Oh goody gumdrops, manufacturing is coming back!

[LiberalEsto]

I heard on NPR radio this morning that President Obama is supporting a certification program of some sort that will prepare students to enter the field of manufacturing. The report mentioned that huge numbers of manufacturing workers will be retiring in the near future.

It's no wonder that both Repukes and Democrats around the country are working on eliminating collective bargaining, pensions, health coverage and other hard-earned protections and benefits for workers. They want us to become certified serfs, working for low wages and zero benefits. Those will be the only job options we will see in coming years. College is no longer affordable for many kids, and the middle class will finally cease to exist.

Here's an article:

"Obama Recruits Motorola, Groupon for Expanded Employment Skills Training

By Roger Runningen - Jun 8, 2011 5:00 AM ET ""President Barack Obama is adding companies such as Motorola Solutions Inc. and Groupon Inc. to the list of supporters backing a $2 billion program that tailors community college classes with local manufacturing job-skill needs.

The goal of the program, “Skills for America’s Future,” is to train about 500,000 young workers for manufacturing jobs over the next five years in 30 states. They would help fill the gap left by the 2.7 million workers 55 years and older who will begin retiring in the next 10-15 years, according to the White House.

The partnerships “will help us make this a reality, by opening doors to new jobs for workers and helping employers find the trained people they need to compete against companies around the world,” Obama said in a statement. The president will highlight the program later today at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, a Washington suburb."

Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-08/obama-recruits-motorola-groupon-for-expanded-skills-training.html

I am SO not thrilled.

[sufrommich]

1. Yes, jobs are a bad thing. Got it. nt

[LiberalEsto]

2. These will be McJobs. nt

[sufrommich]

4. And you know this how? nt

[snooper2]

5. I'm replying to a McPost

:)

[Donnachaidh]

3. Groupon? WTH does Groupon manufacture?

Isn't this a sort of coupon site that works thru social media?

[Fumesucker]

7. I wondered that too... n/t

[LiberalEsto]

11. coupon deals, as far as I know

Here's a good article on them

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/08/BUJH1JPIKG.DTL

[notesdev]

24. Bubbles

Because real production is apparently beyond even the hopes of our "leadership"

[frazzled]

44. But there are real jobs associated with Groupon--7,100 of them right now

It has 175 markets in 43 countries and 83 million subscribers.

So what do these employees do? According to Wikipedia:

Groupon breaks into new markets by identifying successful local businesses, first by sending in an advance squadron of employees to research the local market; when it finds a business with outstanding reviews, salespeople approach it and explain the model, and use social marketing sites such as Facebook to further promote the idea.<7> Reflecting its focus on sales promotion, Groupon employs a sizable number of creative staff<20> who draft descriptions for the deals featured by email and on the website.

In addition to these researchers, salespeople, and creative staff (writers), they must certainly employ a fair number of technical folks.

It's not manufacturing in the traditional sense. I guess they manufacture deals, money, and a giant bubble that will probably burst at some point. I don't know. But there ARE jobs.

[TransitJohn]

55. Hype.

thank you, thank you.....I'm here all week

[Fumesucker]

6. Those older workers aren't going to be retiring..

At least a lot of them won't, they'll have to work till they drop in harness..

[LiberalEsto]

8. They may not have the option of staying

in their jobs once they reach a given age. Then they'll have to find jobs as Walmart greeters or hamburger flippers in order to survive on their pensions.

[Fumesucker]

9. What are these "pensions" of which you speak?

That is _so_ 20th century..

[LiberalEsto]

14. Oh, but they will always have Social Security

and Medicare to fall back on. :sarcasm:

[Brickbat]

25. Sorry, responded to the wrong post.

[Brickbat]

10. The problem is, though, no one is hiring. And if you go through your two-year training and are

waiting for people to retire in the next 10-15 years, what do you do for 8-13 years? Companies aren't hiring and people aren't retiring. It's an OK idea but doesn't do a whole lot for the now. There are so many moving parts with this jobs debacle, but it doesn't seem like there's a coordinated effort to solve it -- just a band-aid here and there.

[LiberalEsto]

13. I can't figure out why people need 2 years of training

to work in a factory. How do they even know which factory, which process, which product they'll be working on?

[gkhouston]

16. Read the want ads lately? You need training and experience for *everything*.

I've seen $10/hour clerical jobs requiring 5 years of experience. From the work description, they're no more complicated than my first clerical job in high school, which I received about 15 minutes of training for. :eyes:

[Donnachaidh]

18. If we had *real* manufacturing, they wouldn't need it.

One of my first adult jobs was in a medical parts factory. I had *no* experience, but the company was willing to train me because I was a good employee from another department. That's how (historically) most companies did it.

This just seems to be yet another photo-op smokescreen to me. Groupon does NOT *manufacture* anything, AFAIK. But they are big in social media. Trolling for the younger vote for the upcoming election?

[pipi_k]

50. I imagine some of those jobs

might involve using some CAD/CAM machinery.

People have to know how to read, for one thing. A disturbing number of people in this country are barely literate.

Also, the machinery itself is complicated.

From there, the education would get more specific depending on the job and type of machinery being used.

[Donnachaidh]

15. my kid is using that argument to put off going to college

He's terrified to run up debt with no real possibility of work to pay off that debt.

this is NOT the change I voted for! Damn it!

[LiberalEsto]

19. My daughter gave up on getting a teaching degree

for the same reason.

There is no way we can run up $30,000 or more in student loan debt for her to do her junior and senior year at a state university and earn her teaching certificate, when there is little likelihood that there will be a job for her when she graduates. It's a shame, because she wanted to teach middle school math.

[Donnachaidh]

23. Tell her not to give up -- I'm trying to keep my kid's hopes up

This is so frustrating.
there are NO jobs now. School would at least keep him busy. This must be extremely frightening to these kids.

[LiberalEsto]

28. My daughter is depressed as heck

but her boyfriend and boyfriend's aunt both work for our county school system. She tells me they're going to help her look for a teacher aide position if possible.

Young people have so few options these days, and I'm worried sick about it.

[FSogol]

37. See post #32 in this thread. n/t

[FSogol]

32. Slightly of topic, but I recommend the following book for you & your kid on college:

Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching off My Parents by Zac Bissonnette

Very excellent book.

[Donnachaidh]

52. thanks -- will get it this week!

MUCH appreciated!

[izquierdista]

17. This is ass backwards

If you look at the history of labor and manufacturing, I'm pretty sure that the jobs came first (demand for skilled workers) and the community college training programs (supplying the skilled workers) came later. That's the thing about people, they have intelligence and can learn to perform complicated series of tasks (jobs). They can even learn when they are being screwed over by the people asking them to do those jobs.

[LiberalEsto]

20. I agree nt

[sufrommich]

30. Jesus, only on DU would you find outrage over government

involvement for training the workforce for jobs.

[izquierdista]

33. What jobs?

Once they finish their training, does the government also give them a plane ticket to Beijing?

[Sal Minella]

42. Indeed. n/t

[gkhouston]

36. +1. I used to work for Motorola. Spent most of my time coding

in an assembly language I learned on the job. Imagine that happening these days--hiring someone with no experience in the programming language you expect them to use.

[sufrommich]

27. Both Ford and GM are hiring. The 2 year Community College

training are not new,I have 2 cousins who have taken it.One works for Ford and the other works for Chrysler and took the millwright course. Both went to Henry Ford community college in Dearborn.

[Brickbat]

29. Why not take an apprenticeship with the millwrights, instead of paying for training at the community

college?

[sufrommich]

31. Do you realize that all of the Big 3 pay for millwright

apprentices to take these courses? What union do you belong to?

[Brickbat]

35. Nope, I didn't. I find that interesting, and helpful to know.

That's different than in construction and mining. Thanks for the information.

I'm a member of the National Writers Union, UAW 1981.

[LiberalEsto]

39. Do they make the same salaries and benefits

that auto workers received 10 years ago?

[caileagruadh]

45. It will take 8 years to settle on the curriculum!

Deciding what should be taught will probably take another 8 years, and by then it will need to be updated! Also, someone else pointed out that, so-far, labor has not been involved in designing this certification process. I certainly hope they will be, which will draw out the process some. In other words, don't sign up for at least five years!

Maybe until then we should have study abroad opportunities for manufacturing; you know, pay students to go to sweatshops to learn how NOT to reenter manufacturing.

[Brickbat]

47. Welcome to DU!

And hee, "study abroad." :thumbsup:

[Donnachaidh]

53. welcome to DU!

And I think you have something there.

[gkhouston]

12. 500,000 workers over 5 years. That's 100K per year.

Don't we need to add at least 250K jobs to the economy per month to break even?

The news story here is that it's news when a company ponies up some $$ to train workers. :-(

[Autumn]

21. Groupon ? I thought that was a coupon sales thing.

Motorola Solutions Inc. sounds good. But that isn't really going to help that much.

[madrchsod]

22. what a fucking joke...really ..it`s a fucking joke and ....

i`m fed up with this shit from the great all knowing politicians that infest washington dc.

no trade policies

no universal health-care

no tariffs

no penalties

no tax reforms

no manufacturing policies


here`s a little hint for the brain dead in washington dc...community colleges do have trade skill programs but they are under funded and no one is going to enroll in these courses if there is no demand.



oh well, another sound bite from a dieing america

[Brickbat]

26. According to another article, "companies and manufacturers" will develop a "'manufacturing skills

certification program,' a kind of universally-accepted credential that affirms that a graduate has a specific set of skills."

The lack of labor involvement in this speaks volumes. VOLUMES.

[LiberalEsto]

34. Amen to that

Labor is being beaten down to the point that people will eventually have to sit up, beg, and roll over to get an entry-level job that pays low wages and offers few if any benefits.

These are not going to be the kinds of jobs that enabled workers to own homes, join the middle class and send their kids to college. People are not going to be upwardly mobile. I think the intent is to dumb down Americans so they will gratefully accept these jobs that will be brought back from China. I recently read that China is starting to see labor shortages, which means workers will be able to command higher wages that would spell reduced profits for the corporations that employ them.

[gkhouston]

41. Africa next. n/t

[mmonk]

38. Yes, in other places and some here as long as the labor is cheaper

than in their own countries.

[Sal Minella]

40. "Training" for manufacturing jobs could be important.

In a film I watched last night ("Inside Job") a Chinese worker tells the camera that she can make $85 (eighty-five) dollars a month (month) working in the city in a factory, which is a LOT more than she could ever make at home in her village.

So, obviously, we need training classes in how to live on $85 a month, and then the American Worker will be able to compete in our wonderful new world-wide "free-market" economy.

What American manufacturers want is a worker who can manage to continue working while staying alive on $85 a month, so far as I can see.

With all the unemployed factory workers we already have in this country, I cannot imagine any advantage in "training" more.

[caileagruadh]

43. A second track to a viable career is a good idea

I share in LiberalEsto's skepticism that this job creation
will necessarily lead to the kind of manufacturing jobs we
used to have- with a living wage, benefits and a pension. We
have to make sure that doesn't happen by protecting collective
bargaining rights now. That being said, I think Obama is very
smart to propose this plan. Manufacturing is still as
important as it ever was and we can only compete in it if our
workers are more highly trained than the cheap laborers in
other countries. Highly trained does not have to mean
specialized; if students come out too specialized, like able
only to make one product, their jobs will be redundant within
a decade. 
Vocational ed needs to be supported because someone needs to
confess that a 4 year college degree is not for everyone. Too
many young Americans today feel it is the only route out of
poverty. Unfortunately, it can be the route to never ending
student loans, so only people able to pursue reasonably paying
professions should be in a 4 year school. I see so many
disinterested kids fail out only after they have racked up 20
to 30 thousand dollars of debt- and no degree to show for it.
I would prefer that we have a system like Germany's, keeping
in mind that they have weathered this recession especially
well because they are so strong in manufacturing. Germans have
a multitude of higher education opportunities which include
university, technical universities, hochschules (like a
technical university and vocational school combined) and even
guild-style apprenticeships. Our kids should feel that they
have these many options to them as well. There is nothing
wrong with manufacturing; the "wrong" part is how
little it is valued these days. 
It also won't hurt Obama politically to show he cares about
those who have been hurt most by the erosion of manufacturing
jobs: the angry working class male.

[pampango]

46. Germany links training to manufacturing jobs and they have a very healthy manufacturing

sector. Jobs that don't require training (just a "strong back") usually don't pay as much as those that require that you know how to do something special with your "strong back".

[sufrommich]

48. The UAW seems to agree with the President:

http://www.uaw.org/node/3167

[Romulox]

49. Isn't the UAW supporting the President's South Korea FTA? What's the quid pro quo there?

Perhaps payback for the bailouts? Hardly seems in the rank in files' interests to import more Hyundais. :shrug:

[zbdent]

51. There are plenty of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. ...

manufacturing lies ... and all the best paid positions for these "manufacturing" jobs are going to Republicans.

[LiberalEsto]

54. +100

I used to be a newspaper reporter.
But they don't want unbiased reporters today, they want propaganda writers.