Letters to the Editor
-
Fair Play
What's missing here is, quite simply, fair play.
You want to outsource this job overseas? Manufacturing or service? I have no problems with that. Go for it. As long as there's a level playing field. America went through a labor revolution to get where we are today; revolutions that have little chance of happening overseas. It's different when the government really doesn't care if you don't work and would just as soon shoot you if you go on strike.
Let's export our labor revolution. Anyone sending work overseas gets an additional 10% tax on any money sent to another country for a product or service, unless said country allows free and fair access to union organizing. Another 5% if they don't have reasonable pollution controls in place.
Give me that, and I think we'll have a self-correcting mechanism. No more 13-year-olds making Nike's for $0.50/day, just like the 13-year-olds suddenly disappeared from the steel mills of the midwest.