🚀 go-pugleaf

Neal Atkins (natkins@austin.rr.com) wrote:
: On Fri, 20 Sep 2002 23:25:46 GMT, LESLIE@JRLVAX.HOUSTON.RR.COM (Jerry
: Leslie) wrote:
: 
: >  "...Ford plans to open a major IT hub in Chennai, India on March 29:
: 
: >   o  Ford expects to save $30 million to $60 million per year..."
: >
: >So much for "Buy American".  :-(
: 
: "Look for the union label".  And expect to pay more since the bloated,
: corrupt unions siphon off workers wages to spend on buying liberal
: politicians and lining their pockets.  How much will this save  PER
: CAR?
:

If you're so anti-union, you'll gladly give up all unions have won
for you, paid vacation, medical insurance, no child labor, to show
that you put your money where you mouth is. ;-)

Perhaps you prefer the near-slavery conditions of sweatshops in U.S.-
controlled Saipan...

   http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/saipan0331.html
   ABCNEWS.com :  Forced Labor, Abortions in Saipan

   [snip]

  "Millions Spent to Sway Votes 

   Saipan has spent millions on Washington lobbyists and given top
   Republicans in Congress free trips to the beautiful Pacific island,
   including one over Christmas for House Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

        "You represent everything that is good about what we're trying to
   do in America," he told outgoing Governor Froilan Tenorio, a distant
   cousin of the current governor, at a dinner in Saipan this past New
   Year's eve.

        DeLay and other Republicans have vowed to fight to keep the laws
   the way they are on Saipan."

Abortions must be okay if they enrich corporations. ;-)

DeLay would like to see Saipan's ways of doing business brought here:

   http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/1998-02-19/feature2.html/1/index.html
   Dallas Observer | dallasobserver.com  | News  : Feature

  "...The two Republicans wrote to the islands' governor how "impressed"
   they were with the Marianas' commitment to "advancing the principles
   of free markets, enterprise...tax reform and other innovative
   approaches to governance."
   
   DeLay was so taken with the Saipan way of doing business that when he
   returned from there last month, he suggested the United States emulate
   the way the islands' employers ship in eager Chinese and Filipinos to
   fill low-wage jobs in their garment factories and hotels. He suggested
   the United States institute a similar "guest worker" program "where
   particular companies can bring Mexican workers in" to fill jobs that
   Americans won't take, paid at "whatever wage the market will bear..."

U.S. retailers and sweatshop owners are sued under the RICO Act:

   http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/marianas/saipanupdate_may01.html
   SWEATSHOP WATCH: Saipan Sweatshop   Litigation
                                      
  "...On January 13-14, 1999, three separate lawsuits were filed challenging
   the unlawful sweatshop conditions in the Saipan, CNMI garment
   industry.
   
   The first case, filed in San Francisco state court, was brought by
   Global Exchange, Sweatshop Watch, UNITE, and the Asian Law Caucus
   against 18 U.S. garment retailers - including such companies as The
   Gap, Inc., Target Corp., J.C. Penney, Lane Bryant, and The Limited.
   Plaintiffs charged that all of the defendant companies engaged in
   unfair business practices (a violation of California Business and
   Professions Code �17200) by advertising their garments as being
   "Sweatshop Free," by violating the federal law prohibiting the
   shipment of "hot goods" in interstate commerce, by aiding and abetting
   their Saipan garment factories' violations of the laws against
   involuntary servitude, and by other misleading labeling and
   advertising practices. The case was assigned to San Francisco Superior
   Court Judge Munter.
   
   [snip]
   
   The second case, filed by a class of approximately 25,000 young,
   non-resident garment workers who currently or formerly worked in
   Saipan, has been bouncing among three different courts, and its
   finally resting place has not yet finally been determined. The action
   was originally brought in Los Angeles federal court against 18
   retailers and 11 Saipan-based garment contractors - the factories
   which manufacture the retailers' garments. Plaintiffs alleged that the
   retailers and their Saipan-based contractors engaged in a series of
   unlawful conspiracies in violation of RICO (the Racketeer Influenced
   and Corrupt Organizations Act). Plaintiffs also charged that the
   system of garment production on Saipan violates the Anti-Peonage Act -
   which prohibits the use of forced labor, among other things - and the
   Alien Tort Claims Act - which permits foreign nationals to sue in
   America for violations of generally-accepted human rights..."
   

: 
: >The UK's socialized medicine system has paid to send some patients to 
: >South Africa for surgery to save money.
: 
: Sure it wasn't the CONGO?

Positive. A close friend's niece lives in the UK and is being considered
for surgery in South Africa.

South Africa is where the first human heart transplant was performed.


: >
: >French surgeons have performed surgery on patients in the U.S. via robots.
: 
: NOT EVEN with union money.
: 

Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in Communist China, the darling of U.S. 
corporations:

   http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/FDI/fdi.html
   U.S. investment in china worsens trade Deficit -- 
   U.S. firms build export-oriented production base in China's low-wage,
   -- EPI Briefing Paper
   
  "May 2000     Briefing Paper
   
   U.S. INVESTMENT IN CHINA
   WORSENS TRADE DEFICIT
   U.S. firms build export-oriented production base in China's low-wage,
   low labor-protection economy
   
   [snip]
   
   U.S. firms build export-oriented production base in China 

    Firms from the United States and other industrialized countries
    have invested in China -- and thus expanded its base of
    export-oriented production facilities -- in order to take
    advantage of China's large low-wage and poorly protected
    workforce. China's manufacturing workers are among the world's
    lowest paid, with an average monthly wage of about $60 in 1997
    (ILO 1998). Chinese production workers in U.S. multinational
    firms were the lowest paid of any production workers employed
    by U.S. multinational firms in the world, earning less than a
    dollar an hour in 1994 (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis 1994).
    China's workers also fare poorly when measured against
    international labor standards. The U.S. State Department's
    Human Rights Report 1999 for China states that the right of
    Chinese workers to organize and carry out collective bargaining
    is severely restricted (U.S. Department of State 2000). Among
    other human rights problems, the State Department report
    documents that free and independent trade unions are illegal,
    that there is no legal provision for the right to strike by
    workers, and that "forced labor is a serious problem." The
    United Nations' International Labor Organization is currently
    reviewing a complaint brought by the International
    Confederation of Free Trade Unions against China alleging the
    detention of trade unionists and violations of the right to
    organize (ILO 1998b)..."

Communist China is nirvana to greedy U.S. corporations:

   o 700,000 new engineers per year
   o cheap labor
   o free trade unions are illegal
   o no right to strike
   o forced labor
   o $ 6 billion in funds from the Export-Import Bank

     http://www.exim.gov/country/ebd-y-05.html
     U.S. Exports to The Peoples Republic of China

    "All of Ex-Ims programs are available to finance the sale of U.S. 
     goods and services to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Ex-Im 
     Bank's exposure is approximately $6 billion, the largest of any 
     country in the world..."
   


--Jerry Leslie   (my opinions are strictly my own)
  Note: leslie@jrlvax.houston.rr.com is invalid for email

Globalization: from the same people who brought you Global Crossing & Enron