Murder, Inequality, Corporate Profits, and Free Trade Go Together

[marmar]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/murder-inequality-corporate-profits-and-free-trade-go-together.html


from Naked Capitalism:



Murder, Inequality, Corporate Profits, and Free Trade Go Together


Here’s the President on Sunday on a new trade deal with Colombia.

Obama says US trade deal with Colombia has strong protections for workers and the environment….

“It’s not a race to the bottom, but rather it says each country is abiding by everything from strong rules around labor and the environment to intellectual property protection. And so I have confidence that as we implement this plan, what we’re going to see is extraordinary opportunities for both U.S. and Colombian businesses.”

Here’s the AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka’s mild and private (subsequently leaked) objection to the trade agreement.

Mr. Trumka noted that many Colombian employers continued to subcontract work in what he said was an illegal strategy to block unionization. He wrote that after municipal workers in the city of Jamundí began a unionization effort in January, the city fired 43 workers, two union leaders received threats, and one activist, Miguel Mallama, “was gunned down in the streets on March 25.”

And here’s the reality, as seen by leaders on the ground.

“The United States was talking about how our situation has gotten better,” Cambindo, who visited Washington last week to voice his opposition to the deal, told HuffPost through a translator (video below). “But that’s not true. Our situation continues to be bad, and it’s getting worse.”

Colombia remains by far the world’s most dangerous country for union leaders and members. Nearly 3,000 activists have been murdered there in the last 25 years, with convictions resulting in a paltry 6 percent of the cases.

Finally, this is the macro picture, a graph of corporate profits mapped against net exports. The core relationship is the arbitrage of labor costs by the threat of offshoring. The Colombia FTA, which is supported by both Obama and Romney, is simply continuity with this framework.



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[Zalatix]

1. Stupid free traders. They're destroying America's entire working class.

We'll be like Colombia before it's all over with.

[OhioChick]

4. +1000 n/t

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt

[applegrove]

3. Trade stops wars between countries (I quote Toby of the West Wing on that). You can trade and

then tax the winners to make the country more equal. That is what the US did in the 20th century.

[Zalatix]

5. Then the winners leave your country and what do you have left?