By: Diane Benjamin
Start here with a tweet from a local Pantagraph reporter:
I wonder if Derek knows this, if he does he has kept it a secret!
Rivian likes to hire FOREIGN labor!
Americans must not know a thing about building non-conventional cars!
I wonder if that agreement Normal signed says Rivian MUST hire Americans to get any money?
Here’s a list of Rivian H1B visas: Source
14 have been received, the first one is pending. Most are for work in Michigan.
Thanks to my tireless sources who wish to remain anonymous!
A FOIA from Heartland Community College fits here – keep in mind they just raised your property taxes. This expense was just so they can bring in foreign students. It was paid to the Feds. More FOIA’s would be required to see if Heartland is paying the legal expenses of foreign students or employees like ISU and University of Illinois do. See this Story and this Story
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As someone who worked and retired from Mitsubishi – there are a plenty of Americans out there they could hire for this jobs. They just don’t want to pay for Americans. Totally sickening in all respects. We have enough foreign workers in the town now.
Agree! I lost my job to foreigners! Cheaper!
This is the problem that destroyed our manufacturing sector and send our middle class into low wage poverty jobs. And people wonder why union people everywhere supported Trump? Obama, the Democrats, and Hillary response was “Your job is not coming back, get used it, get retrained for a new job.” And the new jobs are what? Low wage jobs with no benefits at disgracefully exploitive places like Walmart. At least Trump has promised to stand up the multi-national corporations who seek to impoverish the middle class to fill their own pockets with cash.
Possibly including one that heads McLean County Regional Planning, a trained facilitator planning your land use and quality of life.
Once again our local government took the bait and got screwed! Using OUR tax money!!! Idiots!
Do you see anything wrong here, “Thanks to my tireless sources who which to remain anonymous!”? Or did you hire a Pantygraph proof reader?
…at least BLNNews sources their articles.
You expected Illinois? They haven’t bought the plant yet! Not sure what your point is.
The leadership and their Crony Capitalism is leading this area off an economic cliff. And our citizens celebrate the building of a subsidized hot dog stand and the occupation of a car company that has never even build one prototype? And our new sources gladly tow the Crony Capitalist line and act as stenographers instead of journalists.
As I stated before you all try those driver less cars first. I’ll wait. I can only imagine what the cost of one of those cars would be. Am I and a lot of other people going to pay that? Only in your dreams.
I recall working for one local employer who used H1-B workers. I would venture to say 80% of the IT code had to be re-written. They didn’t know a thing about the business. No common sense or ability to ask questions.
What it boils down to is cheap labor. If those were the brightest light bulbs then you have to ask yourself then why aren’t they innovative enough to start their own businesses in their own country. One fault lies with the WTO and trade agreements where the U.S. agrees to let x number of visa holders in but you try to go to their country and find or take a job that isn’t going to happen.
I keep asking myself the question I wonder how much of a loss the owners are exposing themselves to if this fails.
Who is going to sell them? You need to have a dealer network to sell them. All the jobs listed here mean that you would have to hire people away from existing foreign car makers. You can’t hire just anyone for these jobs. They require specialized knowledge and lots of experience in the field. This is a company that 2 patents! Tesla has over 750 patents and 400,000 cars on a deposit paid waiting list. Some of deposits on the high end models are $80,000! This company is going to somehow design and build a car to compete with Tesla? Whatever our city leaders are smoking, I want no part of it. Building car is an expense and challenging venture. And once you get one built, you have to sell it. Will it be priced right? Will it survive the marketplaces scrutiny? Will it we safe? Will it be dependable? Will it be easy to repair? Who is going to repair it? What is the warranty and will it protect the owners from first production run issues? I predict that this company will never make one car.
I did my google research on Tesla and they had the financial backing and their ship nearly sunk also. One big chunk of money they got from the U.S. government.
I don’t know this all sounds risky to me. According to what I read on Reuters it will be 5 years before production begins. A lot could happen between now and then. Not only will they have Tesla to compete against but no telling who else too.
Like I told a friend who is looking to buy something. I said stay away from electric and hybrids. You will be paying a hefty price if you do not to mention for servicing also.
This all makes me wonder what insurance companies will charge for premiums on self driving cars. Who knows they may charge Rolls Royce premiums.
Google is not research. A fool ‘googles’ something and thinks he/she has found the answer.
Diane, thanks for the link to a nifty research tool re: H1b visas!
Using the internet to do research is done all the time. This of course takes time and requires critical thinking skills. But for simple answers to simple problems or inquires, Google is the answer for instant information on any subject in the world. This gives the average person the ability to find out things that would have at one time taken, a trip to a library to accomplish. I can ask my Echo almost any thing and I get a pretty good brief answer. This is a revolution in the ability for people to access information.
How much googling did it take for people to find out the Portillos duped Normal into thinking they would have the only downstate location?
Good one!
Bottom of the barrel engineers and designers are all you need to do smoke and mirrors.
Forget American and foreign labor debates. Manufacturing is reducing due to technology and automation, period. It won’t mean a great deal going forward if manufacturers are looking for cut or elimate labor costs. You can get jobs back, but they are going to go to automation and robots anyway. You don’t have to buy health insurance for a robot, a robot doesn’t need cost of living increases, a robot isn’t protected by labor laws. The reality is we treat workers like humans in America, at least for the majority. Look at China, they build all the suppliers and assembly plants in the same area and house all the workers in dormitories. They work insane schedules and are called in on a whim. When Apple wanted to make a design change on their iPhone close to rollout (Steve Jobs wanted glass instead of plastic screens) Their manufacturer in China woke up 20,000 workers in the middle of the night to make the change. They didn’t have to wait because the glass supplier was a block away! That would be unlikely to happen in America!
Trump is purveying false hope. Instead, he should be encouraging our education system to help fill jobs that are experiencing shortages and will require people to fill them in the future. Kids need to learn STEM and not go into majors where the employment prospects are low. This should be abundantly clear by now that the old manufacturing jobs are extinct. Yet we continue to hope that these jobs will stay around forever. We are going to be disappointed if we kept putting faith in people who claim they can bring America back to where it was. Be adaptive and ready to change. If you don’t want to change, that is fine, but don’t expect everything else to change for you. Either that or be fine with paying more for some things,
Everyone of the jobs listed have “JOB CITY: Livonia JOB STATE: MI”
I think one is California.
I think one is California.
Remind me again 1 thing Rivian Automotive makes, aside from empty promises?
Activity at the racism property. On my way home 1/9/17, I saw a LOT of activity in the lot just north of the plant. Trains, car carriers and LOTS OF CARS. So I drive passed 2 long abandoned baseball/softball fields to see a security guard in a hit next to an open gate with rows upon rows of……..
VOLKSWAGONS.
IS RIVIAN already making money by renting out their parking lot?
Hey shouldn’t the prairie soccer league put their handout to Rival to see if they can have their soccer fields on the rivian property.