The USA, along with the rest of world, is facing a series of daunting economic, social, and environmental crises. Only a civic revolution based on the recognition of human rights and responsibilities offers the possibility of a sustainable and democratic future for the nation and the world.
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Royal Dutch Shell’s program to slash 5,000 jobs by the end of 2009, many of them at its US headquarters in Houston, Texas, is the latest example of the impact of neoliberal globalization on working people. Dubbed a “job migration” by Shell, the program will transfer many good-paying corporate white-collar jobs to “shared service centers” in India and the Philippines.
The history of Shell in the USA follows the corporate strategy of what we have called a war of attrition against US labor. Shell moved its US headquarters from New York City to Houston in 1970 at the height of the runaway shop movement in order to exploit cheaper white-collar labor in the US South and is now jumping on the bandwagon of offshoring to the Far East for the same purpose — to increase profitability.
The rationale that Shell offers is that they must “get leaner to compete”, but their latest labor program, dubbed, Transition 2009, though good for the company’s bottom line, exacerbates the economic crisis in the US — every job lost reduces the demand for goods and services and undermines the position of working people even more. This pervasive practice of offshoring is another neoliberal initiative that is as short-sighted as the runaway shop program was.
Until sustainable economic policies replace the opportunistic schemes of neoliberal globalization — the position of working people across the nation will continue to deteriorate. We have listed specific policy changes for meeting the present crisis in the Fighting Back section of “The Fight of Our Lives”.
Hans Bennett’s Neoliberalism Needs Death Squads in Colombia adds an international dimension to From the Left. Bennett’s review of Blood & Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia by Jasmin Hristov provides the background necessary to understand how neoliberal globalization has shaped the political landscape of Colombia.
Incarceration practices in the United States are egregious by any standards, and, although the issue is obscured by pundits and politicians, rigorous political analysis of national prison policy exposes the root of the issue.
The campaign to adopt a US guest worker program that was temporarily defeated in 2007 has been relaunched.
Foundation work for the renewed campaign was started by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security on April 30.
Greenspan reminded the committee members of the contributions that undocumented workers have historically made to the US economy and argued that reform to bring immigration laws “up to date” is urgently needed.
“Up to date” in the present context means that the US should follow the lead of other developed counties around the world by adopting a guest worker program to legally exploit temporary labor from the poor countries in the global South.
What Greenspan is backing is a national guest worker program to legalize and control the importation (and deportation) of workers to meet the needs of US capitalism. He calls it a “flexible” workforce.
The current strategy is to a refinement of what was done to offset the recession of 2001 through a de facto open border policy.
Greenspan did not mention the impact of a national pool of temporary labor on the working people of the US: that is of no consequence for him or the people for whom he speaks.
The fact that a new proposal for a guest worker program has not yet been placed on the table should fool no one–it is being prepared under the table and will appear suddenly when capital is prepared to play its hand.
History has taught us that blitz legislation is just as binding as laws produced through open negotiation.
I will post regular updates on this critical issue as the campaign develops.
The current motto “Speak Truth to Power” is an oxymoron. History shows us that the only truth that the ruling class recognizes is power, so we have to learn to speak power to power. Let’s speak truth to our fellow citizens so we can get our act together. Only then will our voices be heard.