From the Left -- Blog

Women Workers: Bearing the Brunt of Neoliberal Globalization

rdvogel — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:09:05 +0000

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.

Read the essay and comment.

Globalization, Contractual Employment, and the Decline of Labor Unions — Comment

rdvogel — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:25:13 +0000

Globalization, Contractual Employment, and the Decline of Labor Unions by Bernard Joseph Esposo Guerrero is another valuable contribution to FTL. Understanding the problems faced by labor unions in the developing world is essential to developing international labor solidarity.

Read the entire essay and offer your feedback so we can begin to move forward.

Politics, Globalization, and Food Crisis Discourse — Comment

rdvogel — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:13:09 +0000

Politics, Globalization, and Food Crisis Discourse by
Bernard Joseph Esposo Guerrero is a welcome addition to FTL because it adds a global dimension to the forum on combating globalization. During these times of global economic crisis, Guerrero’s analysis offers us a chance to understand events from the point of view of developing nations.

This information is vital to developing our ability to think globally while acting locally.

Read the entire essay and comment.

Transient Servitude Update: The Continuing Efforts to Establish a US Guest Worker Program — Comment

rdvogel — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:40:58 +0000

Since 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.

Read the essay and comment.

Transient Servitude: The US Guest Worker Program for Exploiting Mexican and Central American Workers — Comment

rdvogel — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:44:44 +0000

“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.”

Read Transient Servitude and comment.

The North American Free Movement of Citizens (FMC) Agreement — Comment

rdvogel — Sat, 22 May 2010 15:20:27 +0000

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.

Read the article and comment.

Import Substitution: A Guide to Boycotting Neoliberal Globalization — Comments

rdvogel — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:01:44 +0000

“Boycotting is an act of Civic Revolution. To engage in a concerted refusal to have any dealings with a person, company, or organization in order to effect change is a form of direct political action available to every citizen regardless of her/his social status.”

Read the article and post a comment.

Rebuilding Public Education — Comment

rick — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:00:18 +0000

A top priority on the neoconservative agenda for America is the privatization of social services, and their education initiatives have succeeded in gutting many public schools across the nation.

Read the complete article.

CIVIC REVOLUTION: Securing Human Rights and Responsibilities in the USA — Comment

rdvogel — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:34:11 +0000

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.

Read the article and comment.

Shell’s “Job Migration”: Program: Exacerbating the Economic Crisis

rdvogel — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:02:10 +0000

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”.