TB
The problems you identify are indeed significant. But there is more...
I guess that I might be a closet member of the flat earth society because I
just don't get into globalism. Global anything, despite all of it's good
intentions is just another opportunity for exploitation by the global
colonialists (multi-national organisations supported by the G7).
A system of managing global pay equity implies a system of global pay
equity management. With all due respect to the Americans and Europeans in
this audience I suggest that the management of the global pay equity
process would be subsumed within a white positivist north american-centric
paradigm. While that would ultimately be good for American business the
rest of us would suffer.
Labour laws are foundational to national governance. As a country gives
away such law making capability, it's economy will be subjugated to
external economic interests, to the dis-benefit of it's citizens. (Mind
you that is happening already through the impact of World Bank policies,
Moody's, Standard and Pours et al.
All of that is not to say that the problem of worker exploitation is to
hard and should therefore be ignored. But the solution must come from the
industrialised countries in a non paternalistic and therefore non global
process fashion. And there is the rub. Will industrialised countries,
whose corporate citizens exploit the exploited, forego the resulting
benefits (increased standard of living) in order to create global pay
equity. I doubt it.
DF
----------
> From: Terry Boswell <TBOS@social-sci.ss.emory.edu>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Re: global pay equity and development
> Date: Saturday, 11 July 1998 03:26
>
> WSN
>
> I share Kohler's call for global pay equity. I have raised this
> issue recently in talking with others in developmental studies who
> offered two criticisms. I do not fully agree with their critique, but
> I am interested in hearing responses and counter-arguments from
> others. I think we need to answer the following criticisms before the
> push for world pay equity would be taken seriously.
>
> 1. The cost of living varies so much across countries, and
> currencies fluctuate so frequently, that any single global wage
> standard, much less an equity standard, would be difficult, if not
> impossible, to measure and enforce. My response is to support
> minimum standards appropriate to each country, but this runs into the
> problem of getting individual states, many of which are corrupt and
> undemocratic, to enforce a global standard.
>
> 2. A worse problem is that applying global standards, even minimum
> wages, raises the cost of doing business in poor countries and makes
> it harder for them to develop. For example, the NYT ran articles on
> former sweatshop workers in Indonesia who now pick garbage or work
> as prostitutes. They long for their sweatshops. I think it was Rosa
> Luxemburg who said that the only thing worse than being exploited
> under capitalism is not being exploited. My response is that they
> would be better off in the long run by ending the cycle of attracting
> investment by offering cheaper wages than competitors. The problem
> is thus one of making the TNCs pay for a stepwise transition, which
> admittedly, would not be easy.
>
> I am not satisfied with my responses and hope others have additional
> replies. Raising global labor standards is, I am convinced, the most
> important task for transnational progressive movements.
>
> TB
>
> Date sent: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 10:47:50 -0400
> Send reply to: gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca
> From: Gernot Kohler <gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: global pay equity
>
> ...if something similar has been stated somewhere else already, please
> forward a reference...
>
> Wallerstein has called for "renegotiation of historically grown wage
> bargains" in the world-system (Wallerstein 1978). The undervaluation of
> labour of low- and middle-income countries has been criticized by
Emmanuel
> (1962, 1969/72) and others. From a perspective of global Keynesianism,
low
> incomes of anyone in the world are bad for global demand.
>
> MOTION (to the global labour movement):
> "The global labour movement will place the demand for 'global pay equity'
> on its list of demands in its demand-setting process" [ if it has one]
>
>
> EXPLANATION: The women's movement has done a splendid job developing the
> theory, practice and politics of pay equity. An important principle has
> been developed which is already being used in praxis, e.g., in Canada,
namely:
>
> PRINCIPLE: "equal pay for work of equal value"
> (meaning: If persons A and B perform work of the same value, both must be
> remunerated at the same rate. The fact that one is a man and the other a
> woman is irrelevant.)
>
> This principle can and must be globalized and extended worldwide to any
> category of person. Thus, if a Mexican performs work of the same value as
a
> Canadian , he/she must be paid the same. The fact that we and "the
system"
> are used to discriminatory global wage differentials is deplorable and,
> with respect to the principle, irrelevant. In its globalized form, the
> principle could be stated thus:
>
> GLOBAL PAY EQUITY: "equal pay for work of equal value, globally"
>
> The demand for global pay equity would generate for the global labour
> movement added movement and solidarity.
>
>
> Regards,
> Gernot Kohler
> School of Computing and Information Management
> Sheridan College
> Oakville, Ont., Canada
> e-mail: gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca
>
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge" Albert Einstein
> Terry Boswell
> Department of Sociology
> Emory University
> Atlanta, GA 30322