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Dell Closes Ireland Plant; 2nd Largest Employer
Wide Angle writes in with a PBS report on tough economic news from Ireland: Dell announced that it will relocate its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. "Dell's announcement... is a severe blow to the Irish economy, which has been hit hard and fast by the global economic crisis. Dell is Ireland's second-largest corporate employer and the country's largest exporter. Nineteen hundred shift workers will lose their jobs. ...Dell's closing is not a result of the economic downturn, but of a pattern all too familiar in the United States — corporations' perennial search for cheaper labor. Since 2000 several companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Intel, Gateway, and NEC Electronics, have moved manufacturing jobs from Ireland to China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. When Poland joined the European Union in 2004, it became an attractive place for companies to set up manufacturing plants. ... However, Ireland has managed to maintain and attract... 'knowledge-intensive jobs.' Google's European headquarters are based in Dublin, and Facebook announced late last year that they would locate their international headquarters there. But the overall economic picture for Ireland is bleak."
Perhaps Eire should have factored in that companies agile and willing enough to relocate once to Ireland would likely be sufficiently agile and willing to move to follow the sun again.
Nullius in verba
That's fine as long as you have a job to pay for it. If all the manufacturing and knowledge based jobs end up in the cheaper locations then can the Western Economies keep going. I know that many economists say that it is the beginning of the service economy, and we can all be rich in the west by buying and providing services for each other but I am rather skeptical. If a whole country consists of PR teams, lawyers, restaurant owners and so on can they really "generate" enough money to be able to buy their "real" things from cheap overseas sources?
I realize that this sucks for Ireland but Poland is in far worse shape and needs the jobs just as badly if not more.
The fact is, since China has the unfair advantage of near-slave labor, the rest of the world as a whole needs to have stiff import tariffs to equalize this imbalance.
This really shouldn't be completely about the "world economy" and if it can be done cheaper in China, "why not"? It is completely fair to take into account other factors such as China's complete disregard for workers rights and environmental issues, not to mention truth in labeling with regards to all the poisons they put in food products.
Make 'em pay, it's the only way to get their attention.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Having spent over an hour and a half on the phone with Dell Canada on Monday just to get a quote (and a quote for twenty computers I might add), I'd say there is such a thing as "too cheap".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We the consumer, demand cheaper priced products, why should we be surprised when manufacturers look for methods of reducing their costs? You don't exactly see them firing up manufacturing plants in Tokyo or Manhattan.
Corporations also demand more profit. Reducing costs helps that bottom line. Whether moving manufactoring locations ends up positive on that bottom line or not isn't always clear at the outset.
It's a Global Economy, get used to it.
It's been a global economy for decades. That's not the change.
The 10 year discount is up. That's why they are moving, and Dell isn't the only corporation doing this. Ireland has a low corporate tax, and discounts it even further for the first 10 years a corporation operates there.
The basic problem is that "free trade" never is.
"Free trade" concerning commodities that are easily made (or grown) in an area, like tropical fruit towards northern climates, is one thing.
"Free trade" based on paying workers shit wages, or based on the fact that one country (*coughmexshitcocough*) has absolutely crappy evironmental protection laws while their neighbors don't, doesn't - it temporarily drives down "costs" while ensuring that the environment gets ruined and poverty is taken advantage of.
The solution is "fair trade" instead - place tariffs on any and all imported goods from countries whose labor protection and environmental laws are inferior to our own, such that the cost to produce them there and them import is the same (or better yet, slightly more expensive) as doing the production either here, or in a country with proper worker and environmental protection standards. If the USA/Canada/European countries would do that, then the countries with shit worker protection and environmental laws will have to fall in line and we can actually get things addressed.