Here's a thought: An International Minimum Wage.

With the caveat that those who do not sign will not be traded with.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Anyone that signs on to a NAFTA/CAFTA type "free trade" deal needs to be bound to regulation and a minimum wage.

Fair Trade, not Free Trade.

....

Ending slavery
Child labor laws
The 40-hour work week
Government retirement benefits
Universal healthcare for the elderly

They're all pipe dreanms until enough people decide we need to do something about them.

Those were results of domestic policy.

Trying to install an international minimum wage is ridiculous. The world already looks at us as arrogant imperialists. Think they'll want us to dictate how they pay their workers?

I assume though that some countries would be allowed to go above the international minimum. nevertheless, it would be an immediate hardship on businesses and industry in developing countries. You have to consider the cost of living in individual countries.

Or, as Peter Werbe said Sunday night, "Workers of the world, RELAX !"

Why the hell should we work so hard ?
There's more than enough workers to get the jobs done, and MORE than enough money to pay us ALL a living wage.

That's my .02 cents.

My understanding of international trade agreements is that they are largely made in secret under the umbrella of the WTO. It's also my understanding that these agreements are largely hammered out by corporations who don't want to have a minimum wage.

So, as a first step, we need to either get control of, or eliminate, the WTO.

JMHO.

but I have to wonder about exchange rates and sub-standard economies, not to mention simple implementation of it.

But no one can live on what they want that 'minimum wage' to be.

also it would have to take into account cost-of-living differences between different countries.

... component and the US impose a tariff on the goods that was the difference between what the workers were actually paid (in China?) and some standard minimum wage. That tariff could be credited in some fashion to the actual laborers, but that probably wouldn't be necessary. It'd be sufficient, imho, to deprive the sellers/capitalists of much of the advantage of seeking lower cost labor than could be found in this nation. In my opinion, this is something every nation could do.

In principle, I think people who want to employ Canadians should move to Canada, those who want to employ Mexicans move to Mexico, those who want to employ Americans move to American, and so on. After all, why should an American profit from the labor of Chinese or a Japanese profit from the labor of an American? I'm not all that enthralled by anyone profiting from the labor of others, but we could at least stop folks from profiteering on the relative disadvantages of people laboring within differing economic systems.

What we really need are international workplace rights. Everyone who works a job anywhere should have certain basic rights, including the right to breaks, the right to a safe workplace, and the right to organize. We ought to be using access to our markets as a wedge to force the WTO to adopt a set of international standards, and if they won't, we should withdraw and start a new organization which does the same thing.

Once you achieve these basic rights for workers, they can begin the process of negotiating for a minimum wage themselves.

No possible way to establish a 'value' on labour, so you can't really set a minimum.

Workers' lives can be improved largely through 'national income re-distribution' schemes like social programs, profit capping, safety, income security programs, etc.

In fact it is proven that 'collectivist' approaches work far far better than 'consumer' acquisition based on income levels which generally just decay into some 'neo-Fordism' anyway.

Funny I distinctly remember in the 70s, a UN proposal that instead of giving loans out to 'poor' countries, a common fund be established based on the revenues collected from fees, surcharges, and 'regulated' commodity prices...in that way the price paid for Third World commodities would be MORE reflective of their actual costs (which includes labour)...

But that was shouted down as some commie thing inspite of widespread support--and then in the late 70s even the cartel structure of commodity pricing collapsed and prices plunged and the Third World began to flounder in debt and it's people began to die.