Three more recent articles feature
corporations acting in their own self-interest, and against the
interests of their employees and customers.
Two of the articles are about offshoring -- where the corporations seem destined
to 'win', and workers worldwide will lose:
- An article
from Jim Lobe at OneWorld
summarizes a new report by Oxfam, showing that Wal-Mart and other large
multinational retailers are driving down wages and working conditions
all over the world. It's a neat corporatist trick: Don't own the third world sweatshop, control it by being its dominant
customer. Then coerce them incessantly to lower their wholesale price
at any cost. The sweatshop has no alternative but to reduce its costs
to keep its biggest customer without going bankrupt, and to do that it
must abrogate even dismally low social and environmental standards. And
in the unlikely case someone dares to blow the whistle, Wal-Mart can
simply say "That isn't one of our
companies, we're merely a customer
of theirs; we have no control over how they operate". The Washington Post in a related
article said: "As capital scours the globe for cheaper and more
malleable workers, and as poor countries seek multinational companies
to provide jobs, lift production and open export markets, Wal-Mart and
China have forged themselves into the ultimate joint venture, their
symbiosis influencing the terms of labor and consumption the world
over."
OneWorld goes on:
"That marriage, however, according to the both the Post account and the Oxfam report,
has come largely at the expense of the worker on the factory line.
'Wal-Mart pressures the factory to cut its price, and the factory
responds with longer hours or lower pay,' a Chinese labor official who
declined to be identified for fear of retaliation told the Post, 'And the workers have no
options.' That was also the message of a report released Monday by the
New York-based National Labor Committee and China Labor Watch on a toy
factory in Ping Township in Guangdong province that produces goods for
Wal-Mart. The two groups reported that the mostly female labor force at
the plant were paid only about half the legal minimum wage and forced
to work longer hours than the legal maximum. It also reported that fire
exits were normally locked. Wal-Mart responded to the report by
insisting that it conducted regular inspections of all of its plants in
China, but the groups said that plant managers were always informed of
the inspections in advance and coached the workers on what to tell the
inspectors."
This is, of course, corporate
fraud, and the big-budget PR campaigns of these stores, telling
consumers they've cleaned up their act, are bare-faced lies. But in the
wild and wooly world of third world business, where money buys
anything, just try and prove it. And be careful about charging these
companies with lying to customers -- as the Nike case shows,
corporatists prosecute those that try to stop the lies, claiming that
prohibiting deceptive advertising interferes with the corporation's
'rights'. There is therefore only one way to fight back: Boycott
companies that offshore domestic jobs to third world countries (both
manufacturing and service jobs). Encourage Consumers Union and other consumer
and labour advocacy groups to maintain and communicate lists of
offshorers. Pledge to buy local.
- An article
by Anne Fisher in Fortune
magazine suggests the potential for offshoring American jobs to the
third world is almost limitless. The article says: "So far, according
to the best industry estimates, only about 5% of U.S. IT jobs have been
shipped to India, New Zealand, and Eastern Europe. But by 2007 at least
23% will have gone. Not a techie? Don't get cocky. IT folks may just be
the canary in the coal mine. Notes a reader named Hans: 'There is
almost no limit on the technology that can take jobs overseas. Anyone
in any field who has ever thought they could just as easily do their
job from home, or who has smiled at the thought of working from a
laptop on a beach, should understand that his or her replacement could
just as easily do their job from Bangalore."
So it's not just manufacturing
and help-desk service jobs at risk. As retailing goes online, all the
related services and transaction processing could be offshored. As
virtual presence technologies improve, all sales, consulting and
business overhead jobs could go offshore as well. No job is safe. In
addition to boycotting offshorers, we need to lobby politicians to
change tax regulations to put employers of domestic workers on the same
after-tax footing as offshorers.
One customer is determined to strike back at abusive treatment by one notorious group of corporations, the RIAA. As reported
by John Borland at CNET, Michele Scimeca, one of the people sued by the
RIAA for file-swapping is counter-suing the RIAA for extortion and
violations under the federal anti-racketeering act. According to CNET
she "contends that by suing file-swappers for copyright infringement,
and then offering to settle instead of pursuing a case where liability
could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the RIAA is
violating the same laws that are more typically applied to gangsters
and organized crime". Brava, Ms. Scimeca.
Now if only we could get that kind of creative strategy to deal with
offshoring. Is depriving citizens of their right to a reasonable
livelihood against any law? How about wrongful dismissal? Or a human
rights violation? |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
