[magellan]

Originally Posted by soothsayer1234

I think people here are referring to jumping from the frying pan into the fire. People have always migrated to other states enmasse for work. In the 50's and 60's, reams of people migrated to Michigan from the south. The key is to have something lined up, and/or a viable skill to parlay. If you lack skills, or marketable skills anyway, no place will serve as a job mecca. This is the case more than ever with illegals, particularly hispanic illegals. Now, THEY have all those jobs that used to pay a living wage, and you will be competing with THEM in Phoenix, Florida, Nevada, and Texas, amonst other places. If you will uproot only to compete with cheap hispanic labor, may as well stay home and work with whatever local connections you have to survive, or at least develop new skills before you leave. I think most of the folks displaced in Michigan were involved in manufacturing. In that case, the power structure in this country has decided that those workers are redundant for some reason, and has outsourced and shut down reams of plants. I suppose they expect these people to move to the southwest, kiss their $30-40 hour salary good-bye, and compete with illegals for 7-10 dollar jobs, or with 21-year-olds for 8 dollar an hour home depot jobs. My advice to those leaving michigan is to stay far away from the coolie labor southwest, and try someplace in our midwest that still pays living wages. You still have a few viable cities out in our neck of the woods, like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Chicago, Madison, Columbus, Cincinnati, and even Milwaukee. You may laugh, but at least they pay a living wage. Think before you leap................. I have included another post on this issue, so well written and informative that I thought it best to include it as well.
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Before anyone moves to Phoenix, please understand here that wages are very low, to the point where it might not be financially advantageous to do so. To those that live here permanently, it's time to start protesting low wages. I think middle and lower middle class workers (< $40,000 yr) in the Phoenix metropolitan area should start engaging in peaceful, law abiding protests that communicate to business leaders that workers in this town will no longer tolerate platry wages. Phoenix is no longer an inexpensive place to live like it used to be, and those who move here under this illusion that's "it's so cheap to live out there, who cares if most jobs pay under $10 an hour" are in for a rude awakening. Companies in Phoenix are exploiting the business and tax friendly nature of this state. Whether I'm employed or not, I look at the employment ads regularly and in the past 10 years in Phoenix, wages for most middle and lower income jobs have remained stagnant and in some cases have declined, while inflation and the cost of living continue to soar. Furthermore, because the Phoenix metro area is so crime ridden, living in a safe neighborhood, requires a rent that's on par with a similar safe neighorhood in San Diego or Orange Counties. In other words, in order to escape crime and unsavory people in this town, you have to rent in an upper class area, whereas in CA, you can feel safe in a middle class neighborhood because the crime rate is a lot lower. Check city-data.com for statistics and they will surprise you.
I think workers in this state should start boycotts and ingenious forms or law-abiding protests, info campaigns etc to tell companies that you can't live on less than $12 an hour here in metro Phoenix and that given the working conditions most employers in the valley offer and the cost of living, the new floor for most semi-skilled work should be $15 an hour. Tell CEO's they will reclaim any loss in profit by having a more happy, healthy and productive workforce, which will raise efficiency and negate any profit loss. I think it's time we start to change Arizona's reputation as a low wage state. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of people made a small sacrifice and didn't attend work for a couple days to send a message to employers about wage exploitation. What if tend of thousands of college students decided they weren't going to enroll in college because they don't see a return on their tuition and time investment, since most non engineering college grads in this town probably make less than $15 an hour. Tell employers to start rewarding a college degree since roughly only 25% of adults in the country posess one. Let's start valuing education and W2 work in this state. Let's start demanding that Phoenix metro area employers raise wages!!

Hmmm, interesting post soothsayer. I have often thought that the migrations going on around the country chasing jobs is somewhat like a modern day Grapes of Wrath. Except that North Carolina has taken California's spot in the book. Many people moving from the North to the South to find jobs are doing it with just the shirts on their backs. The reason that companies are setting up shop in the South is because it is a lot closer to the 3rd world than the North: cheap labor, cheap land, lax environmental regulations, low taxes, poor schools, abject poverty, etc.. All of that adds up to more profit for the companies making the investment.

But with income inequality in the South, decreasing home affordability, outsourcing of jobs to other countries, and employment of illegal aliens, are we going to see a "service revolution" in this country, like we saw an industrial revolution a little over 100 years ago? Will service employees begin to band together to gain more "collective bargaining" power to get higher wages and increase job security, and again see the rise of the union?

Everything goes in cycles. As the pendulum swings too far toward management, labor pulls it back the other way. What happened to Michigan is that labor had the pendulum for too long.

[Br1234]

Soothsayer1234, I have never proclaimed to even consider moving to Phoenix or anywhere in AZ. Too many illegals. AZ is not for ME.
Just to a "more friendy" state.

Protest? Why don't they quit? That will be the ultimate protest.

If workers are making such poor wages, why don't they start their own business and offer a better product or service to their current employers customers. Now that would be an effective "protest".

[Br1234]

Originally Posted by magellan

But with income inequality in the South, decreasing home affordability, outsourcing of jobs to other countries, and employment of illegal aliens, are we going to see a "service revolution" in this country, like we saw an industrial revolution a little over 100 years ago? Will service employees begin to band together to gain more "collective bargaining" power to get higher wages and increase job security, and again see the rise of the union?

Everything goes in cycles. As the pendulum swings too far toward management, labor pulls it back the other way. What happened to Michigan is that labor had the pendulum for too long.

I worry about the outsourcing of our nations defense. That's when we'll be in trouble. This is already happening on a small scale. A company I worked for in the past did this. They moved fighter jet parts from jackson MI to tijuana. Levin stepped in and told them they couldn't but they did anyway, AND it was LEGAL for them to do so. I'll look for the newspaper article and post it if I can find it. The plan is clearly to test the water to see what they can get away with. Once they realize nothing will happen, everything will go.

They also handed over/leaked classified technology to China (they were fined) but big deal the technology is lost.

[TaxBait]

Originally Posted by magellan

... are we going to see a "service revolution" in this country, like we saw an industrial revolution a little over 100 years ago? Will service employees begin to band together to gain more "collective bargaining" power to get higher wages and increase job security, and again see the rise of the union?...

I don't think so. Most of these jobs are exportable or expendable. The real problem is the overhead we've placed on labor through taxes, skyrocketing medical & legal liability, etc. To stay competitive in a global economy there is very little left from our efforts. I earn less that I used to pay in taxes 7 years ago and yet 1/2 my income still goes to taxes and insurance. I think we'll sooner see tax revolt than a service worker revolution.

[TaxBait]

Originally Posted by Br1234

I worry about the outsourcing of our nations defense...

I'm outraged at the indiscriminate outsourcing of ALL publicly funded expenditures. Considering that at least 40% of all US service/product is directly returned to government through taxes, it's just plain stupid. When I left Lockheed Martin the price for a US rocket launch was roughly $100 million. A ride on the Russian Proton was about $60 million (about the same after tax cost to government as an Atlas). Yet procurement rules would favor the use of the Russian rocket to "save" the taxpayers money.

I can't understand why we don't already have laws in place that require adjustment of US pricing down to account for the taxes on US content. This shouldn't be limited to the impact of state or local taxes in those procurements either. All US tax revenue eventually benefits someone. Michigan is guilty of the same thing in giving huge software contracts to companies that use primarity Indian/Pakistan software developers. This the same government that says we don't have enough technology workers and we should invest more in education. I'd like to see statistics on how many with technology degrees are under-employed. I suspect it would be shocking.

[Reissman]

Originally Posted by trinkit

Look in the Aiken/Augusta area, or possibly Greenville. There is an engineering explosion going on. As a FoMoCo employee your hubby should be able to find a viable position.

Where did you move in SC? I am looking at the Greenville area.

[trinkit]

Originally Posted by Reissman

Where did you move in SC? I am looking at the Greenville area.

I'm in Aiken. But Greenville is hoppin', especially for engineers and designers. Secure a job BEFORE you relocate, tho.

[Br1234]

Another reason NOT to move to AZ.

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[Reissman]

Originally Posted by trinkit

I'm in Aiken. But Greenville is hoppin', especially for engineers and designers. Secure a job BEFORE you relocate, tho.

What type of work do you do? I do HVAC controls. If its hoppin for engineers and designers that would mean building, which is good for me since I make the stuff work thats engineered. I see plenty of jobs for me there is even a possibily of a transfer within my company. just cant make any moves till my house sells in Michigan.

[trinkit]

Originally Posted by Reissman

What type of work do you do? I do HVAC controls. If its hoppin for engineers and designers that would mean building, which is good for me since I make the stuff work thats engineered. I see plenty of jobs for me there is even a possibily of a transfer within my company. just cant make any moves till my house sells in Michigan.

I'm an HVAC designer working at the SRS site on the Savannah River. There's a HUGE project going on there that is just in the beginning of the construction phase. I've done I&C in the past, but there's no work for me in Michigan.

My husband is still in Michigan waiting to sell our home. My thinking is that if it's priced right (we own it free and clear) that it should sell within a few months. (Keeping my fingers crossed.) I couldn't wait until the house sold to make the move down here -- the job was too lucrative to pass up.

One of the things that I've encountered in my job search is that most of the companies work thru a "head-hunter" and keep you as a contractor for the first 90 days and then will make you an offer to hire direct. (In the OLD days, before contract houses, companies would hire you and keep you on "probation" for 90 days -- if they liked you, then all was good and you got your benefits, but if they didn't they could let you go for little or no reason. Nowdays, they work thru a contract house and THAT serves as your 90 day probation period.)

I've been assured that an offer will be made after the 1st of the year -- at which time the direct-hire company will pay for relocation expenses (the contract company will not). At THAT time, we will put our home up for sale. So, if by chance I'm NOT hired, then I will still have a home to go back to -- albeit without a job, but....

....and the cycle continues.