6/2/12 LA.'s lost opportunity to create local jobs with light-rail contracts - latimes.com 1/5 latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-janis-jobs-rail-los-angeles-20120529,0,5915293.story Comments 24 Email Share 0 OP-ED Boosting employment should be a decisive factor when the city awards contracts. By Madeline Janis May 29, 2012 Membership Serv ices Jobs Cars Real Estate Subscribe Rentals Classifieds Custom Publishing Place Ad OPINION LOCAL U.S. WORLD BUSINESS SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT HEALTH LIVING TRAVEL OPINION DEALS IN THE NEWS: HOSNI MUBARAK JOHAN SANTANA CELTICS ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE 'SNOW WHITE' Search L.A.'s lost opportunity for job creation 66 Recommend On April 30, the L.A. Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to award an $890-million contract for 235 light rail cars to Kinkisharyo International, a Japanese firm that will build a significant portion of the cars in Osaka, Japan, rather than in California. Just a week later, on May 9, the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency voted to award a $2.5-billion contract for the manufacture of 775 rail cars to a Canadian firm that will build many of the car components in Mexico. With the awarding of these two contracts, California lost the opportunity to create more than 2,000 good American jobs building rail cars for our transit systems. That argument was made clearly and repeatedly by a broad- based coalition of labor, community and business leaders Recommended on Facebook Cartoons » Photos: Flip through Ted Rall's editorial cartoons Videos » Connect Like 236k advertisement EDITORIALS OP-ED ENDORSEMENTS LETTERS OPINION L.A. READERS' REP Want to succeed in business? Call m om U.S. manufacturing's next phase ALSO Early morning commuters debark the Metro Blue Line at Vernon and Long Beach Avenues in Vernon. (Los Angeles Times / May 25, 2012) Bart_Reed Like 236k
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Connect L.A.'s lost opportunity for job creation · 5/29/2012 · L.A.'s lost opportunity for job creation Recommend 66 On April 30, the L.A. Metropolitan Transportation Authority
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6/2/12 LA.'s lost opportunity to create local jobs with light-rail contracts - latimes.com
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The very best quality Cars at the best price is the best policy.Those cars will be around for fifkty years, long after those politicians and Union Bosses arelong gone. And the Public Riders will thank those who gave them the best rides!!!!
David in Fresno at 11:45 AM May 30, 2012
"The transit agencies said that when giving out a contract for rail cars, the most importantthing is building the best possible rail cars at the best possible price."I am truly astonished at the number of commenters who support this decision. In myopinion the "best possible pirce" is one that removes someone from the unemployment rollsand produces a taxpayer. I seriously doubt that the bid parameters considered these twoelements (and others I don't know about such as parts suppliers, etc) in the equation. This isanalagous to awarding the contract for waste disposal to the people who will, for the lowestdirect cost to homeowners, dump garbage into the nearest ravine which eventually becomestoxic, kills fish, and poisons the water supply. All that should have been included in the costof the original contract.Outsourcing is ruining America. The worst idea in the past 100 years is the idea that FreeTrade is somehow beneficial. The only time we have had full-employment and the ability toprovide 500,000 new jobs evey year to immigrants from Europe was the Golden Age of1875-1910, when we had extremely high tariffs and no income taxes. If we are ever to haveprosperity in this country again we must return to waht has been shown to have worked inthe past.
Tonatiuh at 6:09 AM May 30, 2012
The opinions expressed by most people on this post, tend to be racist, ignorant, and oftendownright un-American. Today, they have been mostly un-American, downrighttreasonous. These conservatives "thinkers" would rather see California go bankrupt, theunemployment level rise even more, services cut even more, than to see good jobs go tounionized American workers. They are fine with these good jobs going to Japan, or Canada,or even Mexico (a country they utterly hate for their own racist reasons), rather than tounionized American workers. Weakening America from the inside, by worsening oureconomic crisis is treason. These so called "conservatives" are engaging in treason, and theythink theirs, it's a defensible position. So, let them keep blaming all the problems on Liberals,unions, illegal aliens, government entities, and Democrats. We know who the real traitorsare, the ones actively working to make sure that California keeps sinking, by advocating theoutsourcing of good jobs, just to punish labor unions. Such hatred!!
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