Creating An Even Economic Field

Submitted by Richard on Sun, 06/04/2008 - 5:52pm

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Creating An Even Economic Playing Field

Foreign countries have the right to economic competition in the global market place – providing that competition is ethical and non-exploitive. Every corporation has the right to out-source manufacture providing that the goods produced are manufactured according to the laws of the country in which the goods are being sold. To do otherwise is non-ethical importation.

Piggy Bank

Every factory worker (every individual) has the right to a minimum standard of living, a safe working environment and the right of non-discrimination. Not only is it non-ethical not to pro actively improve the conditions of the workers who make the products we purchase, it is racist and extremely self serving. It is wealth on the backs of poverty, imperialism at it's worst. The main reason most corporations out-source the manufacture of goods to countries with lower standards of employment, environment protection and corporate control, is profits.

It is not just the multi-national corporations sub-contracting to low wage factories, or the importers who supply the products or the retailers who sell the products; they are trying to make the best profits possible, that's business. Who makes the ultimate determining factor is the consumer. The end user, the person who buys the products they make. Without the consumer, there would be no sweat shops, no exploited children, no grave working conditions in foreign factories. Without the consumer, there would be no polluting factories. It is the consumer who makes the ultimate ethical decision. Do I buy local products that are made under Canadian laws, or do I go with just the price, or the fashion hype, or the glitz and purchase products that are made under standards and working conditions to which I myself would hate to live and work.

Canada must incorporate import laws that guarantee individual rights to the employees who make the products. Yes, the multi-nationals and importers are vigorously lobbying western governments against such a law, it would cut deeply into their profits, -but it would be a just law, a desperately needed law.

A just law that would help ensure the rights and freedoms of people world wide and provide them with a livable wage. A minimum wage is designed to impose a broad and enforceable standard on employers that would guarantee a minimum level of income for unskilled, non-unionized workers. A rate based on “purchasing power parity” or something similar – so as to provide a basic income without unduly discouraging needed investment into developing countries. Minimum wage standards are also designed to stop these workers from trying to undercut each other by agreeing to work for less than someone else.

A needed law that would help level the economic playing field so that Canadian manufacturers could compete and not be forced out of the economic loop. Canada has ratified International Labor Organization Core Conventions, ie: Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, 1948; Equal Remuneration, 1951; Abolition of Forced Labor, 1957; Discrimination (Employment and Occupation), 1958; Worst Forms of Child Labor, 1999.
 

Now it is time to be a true world leader and enshrine these conventions into action and law.
 

Further Resources

NUPGE's. Larry Brown says global bank encourages exploitation of workers.

He says the report is blatantly biased towards business and encourages countries to ignore standards for workers set out by the ILO. “Countries with no minimum wage laws, and no restriction on the number of hours that employees can be induced to work, are ranked highly,” Brown notes.

“This blessing by the World Bank amounts to a reward for countries that do not honor basic ILO standards and it encourages other countries not to adopt minimum wage laws, hours of work standards and other measures to ensure freedom of association and collective bargaining.”

Global Minimum Wage.

..it would work on the basis that American and European firms, who are currently exporting manufacturing orders to China, would retain some of their manufacturing work within their own countries or free trade zones and that this would stem the tide of unemployment in these economies.

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