The Partnership for a New American Economy (renamed to New American Economy (NAE)), views giant commercial operations like Tyson Foods as connective tissue between NAE’s drive to increase cheap labor pools through immigration and the revival of economically depressed rural communities:
Sturms found that when towns embraced immigrants, dying communities were brought back to life, the wheels of commerce began to turn again, and everybody felt the rewards. This is true for small towns across the state, including Columbus Junction, Storm Lake, Denison and West Liberty, the first Iowa town with a majority-Latino population.
NAE also justifies its push for increased legal and illegal immigration in part by featuring stories about immigrants like the Karen Burmese working in chicken processing plants and insisting that they are doing the jobs that Americans won’t do.
Burmese immigrants generally arrive in the U.S. through the refugee resettlement program which the NAE supports along with amnesty for illegal aliens as part of its 15 key economic issues.
Democrat gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean, like his Republican counterpart Randy Boyd, is also a named member of the big-business-cheap-labor Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE) lobby.
Shortly after the announcement was made by Gibson County Mayor Tom Witherspoon that Tyson Foods would be building a new $300 million dollar chicken slaughterhouse in Humboldt, he publicly credited Randy Boyd for helping “Gibson County stay in the race to land the Tyson Foods plant.” Witherspoon, twice elected as a Democrat, publicly announced that he would cross party lines and vote for Boyd in the primary. As a result, he will be re-running for mayor as an Independent.
Like Boyd, Dean and Democrat Phil Bredesen (who is running for Corker’s U.S. Senate seat) also supported Tyson Foods moving into Gibson County, showing up at the May 30th ground-breaking ceremony for the new chicken processing plant.
Bredesen proudly announced his support of the Tyson Foods plant project in this Facebook post:
Notably, Bredesen failed to specify exactly how many of those 1,500 jobs will be taken by residents of Gibson County and how many will be taken by people who do not currently live in Gibson County. He also failed to note Tyson Foods’ track record of providing jobs in these meat processing plants to recently arrived refugees.
Karl Dean also featured his support for the Tyson Foods project on his campaign’s Facebook page:
As far as support for selling the captive depressed rural Tennessee counties to any willing corporate entity, Boyd and Dean’s alliance with PNAE suggests these two candidates are virtually indistinguishable. They can add their support for the Tyson move into Gibson County to all the other commonalities they share that also make them indistinguishable from each other.
Somebody warn Gibson county – they’re about to be inundated with cheap imported labor…
[…] Foods in Tennessee. After attending the ground-breaking ceremony for the new plant in Humboldt, Bredesen’s Facebook post took credit for helping to bring companies like Tyson Foods to […]
Oh!, they can find Americans who will do these jobs. The question is will they pay American who wants to do these jobs, or only pay amounts illegal immigrant are willing to accept in order take to do them.
Watch it, because of the fact there is no difference between this and the Koch Bros., American’s For Progress position.
If we want wages to rise there needs to be a competitive labor market, and to cease feeding only large businesses with cheap labor.
The ONLY way this thing should be allowed to open is with monthly suprise inspections AND a written agreement they only hire AMERICANS in the local area. If they try to hire a “refugee” they will have to PROVE they couldnt find a native born American to fill the job. They will then be restricted to 5% OR LESS of their workforce to be “refugees” and those must speak fluent English, not be in any form of welfare AND be self sufficient.
Karl “Marx” Dean, the lefty ex-mayor of Nashville is now shilling for big business, having a PR photo op about bringing jobs to poor counties. So Karl, do you think those jobs will go to locals or will they, as the Tyson pattern has been, be given to refugees who’ll work for minimum wage?
And then there’s Phil Bredesen, who gleefully spouts off about being proud to bring a polluting business with a terrible environmental track record to the West Tennessee community whose inhabitants will suffer the fiscal and financial consequences. Phil, I thought you were a smart Harvard-educated intellectual. You ought to read up on the problems of massive chicken “farming.” Then talk to us about how you want to do something like this again.
City slicker, progressive ideologues Dean and Bredesen should take a page from Lamar Alexander’s playbook and expand their horizons. They should go to Shelbyville, stay a while, talk to everyone and see what kind of impact Tyson has had there.
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