Europe's Thirst for Cheap Labor Fuels a Boom in a Disposable Europe
"Europe’s Thirst for Cheap Labor Fuels a Boom in Disposable Workers."
Sadly, that has been the case in almost every country, and you can easily replace "Europe" with any country's name in it, US included. For the sake of cost control, workers (from illegal migrants, to illiterate workers, to desperately displaced, to hopelessly unemployed) have all become disposable. You can call me jaded, but one main motivation of Germany to lure in the displaced from Middle East, the desperate from Africa, and more cheap labor from the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, so that Germany can continue to have fresh supply of cheap labor to keep cost down, while keeping its corporate engine running? For all the talks of giving new lease of lives to illegals from south of our border, a large motivation is keep the fresh supply of these illegals so as to work on dirt-cheap wages, bend their backs in the fields during harvest, or janitorial work, or change bedsheets in hotels, all without having to deal with unions and rigid work rules.
What goes around, comes around. Low costs is great, low to no inflation is awesome, but good times only last so long, and then it's going to come back to bite us (and the Europeans too) when it'll eat into our jobs, our salary, our ability to maintain the standard of living that we've come to addict ourselves to.
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When everyone is an underpaid contract employee who will buy ehat they are making?
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Employment arrangements entered into freely and without coercion. Good to see that at least some migrants are earning their keep.
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Corporate leaders have the advantage of seeing the worldwide picture unfettered by political opposition on many different but similar corporate boards across our world. You can blame illegal immigration but it’s not really the problem. Data and Artificial intelligence just don’t care about bias or racism or sexual harassment. Investing makes labor a waste of capital. Security selection requires monopolistic moat like barriers to entry without organized labor. Union pension funds, like everyone else, love Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. No labor and no competition will kill the economy around the world. Brace yourself for more and worse while deluding your thoughts with illegal immigration. Winning strategy!
It is much cheaper to live in the Czech Republic so to some extent, the $4.10/hr should be compared with the real cost of living too. My rough assessment, having only visited there, is that It would be a "survivable" wage for a young person; however, even with maximum frugality and determination, it would be a hard road to really get ahead. With a family, I think it would still be very hard. For the former eastern block, Poland, at least up until recently, was a better lot.
Only Europe?
Have you looked around in California and the United States?
It is interesting that the rush to suppress wages and boost corporate profits in the US by propping up the political and social elites in other countries is roundly ignored by our illegal immigration lovers and democrat politicians.
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Foxconn is replicating what it's been doing in China for the past few decades. It is grueling but a job is a job, at least it pays (most of the time). Most people don't aspire to stay long term anyways, so it's not exactly true to use the word "slave" since at least they can choose to leave, and Foxconn does not OWN them or not paying them. Such is the reason why young people in China these days do not want to work in factory, even if it pays now more than a lot of white-collar (particularly entry-level) jobs.
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Another reason why the initial invite to refugees from war-torn Syria quickly turned into a flood of young, male, economic migrants from Africa and Asia that was not immediately met with a negative reaction from the EU. Thousands of men and women looking for jobs and EU leaders more than willing to take advantage of the cheap labor.
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It's not just driven by our governments, it is driven by us. We are desperate to consume the items that are for sale by companies like Panasonic and Apple and etc. The structure of capitalism and our price sensitivity (which is part of how capitalism works) dictates these labor practices. We all need to take a look in the mirror and stop blaming "others" for structures that we all participate in.
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You're exactly right on. It's like hearing those folks blaming walmart and amazon for destroying traditionally decent-paying jobs, but no one wants to blame their customers (oftentimes it's the same critics themselves too who point fingers at these corporate giants) for enabling, even pushing for, the want of more cheap labor, just so that we can have our smartphones or gadgets, among the many things we love to buy, and we want it now, we want it cheap, we want to upgrade every year or so. I don't see NYT pushing its readers (arguably the more thoughtful types) to do more of that kind of soul-searching ourselves.
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Marx wrote about "wage slaves" in the nineteenth century, this article is just another example of wage slavery still at work in the capitalist world and makes one wonder how many of these wage slaves of today coming from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe were better off under the former Communist ecumene.
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Is it plain to anyone yet that this is all according to plan? European agencies love migrant workers and American companies love illegal immigration. Why?
Because they can pay less for back-breaking work. Simple. There is no social or moral progression here. They just want the money. If it were more cost effective to have no immigration they’d all be in favor of closed borders.
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The 1% has taken all the benefits of globalization. Yes, HRC supported free trade and more immigration.
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Europe’s (Employers) Thirst for Cheap Labor Fuels a Boom in Disposable Workers. No surprise here they are doing the same thing in the US and probably everywhere else. If only governments weren't constantly looking the other way like they do with illegal immigrants in the US.
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Governor Walker of Wisconsin is wooing Foxconn.
How appropriate.
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. . . with a $5 billion state subsidy.
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Really not so different from Amazon's temporary seasonal warehouse workers, except here the Amazon workers have to supply their own housing, usually travel trailers.
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