Editorial: The Trans-Pacific Partnership will lead to a global race to the bottom

[think]

The Trans-Pacific Partnership will lead to a global race to the bottom

The trade deal will lead to offshored American jobs, a widened income inequality gap and increased number of people making slave wages overseas

By Rose Aguilar - Friday 8 May 2015 07.30 EDT

At a time when economic inequality around the globe continues to widen, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will only make things worse. Unlike what President Obama claims, the agreement will only encourage a race to the bottom, in which a small percentage of people get ridiculously rich while most workers around the globe stay miserably poor. We can’t let that happen.

Today, President Obama is visiting Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon to garner support for the trade deal, which would be signed by the US and 11 Pacific Rim countries. That’s an apt place for Obama to beat the free-trade drum – Nike, like the TPP, is associated with offshoring American jobs, widening the income inequality gap, and increasing the number of people making slave wages overseas. Since the passage of NAFTA in 1993, we’ve seen the loss of nearly five million US manufacturing jobs, the closure of more than 57,000 factories, and stagnant wages. This deal won’t be any different.

In November, Zachary Senn, a college student reporter at the Modesto Bee, spent three weeks in Indonesia living with and interviewing workers who make goods for Nike, Adidas, Puma and Converse. When you hear Obama talking about those “high-quality jobs,” think of RM, a 32-year-old mother who told Senn that she works 55 hours, six days a week and makes just $184 a month after 12 years at the PT Nikomas factory, a Nike subcontractor that employs 25,000 people. That’s 83 cents an hour or $2,208 a year.

~Snip~

Wages in Vietnam, a key TPP partner, are even lower than Indonesia. Nike’s largest production center is in Vietnam where 330,000 mostly young women workers with no legal rights earn just 48 to 69 cents an hour, according to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (IGLHR).

Full editorial:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/08/the-trans-pacific-partnership-will-lead-to-a-global-race-to-the-bottom

[Divernan]

1. Can someone explain to Obama that slave labor is immoral?

[cantbeserious]

2. Obama - No Hope - Change That Destroys American Families

eom

[Dustlawyer]

3. I say boycott! Why should we patronize brands that do this?

The easy answer is because almost all manufacturors are overseas already which leaves us nothing to buy that's made in America. No one said it would be easy, even New Balance only makes 25% of their shoes here! Things are building to a head because the 1% do not know when to stop.

[lark]

4. Yep, boycotting is good

but not enough. I haven't bought Nikes in 20 years. We need to change the laws so company's get fined for every single job they make overseas and get taxed on the profits from overseas. That's the only thing that will stop this offshoring. Well, that and no TPP and rescind NAFTA.

Obama is not pro America worker. You don't see him pushing for a minimum wage increase the way he's pushing TPP. He knows what his priorities are, and they aren't for the American worker, far from it.

[Dustlawyer]

5. This is the pay back to Wall Street for getting him in office.

Hillary would owe the same thing. Sure they will throw us a few bones on the social issues, but on the economic issues it is the 1% all the way. Bernie is the only one looking out for the People, the rest are just looking out for number 1!!!

[lark]

6. Bernie is definitely the best person to run for the office president in a long time

I look forward to voting for him in the primary and hope he's the general election candidate as well.

[Dustlawyer]

7. So right! Common sense solutions that would fix what ails us. I don't understand

how people can say he is a fringe candidate for his views. The "socialist" will scare all of the low information voters away, but if people get to hear him I know he will touch a nerve!

[Scuba]

8. Lead to? No, the race has been on since 1981. This is a pit stop to take on fuel.