The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #135853 Message #3099932
Posted By: EBarnacle
21-Feb-11 - 04:20 PM
Thread Name: BS: Employer goes overseas to find help
Subject: RE: BS: Employer goes overseas to find help
The key is "for the pay and conditions offered." As long as people follow their immediate pocket interests rather than long term interests, companies like WalMart and, in this case Mickey D's will be able to foist low paid, abusive situations on workers and ship money overseas.
If the working conditions were not abusive or if the employer were willing to pay adequate wages for a true shift differential, they could get employees. A large part of the reason that agricultural workers are needed for "stoop labor" is that the workers are cheaper than the machinery which would replace them in the fields. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that we will end up paying more for "cheap food" and will have fewer filled jobs.
In the case of WalMart, the manufacturing is being shipped overseas. In the case of Mickey D, the workers are coming from overseas and have less knowledge of their rights as workers. Either way, the the money which is not directly needed for subsistence is being shipped overseas.
If you have ever been in the Chinatown, or even at many Chinese restaurants outside cities shortly after closing time, you have seen vans picking up the workers and bringing them home to their [often substandard] dormitories. Most of the workers are getting substandard wages. They are often illegals. Often, they are paying off the Chinese version of coyotes who have imported them to more prosperous countries at exorbitant prices, then kept them prisoners until the money is paid off.
As long as we demand that cost of food be subsidized, the price will be low and the work will be undesireable.
Also, consider that the demonstrations around the world which are taking governments down are partially caused by the fact that we are diverting a significant portion of the acreage which was devoted to grain to growing corn to be converted [uneconomically] to alcohol for fuel.