The Economic Crisis: The Rise of Discrimination Is Breathtaking

from the Working Life blog:




The Economic Crisis: The Rise of Discrimination Is Breathtaking

by Jonathan Tasini
Tuesday 17 of May, 2011


It's bad enough that the global financial crisis has put millions of people out of work and trashed the future of the ranks of workers everywhere. But, let's take a moment to consider an undercurrent of the economic crisis, fanned by fear, stupidity and the relentless drive to cut government (oh, that comes under stupidity so please excuse the redundancy): the rise in all forms of discrimination.

I just read a very sobering just-released report from the International Labour Office, "Equality at work:The continuing challenge". Yeah, it may not be as compelling some declaration by Donald Trump or Michelle Bachmann (since they say something new every time) but it's worth reading...The report points out that a lot of progress is being made around the world combating discrimination of all forms.

But, the economic crisis has set this effort back. Let's start with migrant workers:



There was a time when bad times in one country meant that migrant workers returned home. But, they can't now--because the crisis has swept the globe and there isn't a lot to go home to. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15181

Crops call for very little human attention.

Since the crops are resistant to RoundUp, the farmer can just belch out huge amounts of RoundUp on the fields in a single application, and there is not much call for repeated applications.

This has resulted in tens of thousands of migrant jobs lost, while the American family has more and more moldy and fungus-contaminated foods on their table. People are becoming food intolerant, though they don't understand that their bloating, indigestion, gas, constipation diarrhea etc are related to the huge change in our foods' molecular structure.

Sort of a lose/lose for everyone but the farmers who think they' re succeeding at saving on labor costs, and also, of course, for the monstrous profit margin at Monsanto.

by Subcomandante Marcos:

Migration: The Errant Nightmare

"From the American Rio Grande to the "European" Schengen space, a double contradictory tendency is confirmed. On one side the borders are closed officially to the migration of labor, on the other side entire branches of the economy oscillate between instability and flexibility, which are the most secure means of attracting a foreign labor force" (Alain Morice, Op. Cit.).

With different names, under a judicial differentiation, sharing an equality of misery, the migrants or refugees or displaced of all the world are "foreigners" who are tolerated or rejected. The nightmare of migration, whatever its causes, continues to roll and grow over the planet's surface. The number of people who are accounted for in the statistics of the UN High Commission on Refugees has grown disproportionately from some 2 million in 1975 to 27 million in 1995.

With national borders destroyed ( for merchandise) the globalized market organizes the global economy: research and design of goods and services, as well as their circulation and consumption are thought of in intercontinental terms. For each part of the capitalist process the "new world order" organizes the flow of the labor force, specialized or not, up to where it is necessary. Far from subjecting itself to the "free flow" so clucked-over by neoliberalism, the employment markets are each day determined more by migratory flows. Where skilled workers are concerned, whose numbers are not significance in the context of global migration, the "crossing of brains" represents a great deal in terms of economic power and knowledge. Nevertheless, whether skilled labor, or unskilled labor, the migratory politics of neoliberalism is oriented more towards destabilizing the global labor market than towards stopping immigration.

The Fourth World War, with its process of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganization provokes the displacement of millions of people. Their destiny is to continue to wander, with the nightmare at their side, and to offer to employed workers in different nations a threat to their employment stability, an enemy to hide the image of the boss, and a pretext for giving meaning to the racist nonsense promoted by neoliberalism.

http://www.raptorial.com/Zine/Marcos/Marcos3.html