#Corporations seek to ease regulation on child and slave labor
5272 Dead, 405 since 1/20/09
products-made-with-child-and-slave-labor
We've seen corporations use "free trade" agreements to quietly camouflage
their push for exploitable labor in broader arguments about
globalization. What we haven't seen is corporate special interests openly
push for U.S. regulators to openly allow companies to sell goods made
with child and slave labor...until now.
Check out this report from Inside U.S. Trade (no link- subscription
required) - it's straight from the I Shit You Not File:
Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions
banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or
forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill
sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking
Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)...
These groups are examining the ramifications of the bill's
provisions, especially in light of the bill's requirements that a newly
created office in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually
report to Congress on the volume and value of goods made with child
labor, forced labor or convict labor that have been stopped at the border.
Business sources say this reporting requirement could cause DHS to
more actively seek out imported products made with child labor, forced
labor or convict labor...
One source did expect a push from lobbyists closer to the Finance
Committee markup of the bill, and speculated that U.S. industry groups
and foreign governments could form ad hoc coalitions to help send a
united message.
Those of us pushing for serious trade policy reform have argued for years
that businesses are aiming to create global economic policies that allow
them to troll the world for the most exploitable forms of labor. As
General Electric CEO Jack Welch famously said, corporations want laws
that allow them to "have every plant you own on a barge" - one that can
move from country to country looking for the worst conditions to exploit.
Such an international economic regime would (and now does) allow the
world's worst governments to create artificial comparative economic
advantages through bad/immoral policies.
This is an important concept: Whereas comparative advantage used to be
about natural advantages (ie. one country has optimal soil for grapes,
another country has optimal soil for corn), "free trade" encourages
countries to create comparative advantage through man-made laws. Some
countries, for instance, creates a comparative advantage by letting
factories pollute as much as they want, thus encouraging companies to
move their factories there from other countries where pollution controls
are more serious. Other countries create a comparative advantage by
permitting children to be enslaved, thus encouraging companies operating
in countries with more expensive non-slave labor to shift operations to a
place where they can make products with all but free labor.
David Sirota :: From the I Shit You Not File: Business Aims to Relax Bans
on Products Made with Child & Slave Labor
The way to stop this is for the world's largest economies to establish
basic rules which everyone else will inevitably follow as a price of
admission to those economies' markets. If the United States says
companies cannot sell products in our market made with child slave labor,
most companies will cease making products with child slave labor fearing
the loss of access to our market which would destroy their business.
Of course, that's why business has opposed every effort to put basic
labor, environmental and human rights standards into our international
trade agreements - and why business groups are now preparing to try to
weaken the laws barring products made with child slave labor. They know
that the less rules that exist in the American market, the more cost-
cutting exploitation they can engage in.
That corporations' advocacy for deregulation has now become so brazen
that they are effectively pushing the U.S. government to endorse child
slave labor is predictable. This is what their globalization agenda has
always been all about. The only thing surprising about it is that in a
Washington so overtly dominated by Big Money, it has taken them this long
to be this blatant about their objectives.
--
Slavery: The belief that people can be property
Corporatism: The belief that property can be people.
liberal2
wrote:
And, as I've pointed out before, Warren Buffett is investing in a
Chinese company which will manufacture batteries for a Chinese
electric car to be sold here. He invested in that compaby because they
have a way to cut labor costs to the bone: they only hire migrant
labor, which they house in company dormitories. "Company
dormitories"??? is the the modern, politically correct term for "slave
quarters"?
Phlip
> And, as I've pointed out before, Warren Buffett is investing in a
> Chinese company which will manufacture batteries for a Chinese
> electric car to be sold here. He invested in that compaby because they
> have a way to cut labor costs to the bone: they only hire migrant
> labor, which they house in company dormitories. "Company
> dormitories"??? is the the modern, politically correct term for "slave
> quarters"?
Yup. Exactly the same deal - with the sex slavery & all - that Tom Delay was
supporting, for the Bushies, in the Marianas Islands.
5272 Dead, 405 since 1/20/09
There's a LOT of that in China. The upscale middle class you see so much
on TV is less than 10% of the people in China. A lot of displaced rural
folk make up a huge slave class.
pyjamarama
wrote:
They're talking about your beloved collectivist China, Zepp...
A nation whose totalitarian treatment of it's men, women and children
was implemented by the very same Chairman Mao who Obamanistas think
was a glorious political philosopher!
Jesus H. Christ, the irony (nevermind your hypocrisy) is absolutely
palpable!
liberal2
America's number 1 (as an investor) capitalist, and you miss (ignore?)
the point?
Ohhhh, the irony.
5272 Dead, 405 since 1/20/09
I'm just trying to figure out why pj-boy thinks I'm a fan of China.
Guess he didn't have any real responses to make...
Phlip
> I'm just trying to figure out why pj-boy thinks I'm a fan of China.
Well duh you buy products made with Chinese slave labor every day...
pyjamarama
Who said they weren't capitalist? You saying they're not
authoritarian/collectivist?
You're not too bright, are you?
Dänk 1010011010
It is better described as 'indentured servitude,' where the worker is
not actually owned but is forced to work until his debt is paid off.
In the 18th century, indentured servants worked to pay off the cost of
their passage to America, but the idea was eventually expanded to
include workers in remote locations - e.g., a logging mill - who were
forced into debt by the Company who provided them with lodging and
supplies at highly inflated prices. Workers were always free to
leave, AFTER their debts had been paid off, which was impossible at
Company wages and Company rents.