american nightmare speads deeper

[peaccenicked]

From The Plain Dealer, 11/22/99 and it still hold true. We keep hearing the mantra about Free Trade will bring jobs, Free Trade will bring jobs etc. and etc. but the most massive dislocation of U.S. jobs keeps rolling on.)

GLOBAL TRADE PRESENTS OBSTACLES FOR U.S. WORKERS

In your Nov.17 editorial titled, "A China deal at last," the writer says it is time to end the dangerous farce of excluding China from the World Trade Organization that exists to promote order and discipline in global trade.

The most dangerous farce is the blind acceptance of the WTO as the body to do it. It is like having the fox guard the chicken coop. Where
does the WTO get its power? Who controls it? It certainly not based on a democratic vote. It is not based on the vote of the workers who have little voice in the transactions.
Traditionally, trade was based on trading things that one nation did not have for the things another nation had. Today, the global ecomony is based on a massive dislocation of workers. The main commodity becomes the workers who are put on a world trading block to compete with 20-cents-an-hour and slave labor workers.
Governments in a global economy become less sovereign and become more like power brokers in a world of shifting alliances. They can no longer fulfill the promises of the entitlements because when speculative investments become divorced from production and labor, the financial world develops a logic of its own. Factory production can be moved from one locality to another without considering the socioeconomic costs of the burnt-out society left behind.

We have evidence of this today. Public and private employers continued unprecedented dispossession aimed at the heart of the typical American suburban Republican voter: middle-age, middle-class, college educated men who are irrelevant to the new world economy.

American workers cannot compete with people making only $10 to $45 a week. In the end, a burn-out society is the only thing left.

[Capitalist]

American workers cannot compete with people making only $10 to $45 a week. In the end, a burn-out society is the only thing left.

In other words, the American Worker can not compete with workers enslaved by communistic societies like China & Cuba - where labor is pratically slave labor - don't have to pay for slave labor or labor that is not allowed to form it's own labor unions.

American labor is more expensive because

1. - American workers have the right to Assembly, and therefore unions, to demand better pay from big companies.

2. - American workers are free to quit a low paying job and apply for a better paying job. Government does not force them to work.

3. - American workers have the right to start their own business and make money for themselves, not the state.

Therefore free labor costs more than slave labor.

I totally agree with your point.

[peaccenicked]

Quote: from Capitalist on 11:21 pm on Jan. 21, 2002




1. - American workers have the right to Assembly, and therefore unions, to demand better pay from big companies.

.
Machinists Ask Court to Stop Bush's No-Strike Order in United Dispute

The 15,000 mechanics and other United Airlines Machinist members have asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to set aside President George W. Bush’s Dec. 20 order that established a Presidential Emergency Board and banned workers from exercising their collective bargaining rights for 60 days.

The suit, filed Jan. 7, claims the National Mediation Board acted unlawfully when it failed to perform basic statutory requirements before recommending Bush appoint a PEB. A hearing on the suit is scheduled for Jan. 11.

“The NMB acted arbitrarily and capriciously in their creation of this PEB,” said R. Thomas Buffenbarger, IAM president. “The IAM and United could have concluded their negotiations but for the White House’s interference. In this instance, the NMB behaved more like a puppet on a string than a neutral federal agency.”

The IAM lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order and/or a preliminary injunction to set aside the presidential order establishing the PEB. Such a decision would clear the way for United and the IAM to exercise self-help rights free from the delay caused by the creation of the emergency board.

Establishing the PEB does nothing to advance the 25-month-long contract negotiations. The board will review the dispute and form recommendations during a 30-day period. Then United and the workers have 30 days to consider the recommendations. If no agreement is reached at the end of the 60-day period, Congress could intervene and impose an agreement on the mechanics. Such action by Congress would be unprecedented in the airline industry and threatens free collective bargaining rights for airline workers in the future, observers say.

The 15,000 United mechanics, members of the Machinists, have been bargaining for more than two years to recoup some of the wage concessions they made in 1994 to help save the company from bankruptcy. United mechanics are working under 1994 wage rates. After Sept. 11, United management withdrew all offers—mechanics have not even been offered a contract to vote on.

Complicating the negotiations, The Washington Post reports that the Bush administration has told United Airlines to not make monetary offers to the mechanics or they risk not winning available loans from the White House-controlled loan guarantee board set up as part of the September 2001 airline bailout bill.

Bush’s decision to establish the board “to block a negotiated settlement at United Airlines will go down in history as the defining moment in this administration’s war against American workers’ collective bargaining rights,” said Buffenbarger.

The right to bargain collectively is an internationally recognized right of all workers under the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

This action by Bush against mechanics in contract negotiations, compounded by the Republican refusal to help the more than 140,000 laid-off aviation workers, means tough times for aviation workers at United and other airlines.

Is this the way to treat 'free labour' ?

[Capitalist]

"National Emergency"

Keyword - In a national emergency - is a strike banned.

Why?

Because it is a NATIONAL EMERGENCY. Doesn't mean they don't have the right to assemble and demand better pay - just means that for National security they can not strike at the present moment.

I agree with this policy during times of EMERGENCY.

[Moskitto]

Talking about American workers who cannot compete with workers from "communist countries" is rather foolish.

1. It proves our point that aiming for the lowest posible costs leads to lower wages, lower wages = less food on the table.

2. Cuba has a blockade so America does not buy anything from Cuba, China likewise is owned by Companies which surprisingly enougth are far more of a capitalist ideal, so really your importing from your own system.

3. Not everything that's produced cheaply is made in "Communist" countries, There are hundreds of countries which are forced to sell cheap goods are virtually none of them are communist, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan (Your Allies), Mexico, Kenya, India (these are real slaves, not the slaves you think exist in "communist" countries), Brazil...

And Capitalist, I suggest you read some Rosa Luxemburg (The Mass Strike in particular), she shows that everything you say about communism is bollux.

[Imperial Power]

Don't you find it interesting that the countries US goods are being manufactured in allow this to go on yet it's exclusivly America's fault?

[MJM]

I finally agree with you on one point IP. It's sickening that the govt.s of these countries let this happen. Thats why we need a revolution to happen the world over, a big ask but it can be achieved.

[Moskitto]

It's not exclusively the US's fault, my country is as much to blame for setting up countries for producing the goods in the first place. Although I disagree with the concept of "Britishness" yeah, what the hell have we done? gone round the world killing indigenous people. I'd rather be English, that's a far better history.

[peaccenicked]

What is exclusively america's fault. That is not clear.
Cheap labour. I dont like blaming the USA on anything since it is a tiny ammount of capitalists that own most of the world. These capitalists are mainly american and use primarily us armed forces to pomote their interests.
It is in the nature of capitalism to look for cheap labour
in poorer countries. You are here defending capitalism
which keeps 63 million americans in hunger including children.And is threating the livelyhoods of millions more.
the majority know the voting system is a joke. Please try to remember you are here trying(very poorly) to defend the obsolete system of capitalism, not Americans.

[Imperial Power]

The number of people going hungary in America gets inflated by millions every day on this site. I'm saying when ever you see poor people workign in sweatshops the finger gets pointed at the US. Peace but you do like blaming the US. Everything becomes against the US that you say.

[peaccenicked]

Well I point to imperialism.
I think you would prefer a weaker argument not the real argument which you avoid.

That imperialism is not good for your poor or anybody elses poor. you that doesnt put yourself above people.
All you do is point to crumbs of charity. While 1% of the world own more than 50% of the wealth is intrinsically wrong . A 5 year old could see it.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 11:00 pm on Jan. 22, 2002)

[reagan lives]

Ahem.

American corporations don't own any factories in Third World nations. Nor do they employ anyone in Third World nations. Nor do they determine the working conditions or wages of workers in Third World factories.

When an American corporation wants to manufacture overseas, they outsource the work to an international contractor. These contracting companies own factories, plants, etc all over the world. Whichever contracting company comes in with the lowest bid gets the contract (naturally). Therefore, there is competition among the contractors to lower costs. This is made possible by governments who have no consideration for workers' rights, whose leaders will allow their people to be subjugated so they can bring the contractors in and rape them with taxes.

American corporations have no direct influence on the policies of other nations. They produce their product at the lowest possible cost. If you want to upgrade workers' rights in Third World nations, you're barking up the wrong tree by *****ing at American MRCs. The only people in a position to make positive changes are the leaders who are screwing the workers in the first place. You might suggest that the MRCs "take some responsibility" and lean on the contractors to upgrade their standards. In which case, the contractors would tell that particular corporation what they could do with their "standards," and they'd simply get a contract from another corporation.

Capitalist is absolutely right, and the fact is that nothing substantial will change until all workers of the world have the rights that he enumerated. So you Jr. Revolutionaries can boycott Nike and pretend that you're helping someone, or you can open your eyes and realize what the true nature of the problem is.

[Moskitto]

And how do they lower their price so that the company will buy their bid? by lowering wages. lower costs---->lower wages

[peaccenicked]

Reagan lives are you trying to say that we live in a communist society were wealth distribution is actual quite well spread through out the world. Landlords contract out homes but still own them. Governments are coherced by the us military for economic gain. When are you right wingers going to start living in the real world.
Do you really need to have these halucinations to sleep well at night?