Communitarian Alternative: Open_Notes 11

there is a shadow on the goods we purchase - there is a human face behind the brand name labels -- wages 4/10 of 1% of the retail price, starvation wages, avg. 1/3 of a subsistence wage - new levels of exploitation; force; fear - corporate "code of conduct" self-serving; prison-like factories -- "Made in the USA" labels suspect - El Salvador 225 factories, 50M$ month; WTO talk of .60/hr being lowered to .35/hr -- enormous greed driving the corporations - NIKE 70,000 workers in Indonesia, China 50-60,000 workers in one complex, factories in El Salvador, Honduras -- NIKE slogan "Just Do It" - toxic glue used in sneaker manufacture with no protection, respirators - Alpine car stereos, .35/hr China - NIKE founder Phil Nike worth 5.8B$ -- sucking the wealth off the back of slave labor -- Disney's Haiti factories, .06 of wages in a 20$ garment; Michael Isner made 3.4M$/week in 1998.

Burma a concentration camp, military dictatorship; May 1997 US sanctions ignored; US garment manufactures .06/hr, wages lowest in the world; all US business must be joint-ventures with the military and/or drug lords -- Walmart the largest retailer in the world; largest private sector employer in the US (no longer GM; GM largest in Mexico); 1/2 of employees eligible for food-stamps; 137.6B$/yr (larger than 155/192 countries); plays countries off of one another for lowest wages, free-trade zones, etc. - no taxes, tariffs paid -- 475,000 US manufacturing jobs lost in 1998 due to WTO-Corporate greed - Walmart founder Walton family worth 67.5B$ -- Saipan (US territory, but not covered by immigration, minimum wage laws) "Made in USA" labels; Chinese women laborers charged recruitment fees, room-board - indentured servitude - Walmart-Gap etc., produces misery and poverty around the world; TNC's will NOT link trade to human rights, claim impediment to free trade; ** competitive advantage based on oppression ** -- China a massively repressive state, GM-Motorola investing heavily in China; top 20% control 55% of China, one child policy does not apply to the elite -- "United Students Against Sweatshops" vs. WTO-Corporations-Media (ie., NIKE 650M$ advertising budget); WTO-NAFTA laws seemingly "written in stone" [by man] must be demolished [the only laws written in stone that are permanent are God's, the 10C]. -- [NPR, Alternative Radio, Charlie Kernigan, national-dir., National Labor Committee, "The Human Face of the World Economy", Dec.04.99, with [inserts]]

Communitarian Alternative: Open_Notes 11