Word: workers
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...city aims to boost its population by 25% to 6.5 million over the next few decades. Due to the flagging birth rate, that goal can be reached only by admitting up to 1 million foreigners, more than doubling the current expat population of 875,400. Drawing in so many worker bees will require a lot of honey, in the form of good jobs, recreational opportunities, decent housing-the myriad elements that factor into a city's lifestyle. It will also require a certain amount of buzz-and Singapore is not currently thought of as an exciting city. Not that...
Weighing Influence I enjoyed this year's TIME 100, featuring the most influential people in the world [May 14], especially the stories of everyday unsung heroes like U.S. Army Captain Timothy Gittins, Chinese blogger Zeng Jinyan and construction worker Wesley Autrey, who saved a man's life in the New York City subway. They prove you don't have to be a politician or a billionaire to do the right thing. In the end, simple acts of humanity and justice can change the world. I look forward to discovering what I can do to help our fragile planet. John Jacob...
...fragile Senate bill rests on three pillars: legalization of illegal residents, tighter border controls and the creation of a new guest-worker program that would grant up to 200,000 two-year visas annually. North Carolina, which imports more legal farmworkers than any other state, offers an idea of how the guest-worker proposal might look in action. During the past growing season, I canvassed the state, from the Christmas-tree farms in the western mountains to the crab plants on the eastern shore, and found a guest-worker program that is orderly, rational, legal--and almost completely unworkable...
...system is collapsing from within," is how Stan Eury, director of the North Carolina Growers Association, puts it. He had 10,000 workers in 2000 but only 6,400 this year. Employers complain about the spiraling costs of wages, transportation, government fees and housing. Activists worry about exploitation. Economists say guest-worker programs may look like a flexible solution to the nation's seasonal agricultural needs, but they inevitably grow rigid under a tangle of red tape...
...definition, guest workers are tremendously vulnerable. And of all the steps in the process, none is more ripe for abuse than the recruiting of workers back in their home countries. Baldemar Velasquez, whose Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) has been the union representing Eury's workers since 2004, says Eury recruits cleanly. But freelance agents who work with other recruiters and employers are not nearly so scrupulous. Peasants, lured at times by false promises about what they can earn, are being charged as much as $2,000 to get on recruiters' lists for U.S. positions. If the Senate plan does...