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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEditorial: The Trans-Pacific Partnership will lead to a global race to the bottom
The trade deal will lead to offshored American jobs, a widened income inequality gap and increased number of people making slave wages overseas
By Rose Aguilar - Friday 8 May 2015 07.30 EDT
At a time when economic inequality around the globe continues to widen, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will only make things worse. Unlike what President Obama claims, the agreement will only encourage a race to the bottom, in which a small percentage of people get ridiculously rich while most workers around the globe stay miserably poor. We cant let that happen.
Today, President Obama is visiting Nikes headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon to garner support for the trade deal, which would be signed by the US and 11 Pacific Rim countries. Thats an apt place for Obama to beat the free-trade drum Nike, like the TPP, is associated with offshoring American jobs, widening the income inequality gap, and increasing the number of people making slave wages overseas. Since the passage of NAFTA in 1993, weve seen the loss of nearly five million US manufacturing jobs, the closure of more than 57,000 factories, and stagnant wages. This deal wont be any different.
In November, Zachary Senn, a college student reporter at the Modesto Bee, spent three weeks in Indonesia living with and interviewing workers who make goods for Nike, Adidas, Puma and Converse. When you hear Obama talking about those high-quality jobs, think of RM, a 32-year-old mother who told Senn that she works 55 hours, six days a week and makes just $184 a month after 12 years at the PT Nikomas factory, a Nike subcontractor that employs 25,000 people. Thats 83 cents an hour or $2,208 a year.
~Snip~
Wages in Vietnam, a key TPP partner, are even lower than Indonesia. Nikes largest production center is in Vietnam where 330,000 mostly young women workers with no legal rights earn just 48 to 69 cents an hour, according to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (IGLHR).
Full editorial:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/08/the-trans-pacific-partnership-will-lead-to-a-global-race-to-the-bottom
Divernan
(15,480 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)The easy answer is because almost all manufacturors are overseas already which leaves us nothing to buy that's made in America. No one said it would be easy, even New Balance only makes 25% of their shoes here! Things are building to a head because the 1% do not know when to stop.
lark
(23,105 posts)but not enough. I haven't bought Nikes in 20 years. We need to change the laws so company's get fined for every single job they make overseas and get taxed on the profits from overseas. That's the only thing that will stop this offshoring. Well, that and no TPP and rescind NAFTA.
Obama is not pro America worker. You don't see him pushing for a minimum wage increase the way he's pushing TPP. He knows what his priorities are, and they aren't for the American worker, far from it.
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)Hillary would owe the same thing. Sure they will throw us a few bones on the social issues, but on the economic issues it is the 1% all the way. Bernie is the only one looking out for the People, the rest are just looking out for number 1!!!
lark
(23,105 posts)I look forward to voting for him in the primary and hope he's the general election candidate as well.
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)how people can say he is a fringe candidate for his views. The "socialist" will scare all of the low information voters away, but if people get to hear him I know he will touch a nerve!