Ending the Stronghold of Globalization
and Upholding Workers’ Rights



Stop. Take a look around.

You see that girl drinking a latte? Notice that guy's new sneakers? What about the last time you called your cell phone company about your bill, and received help from a friendly foreign accent? Chances are, you're encountering the results of unfair labor practices every day—and you probably don't even realize it.


The workers who pick and process those coffee beans—often women and children— are subjected to low wages; discrimination; and sexual, physical and verbal abuse. This violates both regional and international law, but it continues to happen nonetheless. Kenyan coffee workers earn about $12 USD a month, which is the cost of just three lattes made from the very same beans they're picking. Additionally, 60% of the workers on Kenyan coffee plantations are children. Working 10-12 hours a day, like adults twice their age, prevents child workers from getting an education. Because coffee workers of all ages begin working as children, illiteracy persists into adulthood. When female workers were interviewed about labor rights in Guatemala, 84% indicated that they did not know what "labor rights" meant.


It’s not just the female workers in Guatemala, either. Women throughout the Global South—the developing countries located below the Equator—are being exploited at alarming rates, put to work under slave-like conditions in sweatshops from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Globalization occuring through NAFTA and the WTO allows large transnational corporations to violate people in less-developed regions of the world through substandard working conditions. Think we’re safe here in the U.S.? Think again. Sweatshops can be found in some of our nation’s most industrious cities’ garment districts where labor rights violations run rampant. But sweatshops are only the beginning of labor rights violations here at home: some of the worst offenders are American mass-market retail chains that refuse to acknowledge the universal rights of their workers to unionize.

That’s not all globalization is doing to devastate our country’s workers. Outsourcing is stripping our country's workforce of the jobs that at one time were filled by hard-working Americans. But you’re getting a degree, so what do you have to worry about? The truth is that white-collar industries like the ones being offered as majors at universities—such as mechanical and electrical engineering, and computer programming—are now being outsourced to places like the Indus Valley before the Silicon Valley. Even one of those customer service jobs would be great for spending cash while you’re in school… only problem is they’re getting outsourced, too.

Now is the time we have to act. We have to send a message to Washington, D.C. to make them realize that the current policy towards “free trade” is not working. A shift towards bilateral fair trade is a better alternative, and helps us concentrate on creating sustainable work environments that uphold workers’ rights and provide living wages, in addition to keeping a focus on stabilizing local job markets.

One candidate who gets this message loud and clear is Dennis Kucinich—and that’s why we need to elect him for President in 2008.


XO,
Josef