Roundtable Discussion on Labor

So, did you read the article in the New York Times about how, if China joins the WTO, the labor conditions probably wouldn't worsen noticeably? It was an article about a worker in a shoe factory, manufacturing shoes he could not afford to buy, who had suffered severe health complications as a result of inhaling fumes from glue used in the factory.

No, I didn't. I haven't been reading the news much lately. Maybe the factories will have the luxury to hire more armed thugs under the WTO.

I'll have to look it up in the NYT, but I did hear part of a radio program about Chinese labor rates and conditions on WILL (what a time for my batteries to all go dead...) The program was talking about how shoe factory laborers and people sewing clothes and making Huffy brand bicycles are living in tiny dormitories, in fenced-in bunks. They earn roughly 25 cents an hour, compared with the $8 or more that the Ohio workers for Huffy earned. Now, the cost of living is lower in China, so there will be wage arbritage luring jobs overseas even if the Chinese laborers were being paid fairly for their location. But the thing IS, they aren't being paid fairly. Fact is, a living wage in China has been estimated to be around 87 cents an hour - more than three times what these women (and yes, they are women) are being paid. Think about that for a minute. That means that someone has decided that the difference between $8.?? and 87 cents isn't enough - no, they need to push the wages in China down as far as they can. In addition, companies like Disney (paying around 33 cents an hour) are violating labor laws all over the place - not American labor laws, mind you, but local Chinese labor laws. Do a search on "Disney", "labor", and "China", sit back, and be horrified. It's a cruel world after all... Why does this happen? Those calling the shots would have you believe that all this nastiness benefits the consumer - keeping costs down lets you have the shoes for cheaper. But if that's true, why the hell are Nikes going for $100 or more? Why, because they charge what the market will bear, and Nike makes out like bandits.

It's a world of sweatshops, a world of fear Making toys for pennies, year after year We can't organize at all For then profits would fall I t's a cruel world after all! It's a cruel world after all, It's a cruel world after all, It's a cruel world after all It's an unfair world... We wonder where it's at A world that's so far away When it's here on our doorstep Where the corporations hold sway Why bother with freedom If you're not willing to say What's on your mind On the issues of the day Just stand aside And watch the world go down the drain Don't blame someone else When it's only you to blame Always waiting for someone else To lead the charge at the barricades

Over 117 margaritas, I discussed fascism with a woman named Chris. I told her that I didn't think fascism would take the form of "a bunch of brownshirted thugs trashed my store last night", but more in the form of "I didn't get a raise. My company laid off 10,000 employees last week." It is not governments who will rule (I fear) but multinational conglomerates.

There has been a rise in the number of temporary agencies in this country. They traffic in labor, which allows factories to get around safety standards, labor laws, and having to pay a living wage. Local factories start people out in horrible jobs for $6.50 an hour, no benefits. People turn to temp agencies to get jobs since they have to get off welfare, and the jobs keep them in poverty.

Manpower is now the number one employer in the United States. Everyone is supposed to be "flexible," hiring on and being laid off at at the whim of management. I suppose it's the "invisible hand" that uproots people from communities, shuffles them around so that they have no hope of actually belonging anywhere unless they buck the system. Even those with the good jobs are supposed to constantly move around, to hop from one McMansion to another, from one good mark on the resume to another, for more and more money, to impress to others in their situation that they have more and more money, more and more status, but for what, exactly? Refuse to do that, and all of a sudden you "have no ambition." Never mind that you might just have plans for your life outside of what you happen to do to pay the bills, never mind that what's important just might not be something that officially counts in the market economy... that's heresy, these days.

It's the "C" word... community. The corporations and their lackeys have to keep people in motion, to keep them subservient, to keep them atomized, to prevent the formation of any expression of mutual interest among the powerless, in order to ensure the continued rule of those with purely selfish motives. That is why the creation of autonomous, community-based organizations is the beginning of the revolution -- it facilitates the expression of the true will of the people, rather than the stage-managed marketing of corporate interests as public policy.

And that's the way it is.