
the same. My hand is not the same."
QSI officials say they know nothing about Saul Ortiz, but they do know
the person with the fake name that Ortiz used to get hired. That
person, they say, was injured on the job. They also say their injury
rates are lower than the industry average.
The fear factor
Ortiz's attorney in a worker's compensation suit against the company,
Terry Kilbridge, has helped other QSI workers injured on the job. He
questions QSI's claim of lower-than-average injuries.
"So many of these people are illegal, uneducated or simply scared of
finding themselves back home in Mexico," he says. "I would guess that
only a few ever see their way to a lawyer."
Dominguez, who works in the "head room," says she would never complain
about her job because she doubts she could find anything nearby that
pays better. And her children in Mexico are depending on her to send
money home.
She says her husband, who works the second shift at the Smithfield
plant, barely shares his pay with her, saying he must send his money to
his relatives in Mexico.
When she comes home at dawn, more than an hour after finishing up, the
last person in the van that costs her $5 a day, she stumbles up the
hill toward her tiny, two-room bungalow, plops down onto the couch and
rocks back and forth, holding her head.
"I'm so cold, and so tired," she says. "Cold, cold, cold."
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050118-125422-9134r
India aviation flies high with U.S. pact
By Indrajit Basu
UPI Business Correspondent
Published January 18, 2005
India and the United States reached an air travel pact last week that,
by liberalizing aviation between the two countries, could take the
bilateral air links to new highs. For the two million passengers who
travel between India and the United States each year, this agreement,
once it is sealed in early February, would mean more commercial
flights, lower fares and stronger economic ties.
"We have before us the opportunity to give the people of India and
the U.S. a modern open skies agreement that will deliver tremendous
benefits for the aviation industry and for consumers in both countries,
building ties between our people and creating new jobs and
opportunities," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
Aviation industries of both countries agree that it represents a
landmark agreement because it would permit unrestricted air service by
the airlines of both countries between and beyond the other's
territory, eliminating restrictions on how often the carriers can fly,
the kind of aircraft they use and prices they charge. It replaces a
50-year old agreement.
The most significant advantage of the new deal, which replaces the
archaic 1956 agreement, is that it cuts red tape and allow airlines to
make commercial decisions with minimal government intervention, said
aviation industry sources.
"It includes the right to operate between any point in the U.S. and
any point in the corresponding country without restriction, including
service to intermediate and beyond points, and the right to transfer
passengers to an unlimited number of smaller aircraft at the
international gateway," said a spokesperson of the Indian Civil
Aviation ministry. "It also allows cargo carriers to operate in either
country without directly connecting to their homeland."
Another important component of the new agreement is the flexibility
to set fares and the right of carriers to convert earnings into hard
currency, and then return those earnings to their homelands promptly
and without restriction.
The civil aviation industry in the United States feels that the
policy would also enable United States airlines, many of which are on
the verge of bankruptcy following the 9/11 terrorist attack, to fly
unhindered from any city in the US to any in India.
According to India, the country's airlines too would get an equal
opportunity. "The new deal is a step in the right direction; towards
further liberalization. And the first result of this would be more
direct flights direct flights from India to the United Sates, a sector
which is still largely under served."
But the moot question according to a few skeptics, is, does India
have the wherewithal to take advantage of the agreement? According to
them, India has signed similar bilateral open skies pact with 97
countries. However, 51 of those agreements are still lying unused, and,
while India carriers like Air-India and Indian Airlines -- both
state-owned -- use just 20 of the remaining pacts, foreign carriers use
44.
Besides, according to Center of Asia Pacific Aviation in New Delhi,
no other privately owned local carriers have the required number of
long haul aircraft required to fly to the United States. For the time
being, the Air India is likely to be the only beneficiary.
In fact, the Center of Asia Pacific Aviation also fears that since
major American airlines are in trouble owing to losses faced due to
9/11, other country airlines that do not have a bilateral pact with
India but has one with U.S., could use this pact to run unlimited
flights to India.
Still, both the countries are hoping that eventually sky would be
the limit for their respective aviation sectors.
"Essentially, it (the pact) would provide for unrestricted airline
services between the two countries," said V Thulasidas, the chairman
and managing director of Air-India. "It is in line with the present
needs and exponential growth expected in the near future. Travelers can
expect to get more frequencies in flights between the two countries.
There will be more direct connectivity and more choice of flights.
Quality of service is bound to improve significantly."
Industry sources estimate that in about a year following this pact,
India and United States could have as many as 90 flights each week. As
per the existing arrangement, Air-India is permitted to operate 26
flights per week to four cities in the U.S.-Chicago, New York, Newark
and Los Angeles. On the other hand, Delta Airlines is permitted to
operate seven flights per week to Chennai and Mumbai. More recently,
Air Canada flies Toronto-Delhi nonstop.
A similar pact between India and the United Kingdom has led to a
dramatic increase in the number of flights; from 32 a week to 80, while
an experimental "open skies" policy with neighboring Qatar has enabled
Qatar Airways to nearly triple its weekly flights to India.
India Civil Aviation also feels that this pact would turn India as
a hub for America bound passengers from neighboring countries like Sri
Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. "Indian airports have failed to develop as
a hub for redistributing traffic. People are only coming to India. They
are not coming here to catch a flight to somewhere else," said Praful
Patel. "This pact could attract many America bound travelers from Sri
Lanka and Nepal, and Bangladesh to use India as a transit point."
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno=26711
US outsourcing firm to hire 4,000 in India
Thursday, January 20, 2005
MUMBAI: Sutherland Global Services, a New York-based leading business
process outsourcing (BPO) firm, said Thursday it would add 4,000 more
employees in its India operation as part of the company's expansion
plans.
Sutherland, which had an employee base of 1,500 in India in September
2003, has grown rapidly in recent months to become a 7,000 people BPO
organisation in the country.
The company, which employs 10,000 people globally, has onshore delivery
facilities in the US and near shore facilities in Canada, in addition
to its significant offshore presence in Chennai and Mumbai.
"Over the last two years, India has contributed significantly to the
growth of Sutherland," Dilip R. Vellodi, chairman and chief executive
officer of Sutherland, told a press conference here.
"Our blended global delivery model, along with our close-to-customer
servicing capability has enabled us to leverage the cost advantages and
deep talent resources of an emerging economy," he added.
Vellodi said the rapid growth in India had been a result of the
addition of a number of new clients and significant expansion of
existing contracts.
Over the past year, Sutherland also made inroads into the banking and
financial services space. The company has also forayed into the retail
and insurance verticals through significant contract wins from leading
global companies.
Sutherland manages a global client base of over 50 marquee companies
representing IT and communications, banking and financial services
verticals.
Sutherland established its first offshore presence in Chennai in 2002
and expanded its footprint with its foray into Mumbai in January last
year.
"India will be a key geography for Sutherland's growth in the future.
Our US and Canada operations will also see growth as a result of the
blended delivery model at work," said Vellodi.
As part of its global expansion, Sutherland intends to employ over
15,000 professionals globally by the end of 2005.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/050114_vfl.htm
January 14, 2005
View From Lodi, CA: Mickey Mouse (And H-1B "Temporary" Workers) vs.
American Middle Class
By Joe Guzzardi
The Walt Disney Company is a microcosm of todays corporate America:
millions paid in salary and bonus for the big boys while the company
downsizes by "laying-off" staff.
The remaining employees are squeezed as hard as possible.
Finally, foreign workers are hired on H-1B non-immigrant visas thus
shutting out qualified Americans from mid-level management positions.
For the lucky ones at Disney, January started out with a financial
bang.
On January 6, Disney announced that Chief Executive Michael Eisner
received a $7.35 million cash bonus in 2004.
With his base salary of $1 million and other compensation, Eisner's
total pay package was $8.3 million.
Disney President and Chief Operating Officer Robert Iger also got a
healthy $6.5 million cash bonus. Added to his annual salary of $1.5
million and other payouts, Igers aggregate 2004 compensation was $12
million.
According to the Disney compensation committee, Eisner and Igers
bonuses were a reward for the companys 72% earnings increase during
2004.
While these sums are nothing to sneeze at, even bigger stakes are on
the table this week during on going talks between Miramax co-founders
Harvey and Bob Weinstein and Miramaxs parent company, Disney.
Ten years ago, Disney bought Miramax from the Weinsteins for $80
million. Today, with their corporate divorce pending, Disney is
prepared to buy out the Weinsteins contract for $100 million.
Also, the trial between former Disney president Michael Ovitz and
Disney shareholders enters its final phase this week. Ovitz contends
that his $140 million severance package, after only 15 months at
Disney, is justified.
In fact, Ovitzs lawyer Larry R. Feldman contends that had Disney
directors denied payment on the basis of "gross negligence" or
"malfeasance", the company might have been forced to pay out additional
"hundreds of millions of dollars" in damages for fraud, defamation and
breach of contract.
With millions either already handed out or pending for the Disney upper
echelon, lets see how far down the line that corporate largess
extends.
Last month the Orlando Sentinel reported in its story titled "For Many
Disney Jobs, the Future is Part Time," (by Sean Mussenden), that Walt
Disney World is determined to continue expanding its part-time labor
force at the expense of full-time employees.
In the past decade, in what reporter Sean Mussenden calls part of a
"national trend toward temporary work," the number of part-time
employees at the Disney hotels and theme parks has grown ten times as
fast as full-time employees.
Since 1994, Disney has added 9,400 part-time employees - and increase
of 140%. Full-time staff over the last decade increased by only 5,000
employees or 15%.
Disney, who promised Wall Street that it would control increases in
labor costs to maximize profits at its parks and resorts division,
vigorously defends its switch to part-time employees.
Although Disney World Senior Vice President Jerry Montgomery admits
that full-time workers "cost more than part-time workers, " President
Al Weis claims that the bulk of Disneys part-time workers are
students or others who do not want full-time jobs.
And Weis further claims that Disney has no need to provide health
insurance or other similar benefits to its part-time staff because they
are either students covered by their parents insurance or adults
covered by their spouses plans.
On an Internet website devoted to Disney issues, "The Disney Blog,
"this comment was posted regarding Disneys part-time future:
"It saves the company money on OT pay, health care costs and other
benefits. But will it cost the company in the long run as the quality
of its workers could be affected by turnover and lack of commitment to
the usually high Disney standards.
This is not just something Disney is doing. It's a national trend as
well. A few years ago there was talk about how the USA would become a
leisure society with workweeks of 32-35 hours a week. I don't think
anyone expected those jobs to be on the low end of the pay scale,
however."
Disney, like other multinational giants, has added to its domestic
middle management team through extensive use of H-1B visas.
According to a database maintained by www.zazona.com, Disney and its
divisions have 36 H-1B employees earning from $36,000 annually for a
trade analyst to $150,000 for a Vice President of the Glendale Disney
store.
The average salary for the Disney H-1B employees is $85,000
Studying the Disney pattern of wages and hiring practices is sobering.
But it explains how in America the rich get richer, the poor stay poor
and the middle class is slowly but steadily vanishing.
Joe Guzzardi [ email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult
School, has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently
appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2165
South Korean Government Tightens the Screw on Alien Workers
Date: Monday, December 27 @ 20:22:22 MST
Topic: International Politics
[SiaNews Note: BRAVO! I'm here in South Korea, on a teaching visa, and
have been since 1999. The visa overstay penalties here are nearly
US$100 per day. What's wrong with America?! There's no fuss in South
Korea over this anti-illegal immigrant watch; shd be none whatsoever,
either, in the United States.]
Chosun.com
December 28, 2004
The government is making plans to enforce a tightened policy of no
tolerance on migrant workers who are staying illegally in Korea from
early next year.
The government says it has no choice but to sharpen the regulations and
their implementation to prevent a flood of foreigners living lawlessly
here.
Visas for 180,000 migrant workers whose status was legalized from
September to November last year will expire in August 2005. However, it
is difficult to expect their prompt and voluntary departure from Korea,
and if they remain here as without valid visas, officials predict the
number of illegal alien laborers will escalate beyond control...
According to the Ministries of Justice and Labor on Monday, despite the
legal status bestowed on migrant laborers who had been operating
outside of the law last year, as of the end of last month, 185,719 of
the 422,980 foreign workers staying in Korea, or 43.9 percent, were
doing so illegally. Also, the number of those whose sojourn was
legalized in 2003 but will expire by the end of this year amounts to
60,000. Half of these have not yet left the country.
The Ministry of Justice cracked down from last July, expelling 20,000
and encouraging 24,000 more to leave Korea, but many more have managed
to elude authorities and remain in the country.
From next January to August, 118,519 people's visas will become
invalid. In more specific terms, these break down as 4,839 migrant
workers who are scheduled to leave in January, 3,970 in February,
23,496 in March, 23,652 in April, 20,389 in May, 16,619 in June, 2,761
in July and 22,793 in August. If only half of them return to their home
countries - as was the case this year - the number of alien laborers
staying here illegally will exceed 270,000.
If this estimation turns out to be true, Korea will become a lawless
world for migrant workers, and governmental policies will cease to be
binding. Therefore, the Ministry of Justice plans to intensify its
enforcement of immigration laws for them next year, and the Ministry of
Labor plans to design complementary measures to minimize the losses to
firms that had foreign workers as their employees.
An official at the Ministry of Labor said that there would not be any
problem if those who stay beyond the expiration date of their visa
voluntarily return to their countries. However, if the number of
illegal aliens shoots up, it would result in greater policy confusion.
By preparing measures to minimize the loss to industrial sites, the
government plans to make concerted efforts to reduce the number of
migrant workers staying in Korea illegally, the official said.
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://vdare.com/francis/050106_globalization.htm
January 06, 2005
Globalization Now Eats The Hands That Fed It
By Sam Francis
If it's a tsunami you're afraid of, what happened in the Indian Ocean
last month is probably not what you should be worrying about.
The tsunami Americans need to fear is the man-made wave of
globalization that has helped gut the American work force by exporting
its jobs overseas in part through the cute little trick known as
"offshoring." We know the threat is big because last month even
Business Week started paying attention to it.
In its Dec. 6 issue Business Week sported a sizeable article titled
"Shaking up trade theory" by Adam Bernstein. The article is newsworthy
because, for probably the first time ever, an establishment business
magazine raised some serious questions about the free trade dogmas that
underlie globalization and much of the economic theory and policy of
the last several decades.
For a pillar of the business establishment like Business Week to do so
is a bit like Scientific American raising questions about the law of
gravity.
What worries a good many of the economists cited in the article is that
the basic assumption of free trade theory - the doctrine of comparative
advantage, as it's called - doesn't add up. Under the doctrine,
"most economists have concluded that countries gain more than they lose
when they trade with each other and specialize in what they do best.
Today, however, advances in telecommunications such as broadband and
the Internet have led to a new type of trade that doesn't fit neatly
into the theory. Now that brainpower can zip around the world at low
cost, a global labor market for skilled workers seems to be emerging
for the first time - and has the potential to upset traditional notions
of national specialization."
The article cites no less an icon of the economic high priesthood than
Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson, who recently raised his own
questions about the benefits of free trade in the Journal of Economic
Perspectives. Mr. Samuelson's questions had some negative answers.
As Business Week summarizes his argument:
"The fact that programming, engineering, and other high-skilled jobs
are jumping to places such as China and India seems to conflict head-on
with the 200-year-old doctrine of comparative advantage. With these
countries now graduating more college students than the U.S. every
year, economists are increasingly uncertain about just where the U.S.
has an advantage anymore - or whether the standard framework for
understanding globalization still applies in the face of so-called
white-collar offshoring."
Not all economists agree, and the article offers a nutshell of the
debate that's beginning to ripple through the academic and business
communities. But what's news is that there's a debate at all.
For nearly two centuries the doctrine of comparative advantage,
formulated by economic theorist David Ricardo in the early nineteenth
century, has held much the same status as the Virgin Birth. Now even
the high priests are starting to doubt.
One reason they're doubting is that while it's long been known that
free trade scuttled blue-collar workers out of their jobs, nowadays
it's starting to carve into white-collar workers. That means -
eventually - the kind of people who write about trade policy - like Mr.
Bernstein and his friends.
"Until now," Mr. Bernstein writes, "the pain of globalization has been
borne by less than a quarter of the workforce, mostly lower-skilled
workers, whose wage cuts outweighed the cheaper-priced goods
globalization brings."
But someone else is sharing the pain - namely, the very class that
thought free trade was such a hot bargain.
Mr. Bernstein cites a study from Forrester Research in Cambridge,
Mass., as offering "the most detailed projections so far" of how bad
the white collar hit might be.
The Forrester study sees "the pace of U.S. job flows abroad averaging
300,000 a year through 2015, probably a conservative estimate.
"Already, some 14 million white-collar jobs involve work that can be
shipped electronically and thus in theory could be moved offshore," yet
another study has found. "White-collar workers have a right to be
scared," says Harvard University's labor economist Lawrence F. Katz.
So did blue collar workers, but nobody cared much about them.
It's hardly surprising that nobody paid much attention to the real
costs of free trade and globalization until they started eating the
very people who promoted them and gained from them. That sort of thing
is common enough throughout history.
It remains to be seen if the wreckage of the white collar class - the
business, political and intellectual elite of the country - turns out
to be quite as devastating as some of the pessimists are predicting.
If it weren't for the problem that the wreck of those elites would
probably wreck the country along with them, we just might all be better
off if the devastation turned out to be real.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Sam Francis [email him] is a nationally syndicated columnist. A
selection of his columns, America Extinguished: Mass Immigration And
The Disintegration Of American Culture, is now available from Americans
For Immigration Control. Click here for Sam Francis' website. Click
here to order his monograph, Ethnopolitics: Immigration, Race, and the
American Political Future.
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://makeashorterlink.com/?H1A96594Aor
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002155249_mslayoffs20.html
Thursday, January 20, 2005, 12:00 A.M. Pacific
Microsoft lays off 62 testers
By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter
Microsoft is laying off 62 test engineers in the second round of cuts
hitting Windows testers in the past five months.
The company has recently sent test work overseas, but a spokeswoman
denied that's a factor. She said automation, not globalization, led to
the cuts.
Microsoft notified the employees Tuesday and Wednesday last week, and
the layoffs took effect Friday. The testers were given the option of
staying, with pay, for six weeks while they look for other jobs in the
company.
But finding other test jobs in the company may be a challenge.
The 62 work in the core operating system division, headed by Brian
Valentine, a senior vice president. In the past, Valentine has called
on managers to consider outsourcing work to India as a way to get more
done for less cost.
Microsoft is outsourcing some test work to overseas companies such as
Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consultancy in India. It's also expanding its
overseas research and development facilities with a new campus opening
this month in Hyderabad, India.
But spokeswoman Tami Begasse said there is no correlation between the
tester layoffs and the company's growing use of workers abroad. She
said the group was restructured because it's automating some testing
tasks.
"It's not outsourcing related, offshoring related," she said. "It's
simply they no longer meet the needs of this position."
The company initially told employees that 64 people were being laid
off, but the number was later reduced to 62.
In September, the server group said it was cutting 93 positions as part
of its move toward automated testing.
Separately, the company in August announced that it was laying off 76
employees in its Xbox division.
Layoffs used to be a rarity at Microsoft, but the company has become
more aggressive about pruning its ranks. One factor is the push by
executives to cut costs and adjust to the slower growth in the
technology industry.
The Windows division has also embraced automated testing systems,
including tools developed by the company's research group to check for
software bugs.
Begasse said the move to automate some testing ultimately benefits
customers.
"These changes are designed to improve the quality of our products and
efficiencies in delivering them to customers, so the realignment
demonstrates commitment to improving test-engineer efficiencies within
that group," she said.
Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com
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