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HP, Dell, and IBM Agree to Manufacturing Code of Conduct
JustOK writes "Yahoo! reports that IBM, Dell and HP have agreed to a code of conduct for not only workers, but the environment as well. An HP exec's statement is that the company is only responding to the company's 'globalizing in many parts of the world'." The joint press release is available, as is the code of conduct (pdf).
The clothing industry actually established something like this in the 1930's. My father worked in the garment district in Manhattan and he said it made a big difference.
And they'll be clobbered by the scumbags who undercut them on price by sh!tting on the rest of the world for a buck.
(Ok, I'm a bit down right now, because I was just looking for a jersey on eBay and see they sell tonnes of knockoffs straight out of SE Asia.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Something tells me that their 'envirnomental' protections they are agreeing to would get them thrown into prison if used in Europe or America.
My favorite businesspeak phrase in the article:
Yeah, globalization, would, by it's very nature, occur in many parts of the world. Sheesh!
This is what corporations do when they give Congress an excuse to "deregulate": "police themselves". This agreement has no teeth for violations, as it's just a mutual agreement, public relations. If they standardize their global labor contracts, and commit to these standards in those contracts, with specified consequences for breaking them (contractual or under enforcable local laws), they'll have something. Until then, all they've written is a "get out of jail free" card.
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Yes, that actually was initiated by the Mayor of New York, La Guardia, when he first took office.
Only took twenty years since the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire for someone to do something about it. Wonderful, mmm?
Please help metamoderate.
228 years ago, the Continental Congress turned the tables on the government, harnessing it in service of the people, relegating its rights to its natural inferiority to people. Rather than ban the government, they created the most stable and productive government structure since then, possibly ever. We the people allowed the creation of the synthetic "person", the corporation, by ignoring the legal deceptions at its creation in California in the late 1800s, and feeding its growth through the 20th Century for its benefit to those who administer power in our country. But just as it took hundreds of years for English colonists to realize they were Americans, who could no longer suffer the injustice and exploitation of monarchy, after about as long under the corporation, we must rip that power structure out, and replace it with a manageable system that keeps its productivity, enhances it, by subordinating it to human rights. Along the way, we'll reset much of the creeping autocracy that corporations have institutionalized in our government, too. We've got a lot of work to do, but the alternative is all work and no pay.
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make install -not war
There are really only two ways this can go - either the multinationals will use shell companies to get around it, or lots of people in the very poorest countries will lose their jobs. Either they'll be replaced by machines, or by workers in countries with a better infrastructure. So jobs would move from, say, the poorest areas of Guatemala to slightly-less-poor areas in Eastern Europe, where the wage/infrastructure ratio is a better fit to the agreement.
Also, I'm all for getting rid of child labor, but if the child is feeding his family, who is being helped by throwing him out of work? Child labor laws only make sense in countries that are wealthy enough to give people an alternative to starvation if the child doesn't work (because he's an orphan, or has sick parents, etc).
This is a classic example of applying rich-world-thinking to places it doesn't make sense. These people need jobs - as many as they can get. I'd rather see 1000 people making just enough to feed their families than 500 making twice as much and 500 starving.
If you really want to help people in the third world, the best way is to stop subsidizing the destruction of poor-country economies. A good place to start would be the abolition of farm subsidies in the rich world. Rich world farm subsidies have destroyed the major source of work in the less developed (mostly agrarian) countries. That's what creates the huge pool of jobless workers available for factory jobs. Does it seem reasonable a farmer in California can grow rice (which reqires lots of irrigation in California) and ship it to Asia and undercut a farmer who's making virtually nothing compared to the American farmer?
How about having real free trade, not just free trade when no first-world jobs are in danger? How about cutting some of the reasonable-sounding regulations that exist solely to keep out third-world competition. How about not lending development money to corrupt governments (so they can buy military hardware from the lender) and then saddling the next three generations of the country with a debt-induced inflationary spiral?
If these people had an alternative to sweatshop work, the Nikes of the world would have to compete for their labor. Then you would have a real improvement in the lives of poor people around the world and not just some salve for the conscience of well-meaning people in rich countries.
But, hey, isn't it all about people in the rich world feeling better?