Disney sweatshops alleged
Anti-sweatshop advocacy group charges that workers make books under oppressive conditions.

http://cnnmoney.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Group+alleges+unsafe+conditions+in+Disney+fa ctories+in+China+-+Aug.+18%2C+2005&expire=&urlID=15192875&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2F2005%2F08%2F18%2F news%2Finternational%2Fdisney_china%2Findex.htm%3F cnn%3Dyes&partnerID=2200

I found a finger in a recently-purchased Disney children's book, so I think this is very true.

;)

An American's sweat shop is a third-world resident's dream job. Many desperately poor people have lost their jobs, and only possible source of income, because of American do-gooders protesting "sweat shop" conditions.

I'm not an expert on the National Labor Committee, but they've gone after Disney before. I'm suspicious that they go after Disney because they know it will get headlines. I'm also suspicious that the company is affiliated with labor unions who are losing many members due to overseas competition.

An American's sweat shop is a third-world resident's dream job.

I'm sure that's the same justification American CEOs use every day as well.

I'm sure that's the same justification American CEOs use every day as well.

Actually, I think their justification would be "cheap labor = higher profits". Also on their list would be avoiding environmental laws, labor unions, and taxes.

This is yet another contraversial subject clouded by special interest groups. I applaud efforts to improve working conditions, but not at the expense of eliminating jobs for people who would otherwise have absolutely, positively nothing.

I applaud efforts to improve working conditions, but not at the expense of eliminating jobs for people who would otherwise have absolutely, positively nothing.

Here, here!

Actually, I think their justification would be "cheap labor = higher profits". Also on their list would be avoiding environmental laws, labor unions, and taxes.

This is yet another contraversial subject clouded by special interest groups. I applaud efforts to improve working conditions, but not at the expense of eliminating jobs for people who would otherwise have absolutely, positively nothing.

Apparently you have a serious problem with American workers having jobs, but feel perfectly justified in their jobs being sent to nations where American labor laws aren't enforced. I guess we know where your loyalties lie.

Apparently you have a serious problem with American workers having jobs, but feel perfectly justified in their jobs being sent to nations where American labor laws aren't enforced. I guess we know where your loyalties lie.

Alright. Lets keep all the jobs here in America where employers have to pay foolish amounts of money for simple tasks. For example... making Oregon's $7.30 minimum wage for flipping burgers at McDonalds.

The cost of all products goes up. You now have to pay 15 dollars for a toothbrush. Well, that makes the cost of living go up. So our "helpful" unions picket for higher wages and get the minimum wage raised up to the necessary $30.00 dollars an hour (for flipping burgers, let's remember!). Then most companies in America go bankrupt because they cannot afford to pay their workers because everyone buys the cheaper foreign made products that they can afford.

But of course! America's private companies have no right finding workers wherever they find suitable. Please! Because let's remember... the point of business is not to make a profit, but to better mankind!
:rolleyes:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Pirate_Girl_KC/Capitalsim.gif

Take it easy PapiBear. I take exceptions to your accusations which are certainly not "obvious".

I try very hard to find facts among the spin. No matter where one's loyalties lie concerning labor unions or "globalization", here are a points which I believe to be factual:

- US labor unions are losing members, losing money and losing power. They are desperate to regain all three. Criticizing foreign labor is a good method for doing so. Whether or not this method is justified can be debated.

- US companies who send their manufacturing overseas can produce products at a *significantly* lower cost. Some of this cost reduction is passed on to American consumers who buy lots of these products at lower prices. Whether this is the right thing to do can be debated.

- The vast majority of our planet's population live in absolute, maddening squalor with little or no opportunity to improve their lives. When a US company builds a factory near them, they can get a job and make money which, no matter how low the wages, is a far cry from absolutely nothing. Typically, these people don't mind if they are making basketballs while sitting on the factory floor. Whether these workers have "proper" conditions and "acceptable" wages can be debated.

- Many Americans are out of work or are working for lower wages because their jobs were shipped overseas. Their job was shipped overseas because, otherwise, the company would have folded under foreign competition or just wanted larger profit margins. Whether companies should do this can be debated.

- Much of the anti-globalization effort is backed by US labor unions. We can now watch TV news and see a story about the terrible effects of overseas manufacturing followed by a story about the terrible poverty overseas. What solutions might be best can be debated.

It's very easy for an organization to accuse Disney of operating a sweat shop, garner headlines, and further their cause with no attention to the real, more complex situation. This is my point. Please don't assume otherwise.

Alright. Lets keep all the jobs here in America where employers have to pay foolish amounts of money for simple tasks. For example... making Oregon's $7.30 minimum wage for flipping burgers at McDonalds.

The cost of all products goes up. You now have to pay 15 dollars for a toothbrush. Well, that makes the cost of living go up. So our "helpful" unions picket for higher wages and get the minimum wage raised up to the necessary $30.00 dollars an hour (for flipping burgers, let's remember!). Then most companies in America go bankrupt because they cannot afford to pay their workers because everyone buys the cheaper foreign made products that they can afford.

But of course! America's private companies have no right finding workers wherever they find suitable. Please! Because let's remember... the point of business is not to make a profit, but to better mankind!
:rolleyes:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Pirate_Girl_KC/Capitalsim.gif

Pirate Girl, you are wise beyond your years. :)

You now have to pay 15 dollars for a toothbrush.


Where are you shopping? Yes, unions have gone overboard and can wield too much power in today's world, but I think you downplay the great good they have done. They were formed because they were needed. All you have to do is study the industrialization of America. I have worked in a unionless factory and I have seen corporate heartlessness and greed first-hand. It is beyond ugly, it is downright wicked. Without checks and balances people (including children) are literally treated like garbage. Capatalism is not a license to make money at any cost.

I was a member of the Teamsters union and have seen the same greed and heartlessness firsthand. Only, I am talking about the greed and heartlessness of the union. In their negotiations with UPS back in 1999, they sold their members short to line their own pockets, and their members were too "loyal" to the union to see it.

No US market if nobody's making any money except you.

Hey, you have money, I think I'll just take from you and use you to enrich myself. Don't complain, it's the American way. *BANG* Quit crying, it's capitalism. Kiss my boots.

Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake". What happened to her, anyway?

In their negotiations with UPS back in 1999, they sold their members short to line their own pockets, and their members were too "loyal" to the union to see it.According to numbers released after the UPS strike, drivers would need to work 6 years under the new contract / wages to earn back the money they lost during the strike.

It's 2005. I guess my driver is finally seeing that "raise" he got in 1999.

AVP

Take it easy PapiBear. I take exceptions to your accusations which are certainly not "obvious".

You go right ahead and take exception to them. They may not be obvious to you, but they're obvious to me.

I try very hard to find facts among the spin. No matter where one's loyalties lie concerning labor unions or "globalization", here are a points which I believe to be factual:

- US labor unions are losing members, losing money and losing power. They are desperate to regain all three. Criticizing foreign labor is a good method for doing so. Whether or not this method is justified can be debated.

- US companies who send their manufacturing overseas can produce products at a *significantly* lower cost. Some of this cost reduction is passed on to American consumers who buy lots of these products at lower prices. Whether this is the right thing to do can be debated.

- The vast majority of our planet's population live in absolute, maddening squalor with little or no opportunity to improve their lives. When a US company builds a factory near them, they can get a job and make money which, no matter how low the wages, is a far cry from absolutely nothing. Typically, these people don't mind if they are making basketballs while sitting on the factory floor. Whether these workers have "proper" conditions and "acceptable" wages can be debated.

- Many Americans are out of work or are working for lower wages because their jobs were shipped overseas. Their job was shipped overseas because, otherwise, the company would have folded under foreign competition or just wanted larger profit margins. Whether companies should do this can be debated.

- Much of the anti-globalization effort is backed by US labor unions. We can now watch TV news and see a story about the terrible effects of overseas manufacturing followed by a story about the terrible poverty overseas. What solutions might be best can be debated.

It's very easy for an organization to accuse Disney of operating a sweat shop, garner headlines, and further their cause with no attention to the real, more complex situation. This is my point. Please don't assume otherwise.

You obviously don't try hard enough. Have you seen how overextended most American families are today? Do you know what the average debt burden of the American citizen is today? You do realize that most working families don't make six figures, right? You do realize that not everyone is an employer or an investor, right? You do realize that it takes two to tango, right?

Oh, "it can be debated". ANYTHING can be debated. Once debated, though, you just cling to your tired old party line. You defend the actions of companies that ship jobs overseas because they clearly DO want larger profit margins. If you're an investor in those companies, it would make sense why you'd want them to have lower labor costs - it benefits your bank account just as it does the company's. There's nothing wrong with profit, but when a few profit hugely while the people that helped make them profitable in the first place struggle to make ends meet, I do have a problem. Smart employers and non-greedy CEOs share the wealth of a company with the workers (Kingston Technology is a perfect case in point), while small-minded, selfish CEOs and boards don't give a whit about the people they employ.

I'm not saying that many of the unions haven't also gotten greedy over the years - many clearly have and that isn't right either - but the balance between labor and management has to be made, and when it goes too far in either direction, you have conflict.

These days, the issue of foreign labor isn't just manual labor. Even "brain labor", i.e., tech & accounting jobs, are exiting the US for foreign shores, namely India, China, Malaysia, and the Phillippines. Why pay six figures for a Silicon Valley programmer or a systems analyst when we can get the same results for a 1/4 of the expense? The ideal capitalist is one guy with a machine that does everything for him, or a huge staff of robots that never need to be paid, so he can get all the profit. In an era when the cockamamie notion of "providing jobs" is used as a political bargaining chip, you'd better believe that satisfying the needs of the working masses is important and needs to be heeded.

And then you wonder why crime rates increase. Less poverty, less crime. You ever been homeless before? Ever been desperate to find work? Ever been in a welfare office? Ever felt panicked because of your lack of economic acumen? You sit there touting the praises of people who'd just as soon gut you like a fish if it made them a dollar, and you smugly look down your nose on anyone who questions the only economic philosophy you've ever known.

How about encouraging retraining for workers who've lost their jobs, or providing them with education and start-up funds for their own businesses, so that they're owners of their own corporations and can thus act like capitalists as well (encouraging competition? you betcha, because that's what keeps capitalism from going stagnant).

Otherwise you're going to have 99% of the wealth owned by 3 supermegacorps in the world, and billions of poor people eager to bring the house of cards crashing down. And then what will you do? Chuckle like Goofy and yawp about you're "go'n ree-beeyuld"?

PapiBear, it's "OBVIOUS" that you didn't read what I wrote but rather chose to read into what I wrote. Sorry, I can't debate with someone who's mind is made up and won't be "confused" with facts.

By the way, while Marie Antoinette wasn't a exactly a compassionate person, she never actually said, "Let them eat cake". That's an urban legend. Also, nothing I actually wrote suggests a "Let them eat cake" attitude. I am by no means a wealthy aristocrat.

Unfortuantely, labor unions are now fighting for the "good of the union", not necessarily the good of its members.
They have come to be like our government, more worried about their administration than the people they represent.

When job security depends on one's time in the union, not how well one does one's job, production and cost effectiveness suffers.
If unions wish to survive, they will need to view the companies as partners, not an adversaries.
The "good of the employee" needs to also benefit the company.

At this point, I'm afraid that bridge has been burned.

:) Whoops...

According to numbers released after the UPS strike, drivers would need to work 6 years under the new contract / wages to earn back the money they lost during the strike.

It's 2005. I guess my driver is finally seeing that "raise" he got in 1999.

AVP

Yes. And wages are only part of it. Employees got hosed on benefits. UPS missed a valuable opportunity to send a letter home to all employees in the following years detailing what they receivied in wages and benefits under the union negotiated plan vs. what they would have received under UPS's offer to the union. If anyone is interested in an insider account, I would be happy to post it. Before the strike, I worked as a part-time employee and union member in the package operation. Shortly before the strike, I moved to the IT department which had the unique situation of being non-management and non-union. Not long after the strike, I moved to a management position in consulting and logistics. I think I have an interesting point of view that was particularly unbiased at the time because I was truly not a member of the union or the management. However, having been on both sides of the picture, I have insdie knowledge of what was going on.