SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
chips act
Trump's Plan for Workers: Make America a Sweatshop Again
The proof of the Republican Party's big lie to the working people of this country is written all over their actions: Reconfiguring the Labor Department into an anti-worker weapon designed to crush any further unionization in America.
May 05, 2025
Trump and his billionaire toadies like Howard Lutnik and Scott Bessent are peddling a dangerous lie to working-class Americans. They’re strutting around claiming their tariffs will bring back “good paying jobs” with “great benefits,” while actively undermining the very thing that made manufacturing jobs valuable to working people in the first place: unions.
Let’s be crystal clear about what’s really happening: Without strong unions, bringing manufacturing back to America will simply create more sweatshop opportunities where desperate workers earn between $7.25 and $15 an hour with zero benefits and zero security.
The only reason manufacturing jobs like my father had at a tool-and-die shop in the 1960s paid well enough to catapult a single-wage-earner family into the middle class was because they had a union — the Machinists’ Union, in my dad’s case — fighting relentlessly for their rights and dignity.
My father’s union job meant we owned a modest home, had reliable healthcare, and could attend college without crushing debt. The manufacturing jobs Trump promises? Starvation wages without healthcare while corporate profits soar and executives buy their third megayacht.
The proof of their deception is written all over their actions: They’re already reconfiguring the Labor Department into an anti-worker weapon designed to crush any further unionization in America.
Don’t be fooled for one second: the GOP’s plan to resurrect American manufacturing while continuing their war on unions is nothing but a cynical ploy to create an army of desperate, low-wage workers with no power to demand their fair share.
Joe Biden was also working to revive American manufacturing — with actual success — but he made it absolutely clear that companies benefiting from his Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act should welcome unions in exchange for government support.
Trump and his GOP enablers want the opposite: docile workers grateful for poverty wages.
While Republicans babble endlessly about “job creators,” they fundamentally misunderstand — or deliberately obscure — how a nation’s true wealth is actually generated.
It’s not through Wall Street speculation or billionaire tax breaks. It’s through making things of value; the exact activity their donor class has eagerly shipped overseas for decades while pocketing the difference.
There’s a profound economic reason to bring manufacturing home that Adam Smith laid out in 1776 and Alexander Hamilton amplified in 1791 when he presented his vision for turning America into a manufacturing powerhouse. It’s the fundamental principle behind Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations” that I explain in detail in The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America.
A tree limb lying on the forest floor has zero economic value. But apply human labor by whittling it into an axe handle, and you’ve created something valuable. That “added value” — the result of applying human (or machine) labor to raw materials — is wealth added to the nation, often lasting for generations if the product endures. Axes made in the 17th century are still being sold in America; manufacturing can produce wealth that truly lasts generations.
Manufacturing, in other words, is the only true way a country becomes wealthier. It’s why China transformed from the impoverished nation I witnessed firsthand when I lived and studied there in 1986 to the economic juggernaut it is today. It’s why Japan and South Korea emerged from the devastation of war to become industrial powerhouses within decades.
This is not generally true, by the way, of a service economy, the system that Reagan and Clinton told us would give us “clean jobs” as America abandoned manufacturing in the 1980-2000s era.
If I give you a $50 haircut and you give me a $50 massage — a service economy — we’ve merely shuffled money around while the nation’s overall wealth remains unchanged. But build a factory producing solar panels, and you’ve created something from raw materials that generates power for decades: that’s real wealth that didn’t exist before.
Republicans used to understand this basic economic principle before they sold their souls to Wall Street speculators and foreign dictators who shower them with “investments.”
Service-only economies don’t generate wealth; they just recirculate existing money. This fundamental truth is the strongest argument for rebuilding American manufacturing capacity, yet it’s one that economists and political commentators almost never mention. Trump certainly doesn’t grasp it — or care — as he hawks Chinese-made MAGA hats while pretending to champion American workers.
It’s not “Making America Great Again” — it’s making America into exactly what their corporate donors have always wanted: a docile workforce with no voice, no protections, and nowhere else to go.
The hypocrisy is staggering. This is the same Donald Trump whose branded clothing lines were manufactured in China, Mexico, and Bangladesh. The same Republican Party that pushed “free trade” deals for decades that gutted American manufacturing communities. Now they’re suddenly tariff champions? Please.
So yes, let’s use thoughtfully designed tariffs and other trade policies to bring manufacturing back to our shores. Let Congress debate and pass these measures with 3- to 10-year phase-in periods so manufacturers can plan their transition to American production without the chaos of Trump changing his mind every time some foreign dictator slips another million into his back pocket.
But don’t be fooled for one second: the GOP’s plan to resurrect American manufacturing while continuing their war on unions is nothing but a cynical ploy to create an army of desperate, low-wage workers with no power to demand their fair share.
It’s not “Making America Great Again” — it’s making America into exactly what their corporate donors have always wanted: a docile workforce with no voice, no protections, and nowhere else to go.
We need manufacturing AND unions. Anything less is just another con job from the party that’s perfected the art of getting working class Americans to vote against their own economic interests.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Let the Data Show: Trump Killed Biden's Manufacturing Boom on Day One
It should not be a surprise that factory construction rose under Biden, this was by design. But the overall picture for manufacturing does not look very bright right now—and you can thank Trump for that.
Apr 19, 2025
Donald Trump promised that he would lower prices on day one of his new term in office. He also promised to end the war in Ukraine on his first day. Neither of those quite panned out. But it looks like he might accomplish something not on his list, he quickly ended the manufacturing boom he inherited from President Biden.
You may not know of this boom because it didn’t get much attention during the campaign. This was partly because it was in construction not employment.
Biden’s record on employment in manufacturing was pretty good given the reality of the pandemic, but it did not surge. His recovery package quickly brought back the 600,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the pandemic. We had gotten back those jobs by the spring of 2022. But then growth had trailed off and by the end of his term, manufacturing employment was only slightly higher than it had been at its pre-pandemic peak.
But factory construction tells a very different story. There was an unprecedented boom in factory construction in the Biden administration, as shown below.
Real construction more than doubled over the course of his administration. (These data are adjusted for inflation.) And this was all Biden’s doing. Construction of factories was edging downward under Trump, even before the pandemic.
It should not be a surprise that factory construction rose under Biden, this was by design. His three major bills on long-term spending, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), were all designed to boost segments of manufacturing in the United States. Specifically, the goals were to increase production of high-end computer chips, electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, and other items needed for a green transition.
And these bills worked to a remarkable extent. This boom in factory construction has not yet led to an employment boom in manufacturing, in part because factories are mostly still under construction. But we also are not likely to see a huge employment boom for the simple reason that productivity growth means that factories don’t employ as many people as they used to.
Even large factories tend to employ in the hundreds, not the thousands or occasionally tens of thousands in the factories of half a century ago. Many of the hundreds of people employed in these new factories will be getting good paying jobs, especially if they are union jobs, but it is hard to make much of a dent in a labor force of 160 million workers. The idea that we ever again see a large share of the workforce employed in manufacturing is an illusion that lives only in Donald Trump’s head.
But the good news on manufacturing is in the rear-view mirror. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs threats and his deliberate attacks on President Biden’s programs, it looks like manufacturing employment will be headed downward for the immediate future.
At this point in the administration, we have limited data, but there are a few things we can say with confidence. Factory construction in February was already down 1.4 percent from its October level. Factory construction doesn’t just stop on a dime. It can take two or three years to build a factory. This means factory construction is likely to stay relatively high through 2025, but the direction is clearly downward. Employment is also more likely to go down than up in the year ahead.
This is confirmed by a series of surveys of manufacturers across the country. The New York district Federal Reserve Bank survey of manufacturers found that its expectations index had fallen to a level that was lower than either the trough of the pandemic or the Great Recession. The Philadelphia Fed’s index also plunged, although not to the same extent. Noteworthy in this survey was a sharp decline in expected employment. The ISM nationwide survey of manufacturers also showed expectations of future employment falling sharply.
It seems Trump’s actual and threatened tariffs are the biggest factor here. Our manufacturing is thoroughly integrated with the rest of the world now. If companies have to pay high taxes on the material and components they import from our trading partners, it’s an increase in their costs. They will either have to pass this on in higher prices or eat in the form of lower profits. Either way, it is likely to dampen production.
The uncertainty on future tariff levels is even more harmful. Companies have little basis for deciding on expansion plans if they don’t know whether imports from major trading partners will be taxed at rates of over 100 percent or near zero, as was the case before Trump took office. The rational thing for managers to do in this situation is to delay investment until the picture becomes clearer.
We also know that spending on durable goods soared after Trump’s election, as people attempted to beat the tariffs. Durable goods consumption grew at a 12.4 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of last year, driven entirely by purchases in November and December, following the election. This pretty much guarantees a slump this year, since people who bought a car in December will not buy another one this summer.
The overall picture for manufacturing does not look very bright right now, especially with Trump doing everything he can to undermine the spending and subsidies that are still to go out the door from the IRA, the infrastructure bill, and CHIPS act. Donald Trump may not be able to claim he ended the Ukraine war or lowered prices on his first day in office, but he does have a credible claim that he brought a quick end to the factory construction boom he inherited from Joe Biden.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Johnson Attempts Damage Control After Saying GOP, Trump Would Repeal Job-Creating CHIPS Act
"The Republican Speaker of the House just told the tens of thousands of construction workers building New York and America's future they want to send them pink slips ASAP," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Nov 02, 2024
On MSNBC Friday night, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued an unexpected "thank you" to House Speaker Mike Johnson—expressing appreciation for his admission that the GOP will try to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act, which has created more than 115,000 manufacturing jobs, if the party wins control of Congress and the White House.
"What I would like to thank Speaker Johnson for is his honesty and his forthrightness about what they plan to do with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). "You heard it straight from the horse's mouth and we'll see exactly what happens if we allow a Republican majority in the House and a Donald Trump presidency."
The congresswoman was referring to an interview by Luke Radel, a student journalist at Syracuse University, who asked Johnson (R-La.) about Trump's recent comments that the CHIPS and Science Act is "so bad."
"You voted against it," said Radel. "If you have a Republican majority in Congress and Trump in the White House, will you guys try to repeal that law?"
"I expect that we probably will, but we haven't developed that part of the agenda yet," said Johnson before attempting to pivot to talking about Rep. Brandon Williams, a Republican who represents New York's 22nd District, where a $100 billion Micron Technology chipmaking facility has benefited from the CHIPS and Science Act.
"The Republican Speaker of the House just told the tens of thousands of construction workers building New York and America's future they want to send them pink slips ASAP," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
The exchange grew increasingly awkward as Radel asked Williams whether he would vote to repeal the legislation, signed by President Joe Biden in 2022, that Micron has said will create 50,000 semiconductor manufacturing jobs in the Syracuse area.
"No, obviously, the CHIPS Act is hugely impactful here, and my job is to keep lobbying on my side," said Williams. "I will remind [Johnson] night and day how important the CHIPS Act is and that we… break ground on Micron."
Speaking with anchor Chris Hayes on MSNBC, Ocasio-Cortez said the CHIPS Act "is not a remote and faraway thing for workers" in Upstate New York, Michigan, Arizona, and other states where jobs have been created by the legislation.
For thousands of workers, the law represents "the jobs and especially the union jobs that result and are created, that people can actually take and will help them put food on the table without having to work triple or double overtime in order to accomplish that," said Ocasio-Cortez. "People in Buffalo, people in Upstate New York, people in Michigan, they hear about the plant that they work at."
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) echoed the congresswoman's sentiment, saying Johnson's plan to repeal the CHIPS Act would impact "tens of thousands of IBEW jobs created by this administration."
"We are NOT going back," said the union.
Johnson's remark got the attention of other politicians whose states have benefited from the law, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Less than two weeks ago, Whitmer announced that through the CHIPS Act, the Biden administration had provided $325 million in direct funding to Michigan manufacturer Hemlock Semiconductor, allowing it to create over 1,000 good-paying construction jobs to build a new facility as well as 180 permanent manufacturing jobs.
"Mike Johnson's asinine admission that he would repeal the CHIPS Act if Republicans and Trump win the election is a complete disaster for thousands of Michigan workers relying on the jobs that this legislation provides," said the Democratic governor. "Make no mistake, a repeal of the CHIPS Act would kill thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs right here in Michigan."
Johnson attempted to do damage control, saying he had "misheard the question," but Radel noted that he was standing close to the House speaker when he asked about the CHIPS Act and others commented that the word "repeal" was said clearly. Williams and Johnson also tried to backtrack during their exchange with the student journalist, saying they aimed only to reform the law—but as Radel noted, the former president has made clear he opposes the CHIPS Act.
Vice President Kamala Harris' Democratic presidential campaign said Johnson's threat to repeal the CHIPS Act is the latest of several recent questionable "promises" made by Trump and his surrogates in the last days before the election.
" Mike Johnson wants to lose Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina jobs," said James Singer, a rapid response adviser to Harris, posting an image showing where the CHIPS Act has created semiconductor manufacturing jobs.
Johnson's comments came as Ocasio-Cortez, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and others were rallying Michigan UAW members at a labor-focused get-out-the-vote event in Detroit.
"I do not see elections as an endpoint," Ocasio-Cortez told UAW members at the rally. "They are a waypoint... Because the larger task that we have today is organizing a mass movement of labor in the United States of America. We have a generational task ahead of us, and electing Kamala Harris is an opening silo to the movement that we are about to embark upon."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Chip Firms Poised to Rake In Taxpayer Subsidies Spend Big on Stock Buybacks
Companies in line to receive CHIPS Act subsidies spent a combined $41 billion on share repurchases between 2019 and 2023, a new report shows.
Jul 11, 2024
An analysis published Thursday estimates that semiconductor firms positioned to receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies thanks to a 2022 U.S. law have spent big on investor-enriching stock buybacks in recent years, a finding that amplified calls for meaningful restrictions on companies benefiting from public money.
The new report released by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) shows that between 2019 and 2023, the first 11 corporations to reach preliminary CHIPS and Science Act agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce collectively poured more than $41 billion into stock buybacks—a sum that would have been enough to finance a $27,541 raise for 300,000 employees annually for five years.
Intel, the company set to receive more CHIPS Act money than any other semiconductor firm, spent the most on buybacks: a staggering $30.2 billion between 2019 and 2023.
"We found no evidence that any of the companies with preliminary agreements have publicly committed to suspend their existing share repurchase plans—or to refrain from authorizing new plans—during the grant period," reads the report. "In fact, when members of Congress asked BAE Systems executives if the firm would commit to pausing stock buybacks or to not engage in future ones while receiving a taxpayer-funded CHIPS grant, they declined to answer."
The Biden White House, which worked hard to get the CHIPS Act across the finish line in 2022, has insisted that the law contains "strong guardrails" to prevent the misuse of taxpayer money, including on share repurchases.
But Sarah Anderson of IPS and Natalia Renta of the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, the co-authors of the new report, noted Thursday that the statute only prohibits CHIPS Act subsidy recipients from spending the taxpayer money directly on buybacks.
"Since money is fungible, this is not a strong guardrail," the pair argued.
"Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act and President Biden signed it into law to bolster semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.—not to waste public dollars on stock buybacks."
Critics of stock buybacks and sky-high executive compensation warned prior to the CHIPS Act's passage that the measure would amount to large-scale corporate welfare unless lawmakers placed serious constraints on how companies could spend the money.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tried unsuccessfully to attach an amendment to the measure that would have barred subsidy recipients from buying back their own stock, outsourcing jobs, or attempting to sabotage unionization efforts.
A little over a month after President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS Act into law, a group of Democratic legislators warned U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that while the statute "specifically prohibits the use of CHIPS funds for stock buybacks and dividend payments, these restrictions do not explicitly prohibit award recipients from using CHIPS funds to free up their own funds, which they can then use for those purposes."
The new IPS report notes that four semiconductor firms that have reached CHIPS Act agreements with the Biden administration have "board-approved share repurchase plans that would allow an additional $14.3 billion in buyback spending," with Intel accounting for more than half of that total.
The analysis also found that annual CEO compensation between 2019 and 2023 averaged close to $14 million at firms in line for CHIPS Act funding, while median pay at the companies was $73,046.
"Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act and President Biden signed it into law to bolster semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.—not to waste public dollars on stock buybacks that make rich executives richer and exacerbate economic and racial inequality," said Renta, senior policy counsel for corporate governance and power at the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.
"Commerce Secretary Raimondo must finalize CHIPS contracts with strong stock buyback restrictions to make sure public money serves the public good, as intended, not narrow, private interests," Renta added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Billions in Taxpayers Subsidies Shouldn't Be Used for Stock Buybacks to Enrich Greedy Investors
Public money should serve the public good.
Jul 11, 2024
The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act created a huge opportunity to boost domestic production of the semiconductors that power everything from refrigerators and trains to whatever electronic device you’re reading from right now.
The Biden administration has also taken important steps to make sure these and other public investment dollars create good jobs, particularly for disadvantaged workers.
For instance, CHIPS grantees must submit plans to provide affordable, high-quality child care services for their manufacturing and construction workers. And President Biden has ordered all construction firms involved in large public infrastructure projects to negotiate collective agreements with their workers.
But if you take a look at the track records of corporations in line to pocket CHIPS manufacturing subsidies, you’ll understand why some Democrats are urging the administration to do more to prevent corporate executives from misusing these funds to enrich themselves and wealthy shareholders.
Between 2019 and 2023, these companies spent more than $41 billion on stock buybacks — enough to provide 300,000 employees a $27,541 bonus every year for five years.
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund provides detailed data on stock buybacks and CEO pay at the first 11 corporations to sign preliminary CHIPS agreements with the Department of Commerce: Intel, TSMC, Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology, Global Foundries, Microchip Technology, Polar Semiconductor, Absolics, Entegris, BAE Systems, and Rocket Lab. These companies are in line for subsidies totaling nearly $30 billion.
What did we find? Between 2019 and 2023, these companies spent more than $41 billion on stock buybacks — enough to provide 300,000 employees a $27,541 bonus every year for five years.
Intel had the largest outlay. With the more than $30 billion the company spent on buybacks from 2019 to 2023, the giant chipmaker could’ve given each of Intel’s 124,800 employees a $48,000 bonus every year. Intel is in line to receive as much as $8.5 billion in CHIPS subsidies – the most of any firm.
Stock buybacks have come under greater scrutiny as large corporations have spent record sums on this financial maneuver to artificially boost the value of their shares — and the value of CEO stock-based pay.
In many of the high-profile labor battles of 2023, unions skewered corporate executives for blowing profits on buybacks while claiming they couldn’t afford to raise worker pay. Analysts have also documented a connection between buybacks and reduced capital investment and innovation, as well as the exacerbation of economic inequality and the racial wealth gap.
In response to public concerns, the Commerce Department announced they would give a leg up in the awarding of CHIPS subsidies to companies that agree to forgo all stock buybacks. But so far, none of the companies in line for these subsidies have publicly committed to suspend existing share repurchase plans (which currently authorize $14.3 billion in buyback spending) or to refrain from adopting new plans during the grant period.
The CHIPS law does forbid subsidy recipients from spending CHIPS funds directly on stock buybacks, but since money is fungible, this is not a strong guardrail.
In a recent letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and several other lawmakers note that the federal agency has the “statutory authority to fully ban CHIPS grant recipients from engaging in stock buybacks as a condition of award.”
Unless the administration asserts this authority, the lawmakers warn, they will “leave the door open for semiconductor companies to take millions or even billions in CHIPS grants, move some money around, and then engage in more stock buybacks.”
Our report found that CEOs with preliminary CHIPS agreements are sitting on company stock holdings worth more than $2.7 billion ($306 million on average). In other words, these executives are positioned to reap huge personal windfalls from share price pops related to continued buyback spending.
President Biden has spoken out repeatedly against wasteful stock buybacks and his economic agenda centers on an industrial policy to create good jobs and long-term prosperity, particularly for communities and workers who’ve been left behind.
Strong buyback restrictions in final CHIPS contracts would help maximize the benefits of these vital investments. Public money should serve the public good — not narrow, private interests.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Intel Brags of $152 Billion in Stock Buybacks Over Last 35 Years. So Why Does It Need an $8 Billion Subsidy?
What’s to stop the chip-making giant from shoveling taxpayer grants into more stock buybacks?
Mar 27, 2024
Intel, the largest chip maker in America, with 2023 revenues of $54 billion, has just been awarded an $8.5 billion grant from the federal CHIPS and Science Act, plus $11 billion in favorable loans.
In addition to badly needed microchips, Intel produces totally useless stock buybacks. On its website the company proudly proclaims to have spent $152 billion on stock buybacks since 1990. That’s not a typo: $152,000,000,000. Which is why I call it "Stock Buybacks Я Us."
Intel took $152 billion of its revenues, some portion of which could have been used for R&D and building new microchip facilities in the U.S. as well as paying workers more, and instead funneled it to its largest Wall Street stockholders and corporate executives, enriching the top fraction of the top one percent.
A company repurchasing its own shares sees earnings per share rise because there are fewer shares in circulation. Share prices rise, though nothing new is made, and the largest stockholders, including top Intel executives, cash out with eye-popping profits. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger hauled in $179 million in 2021, most of it coming from stock-related compensation.
How can you tell if such a large company is using CHIPS money or other money to conduct its buybacks? You can’t.
Stock buybacks are a form of stock manipulation, which is why they were outlawed by the Securities and Exchange Commission after the Great Depression, up until deregulation in 1982, that limited buybacks to two percent of profits. Now it’s all the buybacks your corporation can eat, with nearly 70 percent of all corporate profits going to this form of stock manipulation.
So, why are we giving Intel another $8 billion?
National security is at risk, we are told. Semi-conductors are far too important to our defense and to our economy to be produced overseas, especially in or anywhere near China, our communist enemy de jure. If we don’t bribe Intel to build here, the argument goes, they just might go elsewhere. They are in business to produce profits (and stock buybacks) not national security.
But the biggest selling point, as always, from politicians of both parties, is Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! The White House calculates that Intel will generate 20,000 temporary construction jobs and 10,000 more permanent manufacturing jobs because of this grant.
But what’s to stop Intel from shoveling taxpayer grants into more stock buybacks?
Not much. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) writes:
“While the legislation specifically prohibits the use of CHIPS funds for stock buybacks and dividend payments, these restrictions do not explicitly prohibit award recipients from using CHIPS funds to free up their own funds, which they can then use for those purposes.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is already worried that BAE Systems, a much smaller CHIPS recipient, but also a buyback recidivist, has not said it would refrain from stock buybacks for the duration of its CHIPS money.
Intel hasn’t made that pledge either. In fact, Intel’s website states it still has authorization to conduct another $7.24 billion in stock buybacks.
How can you tell if such a large company is using CHIPS money or other money to conduct its buybacks? You can’t.
Doesn’t the CHIPS Act prohibit Intel from conducting mass layoffs?
Not a chance.
Intel could very well increase jobs in some locations while cutting jobs in other locations. And there is evidence that they are doing that right now.
As the CHIPS Act was moving through Congress in 2022, strongly lobbied for by CEO Gelsinger, Intel laid off approximately 2,000 employees in California. Now, the company says, it “is working to accelerate its strategy while reducing costs through multiple initiatives, including some business and function-specific workforce reductions in areas across the company."
What that word salad means is that by the time Intel creates 10,000 new manufacturing jobs, it will have laid off more workers than that. And they know there’s nothing the government will do about it.
Why are most politicians so gutless about preventing mass layoffs?
That’s a longer story that I cover in Wall Street’s War on Workers. Simply put, our political system refuses to acknowledge that mass layoffs are the ruination of working people.
By the time Intel creates 10,000 new manufacturing jobs, it will have laid off more workers than that. And they know there’s nothing the government will do about it.
More than 30 million working people have suffered through mass layoffs since 1996. Last year there were more than 260,000 jobs lost in the highly prosperous tech sector, with another 50,000 so far this year. In January 2024, there were 82,000 layoffs across the economy. Many of those workers will suffer greatly both from financial loss and deterioration of their health. (For those worried about the catastrophic impact of artificial intelligence, the Challenger Report claims AI killed only 381 jobs in January 2024.)
It should be a no-brainer for the government to make a simple regulation:
If you are supping at the taxpayer trough, you can’t conduct compulsory layoffs of taxpayers. All your layoffs must be voluntary. That is, you have to buy workers out. No forced layoffs!
Most elected leaders believe that regulating corporations about how they can and can’t destroy jobs is blasphemy, an attack on sacred capitalist freedoms, something that only the Communists would do! In addition to the ideological blowback, the political establishment actually buys the corporate line that halting mass layoffs would make corporations uncompetitive, which is total nonsense.
Here’s a telling piece of evidence.
In 2021, Siemens Energy, the German-based company with 90,000 employees globally, decided to stop making equipment used in oil extraction and fracking. In Germany, 3,000 workers were to lose their jobs, and another 1,700 in the U.S.
In Germany, companies must live within a legislated system of codetermination, meaning that half the seats on a company’s board of directors are held by worker representatives, and labor-management committees run the day-to-day operations of each facility. (As an aside, this system was urged upon German businesses by the U.S. after WWII, because we believed unionized workers were less likely than their bosses to cozy up to fascists.)
The political establishment actually buys the corporate line that halting mass layoffs would make corporations uncompetitive, which is total nonsense.
In Germany, the workers used their power to persuade Siemens management to agree to no forced layoffs. On top of that, Siemens agreed not to shut down six facilities and instead put other production lines in them.
In the United States? All 1,700 workers lost their jobs AND the president of Siemens USA was invited to the infrastructure bill signing ceremony. In honor of the legislation she had the gall to say, “This is a historic moment in America – one that sets the stage for decarbonizing the economy, boosting U.S. manufacturing, creating jobs, and increasing equity.”
Moral of the story: In addition to fabricating hypocritical public statements, global corporations have incredible flexibility and resources to modify production, employment, wages, and working conditions. “No forced layoffs” would not put Siemens or Intel or any other global corporation out of business. Instead, there might be a microscopic dip in stock buybacks!
Every single company that is getting a CHIPS grant has the capacity to modify its operations to avoid forced layoffs, just as Siemens has done in Germany. In fact, every company that gets a federal contract should agree to do the same, as well as forswearing stock buybacks.
There’s only one way out of this non-stop shakedown: expand labor unions and build a powerful mass movement.
The second moral of the story: Wall Street and corporate America are so accustomed to getting their way that they will only pursue national goals when they are bribed. No matter how rich, no matter how large their stock buyback scams, they want our tax dollars with no strings attached. And very few politicians have the nerve to resist.
There’s only one way out of this non-stop shakedown: expand labor unions and build a powerful mass movement. Until we, the people, rise up and demand it, no one will derail the Wall Street gravy train that runs from our pockets to theirs via stock buybacks and pink slips.
And we wonder why so many Americans think the system is rigged and that democracy isn’t working for us.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Something Not Always Better Than Nothing': Experts Warn Against Biden's Childcare Scheme
"One reason why we do not have universal healthcare? It was more politically expedient to make it an employer-linked perk," said one policy expert. "We're still paying for that decision today."
Feb 28, 2023
A new Biden administration policy that will reserve federal manufacturing funds for companies that help their employees access childcare will only perpetuate a system in which far too many U.S. families struggle to find care, one expert on the crisis said Monday.
The Commerce Department on Tuesday unveiled a new rule tied to the CHIPS and Science Act, which includes $39 billion in federal subsidies to invest in semiconductor manufacturing.
That money would only be available to companies that help their employees access childcare in a number of potential ways, including building childcare centers exclusively for workers' families near factories, paying existing care providers to make space for the children of employers, or subsidizing childcare costs.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo assured the public that the policy will ensure the semiconductor industry can "expand the labor force" and recruit more women, but childcare policy expert Elliot Haspel raised a number of questions about the plan, including whether the Biden administration is aware of the current shortage of childcare workers in the U.S. and the shortage of available spaces for children and daycare centers that it's caused.
"Do any of these companies need to ensure [childcare] educators get a competitive wage?" asked Haspel. "What happens if their workers just end up on waiting lists? Doesn't feel fully thought out."
"Making childcare a job-linked benefit means that when you lose your job, you lose your childcare and your kid loses a caregiver."
As The New York Times reported Monday, nearly 58,000 childcare jobs have been lost since the coronavirus pandemic began, forcing centers to reduce their capacity. The shortage of childcare workers has been linked to chronically low pay in the industry, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimating that employees make an average of $27,680 per year or $13.31 per hour.
A Household Pulse Survey taken by the U.S. Census Bureau in January 2022 found that 1 in 4 families with children under the age of five were unable to secure childcare, and a study by the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2020 found a shortage of three million open childcare slots across 35 states. Nationwide, the average time a family spends on waiting lists for childcare is 18 months. Once families do secure a spot, more than half spend at least 20% of their income on childcare, according to the First Five Years Fund.
Haspel, the author of Crawling Behind: America's Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It, expressed appreciation for the administration's call for employers to provide on-site childcare, which he said "helps parents and is good for businesses."
However, he warned, tying childcare to employment instead of treating it as a public good like K-12 education risks leaving millions of struggling families out and causing the childcare crisis to snowball into an even bigger problem, just as the U.S. healthcare system has since the for-profit insurance system was established after World War II.
"One reason why we do not have universal healthcare? It was more politically expedient to make it an employer-linked perk," said Haspel. "The idea caught on, and the train left the station. We're still paying for that decision today."
As Haspel explained at Early Learning Nation in November:
While no longer widely remarked upon, in 1945 President Truman proposed a national health insurance program that would have been folded into the Social Security system. The proposal would have created a comprehensive, universal, single-payer system akin to the U.K.'s National Health Service which emerged in the same post-war period.
Truman's proposal set off a vicious debate (including lots of accusations about socialism, and the American Medical Association launching a multi-million-dollar campaign to oppose it)...
Of course, we know the end of this story. By 1958, 75% of Americans had an employer-sponsored plan. This choice had consequences. The entrenchment of health insurance as a private job-linked issue has led to a dysfunctional, unpopular, expensive, ineffective healthcare system—and one which has proven almost impossible to overhaul. People don't like the system but are used to the linkage, and the health insurance lobby is a mightily powerful opponent.
The Biden administration is unveiling its CHIPS-linked childcare scheme more than a year after right-wing Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) opposed a number of proposals to invest in the economic well-being of U.S. families, including through subsidized childcare.
As the Times reported, Raimondo told staffers after the Democratic Party's failure to pass childcare legislation as part of the Inflation Reduction Act last summer, “If Congress wasn't going to do what they should have done, we're going to do it in implementation" of bills that President Joe Biden did sign into law.
"Something is not always better than nothing," tweeted Haspel. "I'm as upset as anyone that real childcare reform died thanks to unified opposition from the GOP and then Joe Manchin. But we must fight for a system that works rather than accept a fatally flawed premise."
Establishing a system in which childcare is linked to employment raises questions about what will happen to a worker's children if they lose their job or if a company changes its benefits, he added.
"You don't want these things bundled with employment for the obvious reason that people want these services to be continuous as they move from job to job," Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project concurred.
To solve the childcare crisis, said Haspel, the care of children must be treated as a public good—one that's paid for through fair taxation of corporations.
"Employers SHOULD have skin in the game for childcare," he added, but the way to ensure they do is not through "an ad hoc move."
"Levy taxes and use those dollars to build a system that works for everyone!" he said.
He compared the Biden administration's plan to one in which companies would be required to ensure their employees' children have access to elementary education, if the federal government didn't provide public schools.
"The question isn't 'on site childcare or no'," said Haspel, "it's whether we support on-site childcare as part of a comprehensive, publicly-funded childcare system that provides options for all parents, or simply as a discrete perk for a given number of employees working at a given site until they leave/are fired from their job or the company decides they don't want to run a center anymore."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More Stories
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy