One of the most egregious contradictions of the modern world is the fact that workers in developing nations, especially women workers, whose labor feeds and clothes the developed world do not earn enough money to adequately feed, cloth, house, or educate their own children.
The good news is that a civic revolution to correct this global injustice is underway.
“The US is currently at war and, simultaneously, at another historical crossroad of domestic policy that will not only undermine the economic life of working people, but will tax the social and political institutions of the nation at large. The stakes of the unfolding US strategy to exploit millions of Mexican and Central American laborers as transient servants through a national guest worker program are staggering.”
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Prevailing neoliberal economic policies allow transnational corporations to use international borders to capture labor markets and control the migration of labor, enabling big capital to pit the workers of one nation against those of another — a zero-sum game for all working people. This fundamental predicament of labor in the modern world, which is creating historic levels of inequality, can only be contested by linking the demand for the free movement of labor to the established practices of free trade. The North American Free Movement of Citizens (FMC) Agreement voices the demand for recognizing the free movement of labor in the territories of the NAFTA signatory nations.
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Transient Servitude Update: The Continuing Efforts to Establish a US Guest Worker Program — Comment
Thursday, July 8th, 2010Since the end of the 20th century, the neoliberal sector of US capitalism has relentlessly pursued the establishment of a national guest worker program to import cheap labor from the Global South [especially Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean]. The failure of the US Congress to implement comprehensive immigration reform that includes provisions for a guest worker program has not derailed capital’s initiative. The purpose of Transient Servitude Update is to bring Transient Servitude: The US Guest Worker Program for Exploiting Mexican and Central American Workers (Monthly Review, January 2007) up to date by presenting timely analysis of the important developments of this critical issue that will shape the future of all labor in the 21st century.
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Tags: anti-immigratant reaction, CIR ASAP, comprehensive immigration reform, Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity, guest worker programs, managed migration, Partnership for a New American Economy, SB 1070, Transient servitude, transient servitude update
Posted in Comment on Articles, free trade labor, managed labor mobility programs, onshoring foreign labor | 1 Comment »