Who Really Wins a Global Race to the Bottom?
American Workers who lose Jobs to the lowest International wage-earners? No.
Foreign Workers who gain American Jobs, under the constant threat that the Employer, will soon move elsewhere, if the price is right?
No not them either.
How about the once thriving cities of Detroit, Flint, Gary, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, etc, that are now mere shells of their former selves?
Are they the winners of this new global Race? No, not unless you consider the salvage value of "Rust" ... Nope, not even then.
Is it the kids who grew up in the Midwestern wreckage of NAFTA, who had to leave their roots, their friends, and their family network -- all in the hopes of finding "Greener Pastures" elsewhere?
Nope. As I can attest to that "bad trade-off" deal.
What about the Environment, that has toxic waste "exported" to the least regulated?
I'm sure their local cancer rates, would argue that they are only the "winners" of some bizarro reverse lottery.
So, WHO in the world are the winners of our "gotta have it" Global Race to the Bottom, anyways?
Who Really Wins this Global Race to the Bottom -- that started with NAFTA, and will only end God-knows-where?
Well ...
[...]
At a time when economic inequality around the globe continues to widen, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will only make things worse. Unlike what President Obama claims, the agreement will only encourage a race to the bottom, in which a small percentage of people get ridiculously rich while most workers around the globe stay miserably poor. We can’t let that happen.
[...]
In November, Zachary Senn, a college student reporter at the Modesto Bee, spent three weeks in Indonesia living with and interviewing workers who make goods for Nike, Adidas, Puma and Converse. When you hear Obama talking about those “high-quality jobs,” think of RM, a 32-year-old mother who told Senn that she works 55 hours, six days a week and makes just $184 a month after 12 years at the PT Nikomas factory, a Nike subcontractor that employs 25,000 people. That’s 83 cents an hour or $2,208 a year.
RM works in the sewing department and is expected to process 100 shoes an hour. “If we don’t meet our quotas, we get yelled at”, she told Senn. “And then the quotas are piled into the next day”. Eating lunch is difficult because the food “smells bad,” and worse yet, RM said there is only one restroom, with 15 stalls, for 850 women.
[...]
Wages in Vietnam, a key TPP partner, are even lower than Indonesia. Nike’s largest production center is in Vietnam where 330,000 mostly young women workers with no legal rights earn just 48 to 69 cents an hour, according to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (IGLHR).
[...]
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership will lead to a global race to the bottom (with Photo)
by Rose Aguilar, theguardian.com -- 8 May 2015
THAT, is what a Global Race to the Bottom looks like.
And those right-less workers, working for pennies an hour, in sweat shop conditions -- are THEY the Winners?
Hell No! Not if you care about worker dignity, and the value of human life. And just common everyday fairness.
NO, you see it's the Corporations who outsource our American Jobs, to the lowest, most desperate workers ... WHO are the Winners of this inhumane Global Race.
Because God-knows, that's what the world needs -- is more "ridiculously rich" Millionaires and Billionaires.
Cuz there is such a shortage of them, don't you know.
And if you're not a Millionaire yet -- Then it's your own Damn Fault!
Especially in this about-to-be-even-more-flattened world of those unlimited "Global Opportunities" ... Giddy Up!