Time to Increase U.S. Coastal Limits

[Remey688]

This is bullshit. Increase terriority water to 1,000 miles, Screw these bastards. Next they will have a shopping ship?


Foreign Workers Coming to a Cruise Ship Near You
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, April 29, 2005 "Outsourcing" – which has become synonymous with sending American jobs to India or China – could soon mean foreign workers sleeping in ships just a few miles off America's coasts.

In an outrageous affront to U.S. labor laws, a California company plans to anchor a 600-cabin cruise ship just beyond the three-mile limit off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, and stock it with foreign software programmers.

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The company, SeaCode, will seek to classify the workers as "seamen," avoiding U.S. payroll taxes and the need for immigration visas.

Programmers from places like India and Russia would work 8-hour or 10-hour shifts, either day or night. Take-home pay: About $21,500 a year.

Compare that to the salary of an American programmer – median salary for programmers is around $60,000, and those with extensive experience can make $125,000 or more - and U.S. companies like SeaCode could reap a windfall.

SeaCode says it will charge clients the same rate as firms in developing countries. The company says the significant benefit of having the low-cost programmers near the U.S. is that clients will be spared from long flights to India and other far-off destinations to check on projects.

By using foreigners working on boats, SeaCode also believes projects will get done more quickly as their programmers toil both day and night. "Try to get American software engineers to work at night," SeaCode co-founder David Cook told Forbes magazine, explaining his delight in the outsourcing scheme.

But Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, complained: "All it would do is be a further contribution to eroding the job opportunities for skilled American workers."

SeaCode is close to making an offer for the Carousel, a ship now sailing around the Canary Islands. The vessel would dock in Long Beach once a month to take on supplies and dispose of waste – isn't that nice? But legally speaking, the SeaCode scheme could face stormy seas.

"It's not my prerogative to tell them to take a hike," said El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell. "I'll leave that to the Coast Guard."

[Sailor]

"The company, SeaCode, will seek to classify the workers as "seamen," avoiding U.S. payroll taxes and the need for immigration visas."

Hmmm,

Hey Mateo, don't merchant seamen have to have some kind of certificate or licencing? Or is that just a US Merchant Marine thing?

Even merchant seamen have to have some kind of identification, nationality, rating and so forth to prove their status in order to come ashore in a US port I would think. Not necessarily a passport, but somekind of proof that Able Seaman AhPooh is who and what he says he is.

"It's not my prerogative to tell them to take a hike," said El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell. "I'll leave that to the Coast Guard."

Or Homeland Security or the Justice Department maybe.

Hmmm.

[FightingFalcon]

Forget 1,000 miles - we should just extend our territorial waters until they reach the waters of the next country