PART III GLOBALIZATION

Preamble from Belgium

In parts 1 & 2 of this series we first looked at globalization on the macro scale then saw how it affected workers on an individual level before selecting the blue jeans business for scrutiny. In this concluding part we will learn more about Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest single trading company. We will then review the overall situation before going on to explore what other organizations are doing to redress the balance in favor of the majority of the world population.

Wall-Mart in the Global Economy

Wal-Mart has the uncanny knack of knowing the cost price of nearly ever product on earth and uses this as the starting point in their negotiations with sellers. They can get away with this because there are no shortages of companies pursuing them for business. Companies and also the Chinese government seem to have taken the view that Wal-Mart can cover a businesses fixed costs and profits can be taken from their other customers. The problem is that these other customers have to compete with Wal-Mart and want the same low prices. Businesses are willing to deal with Wal-Mart because this is a more effective way of getting their products on shelves from Germany to California than laying out expenditure on an advertising budget. Dealing with Wal-Mart is its own recommendation to other buyers. Often however, meeting production overheads in dealing with Wal-Mart often means taking money out of the workers pockets. This kind of makes you think twice about Sam Walton’s “Made in America” slogan and what “Everyday low prices” actually entails.

Andrew Tsuei, Wal-Mart’s Global Procurement Center MD regards Chinas stable currency; political peace and compliant work force to be as important as price. He added “There may be parts of the world you can buy cheaper but can you get the product on the ship. If the currency constantly fluctuates there is a lot of risk, China has the right mix.” Again international trade favors strong dictatorships.

China has only one trade union, all others are banned and strikes are illegal under China’s brand of communism. Kong Xianghong, the number two party official in Guangdong province acknowledged that low wages, long hours and poor conditions are common in factories doing business with Wal-Mart and other American companies but takes the view that ”It is better than nothing”. Human rights and better conditions are a long ways down the road; the union sees its primary task as seeing that everybody is fed.

On the other hand, Wal-Mart sees itself as a force for good in China, saying that it enforces labor standards and insists companies with which it deals, comply with Chinese law. It insists that workers are paid above the minimum wage; that there are fire extinguishers and fire exits and these all bear a cost. Tsuei added that Wal-Mart employs 100 auditors and in the previous year they suspended 400 suppliers mainly for exceeding overtime levels and permanently banned another 72 companies mainly for employing underage labor. Li Qiang, a labor organizer told that factories are notified in advance of these inspections so that they have time to clean up. A worker can have time sheets claiming she is Miss Lu for the first eight hours of her shift and Miss Wu for the second eight hours. They are also coached what to say if they are asked a question. Giving the wrong (a truthful) answer might result in the factory having to close with the loss of everybody’s jobs. If Wal-Mart really wanted to monitor conditions it could do so with surprise visits and longer inspections but then prices would definitely go up. Wal-Mart likes to be seen to be doing the right thing.

Summing up

In the 12 years following 1980, the US’s top 500 companies increased their assets from $1.18 trillion to $2.68 trillion but over the same period jobs fell from 15.9 million to 11.5 million. Or again, the world’s top 200 companies control 28% of the global economy whilst employing only 1% of the world’s workforce.

And if these developments were not bad enough they are about to get much worse: A new Global Constitution is being written through the organs of NAFTA; GATT; the WTO and now the Multinational Agreement on Investments MAI. They are laying down the laws for a global economy which increasingly allow corporations to go anywhere and do anything they like and prohibit workers and governments that supposedly represent them from doing very much about it. It is a World Law which is applicable to every land but not responsible to any nation or to any group of citizens and you didn’t get to vote for it.

You may take the view that the opportunity is open for everybody to become an entrepreneur so it is wrong to be dog in the manger towards those who made it. If you feel so inclined you may take a risk and open a shop or start a back street garage. And especially if you have put your family home on the line to secure funding for the venture you deserve more of the rewards. Very quickly you realize that the objective of the exercise is not to employ as many people as you can. Perhaps wanting more for less is a human trait, after all isn’t that what the leisure society was all about. What is different now with multinational corporations is that the objective has moved away from making money towards power and control and those at the helm of society not only want more for themselves; after taking your assets and redistributing them to themselves, they want you to have less. For the time being, at least, they still need you as consumers.

What Can be Done?

There is a faint glimmer of hope in that half light of dawn before the sun comes over the horizon. Increasingly, working people are realizing that the globalization of the economy has linked their interests to those of workers in other countries. Workers are beginning to understand that that jobs will not be secure and wages will not rise if corporations are able to exploit foreign workers living under dictatorships and unable to stand up for themselves. This is why more sectors of the trade union movement are building alliances with worker organizations around the world. At the beginning of July 2008, the US union ’‘United Steelworkers’ and the UK union ‘Unite the Union’ merged to form the first link in the proposed global union ‘Workers Uniting’. USW President Leo W. Gerard said “This union is crucial for challenging the power of global capital. Globalization has given financiers license to exploit workers in developing countries at the expense of our members in the developed world. Only global solidarity among workers can overcome this sort of global exploitation wherever it occurs.” This is not just a paper alliance it is a real merger”. This merger is the major step which must be first established but with the US Dollar tanking and jobs likely to follow it down the drain it may be considered by some to be forging a bridge to a sinking ship. Only time will tell. Further links are proposed with worker organizations in many lands. Next under discussion is a bonding with Poland’s Solidarity.

Can international worker solidarity be effective? In December 2007, workers at Danone’s Minster, Ohio yogurt plant successfully unionized. This success was assisted by international support from other unions representing Danone workers worldwide throughout the IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers). It presents an unusual case of an US Union using grassroots organizing tactics together with a carefully pre-planned and coordinated demonstration of international union solidarity. This combination was able to deter the severe violations of worker rights that take place in most private sector organizing drives in the USA. “The Ohio workers primary issues concerned health and safety; retirement and job constancy and stability” said John Price a Union International Representative, “but what it always comes down to is the dignity, justice and respect for workers.”

You can gift wrap words like unionization, worker solidarity, fraternity, any way you wish but what it comes down to is the veiled or unveiled threat of strike action – a Union exists for no other purpose than to hurt company profits more than loss of wages hurts the workers. One can follow the logic of the international labor movement but it will take a real leap of imagination for US workers to strike in support of wage and condition improvements of Mexican workers who now have their jobs.

One downside is that some at least, remember the 60’s and early 70’s when the power pendulum swung towards the unions. Workers would strike as a first measure of communicating their dissatisfaction to management. Strike first then negotiate afterwards was the motto of the day and Union bosses conducted themselves like mini Mafiosi. If International unionism is to work, then we must be prepared to put the Winter of Discontent behind us and worker representatives must conduct themselves with respectability, dignity and all the guile of their company counterparts.

There are many other organizations working for a more just world society. I will mention just two here; the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) who are conducting a relentless drive to abolish corporate person-hood.

Again the problem is not recognizing the problem but having the muscle to do something about it. If Wall Street wants to cut down an old wood forest, they are not going to discuss the finer points of the deal with Friends of the Earth unless they are made to.

Two US Politicians, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D Ohio) and Rep. Mike Michaud (D Maine) have introduced the Trade Reform Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act on 4 June 2008, that has more than 50 House and Senate co-sponsors. The TRADE Act requires a review of all existing trade pacts including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); the World Trade Organization (WTO) and others. It sets forth what must and must not be included in future trade pacts and calls for the renegotiation of all existing agreements. It describes the key elements of a new trade negotiating and approval mechanism to replace Fast Track that would enhance Congress’ role in the formative aspects of agreements and promote future deals that could enjoy broad support among the American public. One can but hope!

We come to the question of whether the little guy with a one or two man bandwagon can make the big guys fall. I really don’t know if this is possible but Brian Gerrish is one guy who is asking questions that are making many others very uncomfortable. I alluded to his campaign against the organization Common Purpose in a comment in the last post. Nobody is quite sure what Common Purpose actually is but serious people are throwing serious money at it. One thing it does is offer management training schemes which are disguised ‘correct thinking schemes’ where future leaders (persuasive correct thinkers) are trained for rolls throughout all levels of society. The inference, though not directly stated is that this is Europe’s answer to the United States of Europe Constitution being rejected at the ballot box. It is obvious Brian has never attended one of these courses because what his laid back style lacks in dynamism it makes up for in content. Before anybody jumps on my back, it is an hour and a half lecture and meant to be so. The video can be streamed at:

http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/5706/Common_Purpose_NWO_Fifth_Column_Brian_Gerrish

and is well worth a watch.

A recent disturbing aspect in the overall world picture of events is the reported ousting of the Neo-Conservatives by the Trilateral Commission for control of the US White House. This makes the whole world picture greatly more unstable. Any negotiations made whilst these people are sitting in the background will be like sitting down to play poker but with your own hand dealt face up on the table. Have we done too little a little too late?

Much of power is about need. For the moment they need us a lot more than we need them but it will come down to timing and who has the better overall strategy. It will take a grass roots Tank Man movement to win the day; or as Howard Beale said “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more”. In the meantime it is worth remembering that the purchase choices we make have real consequences. Choosing not to shop at your favorite big box store may cause Chinese workers to loose the little they already have but in any war there are going to be casualties and some of them may be on your own side.

Sources

Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart’s Low Prices:

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22507-2004Feb7?language=printer

Workers Uniting

The First Global Trade Union:

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/workers-uniting-the-first-global-union/

Danone Workers Unionise:

Labour is not a Commodity

http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/international_labor_right/2008/01/dannon-workers.html

Women are now equal victims of a poor economy:

New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/business/22jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom:

Abolish Corporate Personhood

http://www.wilpf.org/CPOWER_abolish?style=larger

Public Citizen

Global Trade Watch The TRADE Act 2008

http://www.citizen.org/trade/

Tibet Will be Free

http://blog.studentsforafreetibet.org/2007/02/07/china-blue/

Trilateral Commission takes over White House

Webster G Tarpley:

http://www.rense.com/general82/uspol.htm

The Tank Man – Video:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/view/

Howard Beale “I’m as mad as hell” clip

From the film “Network”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew