Richard Jernigan -> RE: Made in the U.S.A. (May 24 2020 0:16:23)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH The second point is that Capitalism and globalization, for the most part, have not resulted in exploitation of workers in lesser-developed countries in which US corporations operate. Multinational companies would be exploiting workers in these countries if they paid wages below the national average of the country in question for similar work. There are several studies that demonstrate this is not the case. If the wages received are actually higher than those available in alternative jobs, even if low according to the critics (and reflective of the poverty in the poor countries), it would be hard to make the case that the multinationals are exploiting the workers they are hiring. Several empirical studies confirm that multinational corporations pay what economists call a "wage premium" that exceeds the going rate for alternative but similar work in-country by an average ten percent and sometimes more. A University of Michigan economist has reviewed the available evidence from a number of studies in Bangladeshi export processing zones, in Mexico, in Shanghai, in Indonesia, and in Vietnam, and they overwhelmingly report the existence of such wage premiums. A case can be made that this wage premium has led to domestic manufacturers and producers in these countries raising their wages to meet the competition for workers, a net plus. Nevertheless, multinational corporations cannot raise wages beyond a certain point or they will create an imbalance in the economies of these countries. Bill Points well made, and with which I largely agree. My comment about exploitation was rooted in a couple of personal experiences. The families of both of my parents have been involved in agriculture in south Texas. They got started over a period from shortly after the Civil War to a little after WW II. The scale of their operations expanded greatly in the 20th century as demand for their products boomed. The cotton business is high risk, potentially high profit. Risk from insect plagues was eliminated by chemical warfare, though with serious side effects. To bring a crop to maturity there is heavy investment in insecticides, fertilizer, cultivation, weed suppression and irrigation. The greatest risk now occurs at harvest time. One rain shower after the bolls have opened, but before the cotton is harvested, can cut the value of the crop in half in a few minutes. The cotton is stained, and processing the wetted cotton results in much shorter fibers. It eliminates profit and can result in heavy loss. My personal experience dates from childhood during WW II. Due to a general lack of farm labor the Bracero program was inaugurated to allow temporary importation of Mexican farm workers during seasonal periods of high labor demand. My family imported hundred of workers to pick cotton. The need was urgent and the timing was critical. In the Lower Rio Grande Valley there were many farm working American families. They harvested winter vegetables in Texas, but they didn't work locally in the cotton harvest. In the summer they and many of their wives and children migrated to the northern Midwest to harvest vegetables. In the off season they returned to Texas and subsisted on their savings, on the winter vegetable harvest in Texas and on the rather low payments from the unemployment system. In contrast, the Mexican braceros brought in to harvest cotton were housed in very poorly constructed and essentially unfurnished barracks. They were separated from their families. They were paid a small fraction of the wages earned by the American workers when they moved north every year. They worked in the blazing Texas heat, while the Americans enjoyed the milder summers of Michigan and Wisconsin. Still, after dark, when it cooled off a little with the light breeze from the Gulf of Mexico, the braceros gathered around campfires, cooked flour tortillas on the cut out tops of oil drums, got out their guitars, laughed and sang. At age 8 or 9 I was attracted by the music. I had grown up with Spanish as a second language. I edged a little closer to the campfires, and eventually was accepted. I made some friends. Partly no doubt because I was the grandson or nephew of the Jefe. Even at that age I was quite conscious of the difference between the poverty and hardship of the braceros and the relatively better conditions for their American farm working cousins. Growing up in the rigidly stratified societies of the military and the racist south, I took it for granted, not that the braceros deserved less because of some inherent inferiority, but because that was just the way of the world. Some groups were less fortunate than others. In my early 20s I negotiated bracero arrangements with contractors in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon for one of my uncles. He spoke no Spanish, and was strongly prejudiced against Mexicans. His workers were treated no worse than average, perhaps due to the views of his wife, my mother's sister. Eventually the Bracero program ended in 1964, in part due to the movement led by Cesar Chavez. They worked to unionize and improve the conditions of the migrant farm workers of the West. These people, though migrant, lived in the USA year round. Many were U.S. citizens. The braceros undercut their wages. Since there was no available resident labor, and Mexico was much poorer then, come cotton harvest time Mexicans poured across the Texas border even after the Bracero progam ended. They overwhelmed the Border Patrol. Without the minimal protections of the Bracero program, many were treated worse than before: even worse housing, lower wages, longer hours. One summer during that period a visitor from the northeastern USA and I drove along the edge of a cotton field belonging to one of my uncles. Mexican immigrants were picking cotton in the blazing sun. At each corner of the 200-acre field was a man with a shotgun. The visitor commented on the cruelty of working the laborers at gunpoint. I replied, "The shotguns are not for the pickers. You couldn't keep them away if you tried. The shotguns are to remind the Border Patrol not to cross the property line without a warrant." The Border Patrol didn't bother to swear out warrants. It took longer for them to get from the courthouse to the fields than it took to move the workers. I was in my mid-thirties before I realized how different south Texas was from most of the rest of the USA. According to an interpretation of Bill's definition, the Mexicans were being exploited. They were paid lower wages and subjected to worse working conditions than people doing comparable work in the same country--the USA. From the viewpoint of Chavez' movement they were taking U.S. jobs and undercutting U.S. wages. My extended family were among the first to adopt mechanical cotton harvesters. Though not quite as effective as skilled humans, on balance they were cheaper, and they were legal so you didn't have to rely upon friends at the courthouse. The second experience came when working with the first high tech company in Austin. It was a local startup, a merger of two even smaller outfits. I worked for one of the five founders, so I heard a bit about what went on at the top. The company expanded very rapidly. One year its revenue was $20-million. Two years later it was $100-million. The sudden increase in profit was invested in acquisitions. Among them was a medium size company that manufactured electronic components and subassemblies in the Chicago area. In the 1960s maquiladoras were getting started. These are factories, mainly along Mexico's northern border, where American companies hire Mexicans to make stuff. The majority of the Mexican workers were women. Up to that point there were essentially no factory jobs for Mexican women, in fact there were few jobs of any kind for them. The company that I worked for set up a maquiladora in Nuevo Laredo to make flyback transformers for TV sets. In those days TV set manufacturing was still mainly in the USA. According to Bill's definition the women may or many not have been exploited laborers. They were paid wages above those of the few other Mexican women with jobs--but less than men in factory jobs. It wasn't part of my responsibility, but I knew the American in charge of setting up and running the maquiladora. When he learned of my Border background he began informally consulting with me about how to handle the political situation. None of the company founders, their Austin lawyers, bankers, etc. had applicable experience. I put him in contact with people i knew. Agreements were negotiated and sizable bribes changed hands. I'm not sure when the current anti-bribery laws were passed, but even today they are far less than 100% effective. So how were the Mexican women exploited? They were exploited by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (only a Latin American could name something with such scalding irony), which ruled Mexico for 73 years after the Revolution. We propped up the PRI with our bribes. Dick Reavis, a friend years ago, wrote "Conversations with Moctezuma." In it he compared the PRI to the Aztec Empire. Each ran on a system of tribute. A share of the bribe to the Mayor of Nuevo Laredo went to the Governor of Tamaulipas, a share of that went to the PRI elite. The system went all the way down to the traffic cop on the corner and all the way up to the Presidente de la Repubiica. Like the Chinese Communist Party, the PRI was both an engine of economic progress in some places, and an agent of repression everywhere in the country. By supporting the PRI we were exploiting the Mexicans, in my opinion. So I think Bill is right, according to his definition. My definition is just a little different. RNJ
|
|
|
|