From An Organic Farmer's Perspective: Globalization Needs Rules

[nosmokes]

A very good read on the corporate power grab known as globalization/free trade whatever the nom du guerre de jour happens to be. and the sad thing is, in the overall scheme of things those of us in the west are doing pretty well.-joe
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original-organic consumersassociation

From An Organic Farmer's Perspective: Globalization Needs Rules

* By Jim Goodman
Jan 11, 2007

Note: Jim Goodman is an organic farmer in Wisconsin and a member of the Policy Advisory Board of the Organic Consumers Association

Globalization needs to have rules.


Perhaps you have noticed? Lots of US auto workers lost their jobs in 2006, lots of workers in other industries as well, farmers, well we don't expect much anymore and even high-tech workers are feeling the pinch. The minimum wage hasn't gone up since 1997 and according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently 6.8 million unemployed (over 8 million if you count those who have given up trying to find a job). Am I missing something here? I thought that globalization and the founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 was supposed to raise everyones ship. Instead it seems most of us are losing ground.

Auto manufacturing, or more correctly US manufacturing in general, is steadily outsourcing to countries with large, low wage work forces, weak environmental standards and dismal worker safety protections; this is globalization. A job on the assembly line at Ford or GM used to mean a secure future with good pay and benefits, now the pink slip could come at any time.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, advocates of the new globalized economy promised as the economies of the developing world grew they would buy even more US made products (especially after the WTO eradicated tariffs and trade barriers) and everyones income would rise. But instead of sending them cars, we sent them the jobs, they worked cheaper.

Even Henry Ford, a guy who loved a good profit margin, knew he had to pay his workers wages that enabled them to buy the products they were producing. That thinking seems to have been trampled by the globalization bandwagon. Wages stagnate, benefits are cut, blue collar workers and farmers are forced to join the unemployed to collect food stamps.
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complete article here