General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders: 'This is a massive effort to attract cheap labor.’ [View all]AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)Any action that increases the supply of workers relative to the number of jobs available will reduce wages and curtail the ability of unions to organize the workers.
The workers have leverage when the number of jobs available exceeds the number of qualified workers available so that the corporations have to compete for labor by offering higher wages and better benefits.
Without a tight labor market, the unions have little leverage.
One reason the corporations offshore to countries such as China and India is the huge oversupply of cheap labor in those countries. If it weren't for that oversupply of cheap labor, then the corporations would have to listen to worker demands, and it would be much easier to organize the workers.
This is the benefit of the so-called "global economy" to the corporations. This is why tariffs and import quotas are needed to stem the glut of low paid workers due to a surplus of workers in the U.S. competing against a surplus of workers in China and India and dozens of other countries. The term "trade war" is an imaginary object of fear promoted by the multinational corporations to enable them to maintain an environment in which they can maintain a scarcity of jobs within local labor markets.