Race to the Bottom
By Eric Cromer — Working America Member, Ohio
The new global economy has become a “race to the bottom” to see which nation is capable of producing the greatest quantity of products with the lowest paid workers. As manufactures save dollars with a non-domestic workforce, the American consumer has seen a steady rise in basic costs for housing, education and health care. American employers and corporations are finally paying the price for their poor decisions, with the highest recorded level of workers who are dissatisfied with their jobs. I have to admit, I’m hardly surprised.
Our great nation transformed from a nation of farmers, frontiersmen, trail blazers, and risk takers into the most envied industrial superpower of the globe after World War II. Our soldiers came home from the war to easily find stable work that would last them a lifetime, with unions setting standards in pay, benefits and safety; this security fueled a housing and baby boom. Today many of our soldiers come home to find a foreclosure note on their door and an anemic job market. Should it be of any surprise that a meager 45% of Americans are happy with their current jobs?
While we are all neighbors on a global scale, should our goal as world inhabitants be to see which countries’ workers can be ripped off the worst? Should we sacrifice all the hard earned lessons of social justice of the past so we can buy that item at Wal-Mart so inexpensively? What would be the result if the pictures of the factory workers from whatever nation that made that inexpensive item you where about purchase where put on the box for you to see the conditions they worked in? Would you still buy if you saw a child working not older than your elementary school student with tired eyes and ragged clothes? What would this child say if asked if she was satisfied with her own job?
It is not beyond the ability of American pride and ingenuity to reinvent ourselves again and become the envy of the world once more. For this to happen again, many things need to change. These changes need to run from top to bottom, including changing the idea of what it means to have a successful business model. Corporations need to be held accountable to workers and our communities again.
As I’ve seen in my own life, working people bear the costs of bad management, while the super-rich walk away with all of the wealth we create. I spent 15 loyal years working for General Motors to start on an assembly line, and finished my career being the last group of elected Union Leaders. We had the very sad duty of helping carve out a closing agreement for a plant that had been around since the 1920′s and helped to sustain a vibrant and middle class community for nearly 90 years. Unhappy employees were not to blame for the lack of product planning and development that brought the demise of a once great American icon. But we sure as heck got blamed for it.
I began a new path in my life and recently completed nursing school because the opportunity to work in a factory like the one that closed its doors seemed like an unattainable fantasy. I took pride in manufacturing a product and building something that people could find a use for, but my pride and that of the other workers did not keep the plant open or prevent housing foreclosures.
We cannot continue to let communities of working families die in America. We cannot sit idly by as board members and CEOs decide that the best thing for our country is to fire all of the American workers as they ship our jobs overseas. When employment security returns, and employers are able to show their employees some loyalty again we will start to see a happier workforce. Then there will be people to buy American-made products again.
Right on.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
Welcome to a realization I reached at the age of 23 after being in Florida for 6 months. I am now 60.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.
The ideas from the republicans dominated our politics for 30 years:
the ideas and the outcomes:
deregulation – cause of the banking collapse and subsequent “great Recession”.. we even had a similar breakdown from deregulation in the 80′s.. the Savings and Loan collapse..
free/unbalanced and improperly regulated trade – The cause of the movement of our manufacturing jobs overseas.. the result to our working class was loss of million of manufacturing jobs, the loss of the pension system and employer based retiree healthcare system
—- debt created – approximately 6 trillion due to the trade imblance. We buy their goods, they buy our bonds. The chinse can send anything they want here.. but US cars don’t go there.. the Japanese and Koreans send millions of cars here whikle they import a few thousand each… this is absolutely OUTRAGEOUS… why in the world does our country tolerate this nonsense??!?!?
Taxcuts for the rich… while we were told taxcuts for the rich would create more revenue, the periods of republican control of the government (and 30 years of lower taxrates for the rich)proved this to be a lie…. increases in revenue were the worst in periods when these taxcuts were effective. The truth is, the taxcuts created trillions in debt… Pitifully…the money from these taxcuts was probably used to invest in foreign manufacturing
Military growth : Let’s face the facts, we can’t use an overbloated military to offset private job losses.. all our kids should not be forced to join the military to support their families.. this is an unsustainable trend. The military needs to be BIG ENOUGH to defend our country.. not big enough to take on the entire world at the same time. The republicans have been buying these “patriotic big government military” voters with excess military spending for a long time.. but we can’t afford it.
Nor can we afford to pay for government pensions(military pensions after 20 years?!!?!?) when the private sector workers don’t have pensions or retiree healthcare..
The path that the republicans set us on during the reagan era was based on some ideas that have been proven to be disastrous for our country … even our very security is at risk when our economy goes downhill..
Working people’s wages have been stagnant and their benefits have been destroyed over the last 30 years.. the only gains to the working class came from adding women to the workforce.. I voted for many republicans over this period. I’ve finally learned my lesson, the ideas of the right are the things that caused nearly all of our problems…. even the welfare costs we all pay.. they are due to low wages!!!
Last but not least .. the republicans started an unprovoked war that has cost hundreds of billions.. I can’t hardly believe it when I hear the right intends to regain control of the house in the next election.. Voters need to wake up and see the damage they caused… The democrats are far from perfect, but there is no way any president or congress can fix 30 years of damage in 2 years. Not to mention that Bush economics drove us to the cliff of a second great depression… only the “wasteful” spending programs kept us from going off the cliff…. a year or two of trillion dollar deficits is far better than economic calamity that results from a depression… debts from a collapsed economy would be FAR worse and for a lot longer than what we are now dealing with.
You must sign in or register to post a comment. Registration is free.