American Workers can safely say, Bye, Bye to the Slice of the American
Pie

It's time to just say, No!

Ó Norma Sherry 2003

904-829-9583

Bio: Norma Sherry is co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an
organization devoted to educating, stimulating, and igniting personal
responsibility particularly with regards to our diminishing civil
liberties. She is also an award-winning writer/producer. Her Email:
norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Side Note: Norma Sherry will be a guest on the national radio show,
The Chris Moore Show, Saturday, November 15th from 7 ? 8 pm, 1020 on
the AM dial, KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa. She will be discussing outsourcing.
Listeners can call-in.

For the millions of American workers who have lost their jobs, the
prospects are very dim. Jody, who has worked as an IT professional for
twenty years, lost her job when her company outsourced its workforce
to a foreign land and foreign workers. In five months, she hasn't been
interviewed even once despite her very marketable skills.

Beverly says, "I completed my graduate degree in engineering and truly
thought that I was living the American dream." That is until three
years ago when she and her co-workers watched as the jobs dwindled
down and were shipped first to Mexico and then elsewhere.

American Workers can safely say, Bye, Bye to the Slice of the American
Pie

Norma Sherry

11/11/03: (ICH) I'm just going to blurt it out; tell it like it is. In
the words of the venerable, Walter Cronkite, "that's the way it is".
Here it is folks; outsourcing is tantamount to legalized slave labor.

Of course, it's much more than that to the American worker. Ask anyone
who is out of work, out of unemployment, on the verge of losing their
home and all that they worked for and thought was their American dream
come true. Their jobs by the multi-millions have left the shores of
the U.S. for greener, cheaper labor. Slave labor.


A dollar an hour versus twenty-five or fourteen, or even ten, you
figure the math, big business, not-so-big business, even the little
businesses are moving in droves to lands faraway. The problem with
doing so, however, is multi-dimensional.


For the millions of American workers who have lost their jobs, the
prospects are very dim. Jody, who has worked as an IT professional for
twenty years, lost her job when her company outsourced its workforce
to a foreign land and foreign workers. In five months, she hasn't been
interviewed even once despite her very marketable skills. When her
unemployment runs out, she fears she'll have no recourse but to sell
their home.

Beverly says, "I completed my graduate degree in engineering and truly
thought that I was living the American dream." That is until three
years ago when she and her co-workers watched as the jobs dwindled
down and were shipped first to Mexico and then elsewhere. All the
years of bettering herself, securing her future in the finality were
measured in her ability to instruct her replacement to do her job.
Humiliation and degradation were her reward.

Fern was in healthcare for thirty years. She watched as nursing jobs
were given to immigrant nurses rather than American graduates. Sadly,
she laments observing sweet, dedicated and idealistic young women she
trained become hardened and embittered.

How did this happen. Where were we? Did we have our heads buried in
the sand? Or were we preoccupied with the realities of everyday life?
Perhaps that's what our policy makers counted on. But I can tell you
one thing for certain. It didn't happen overnight.

In fact, it began to surface in the late 70's championed by the very
conservative Heritage Foundation. Under the auspices of President
Ronald Reagan, free trade "throughout the hemisphere" was borne.

But truth be known, the seeds were sown long before Ronald Reagan.
Richard Milhous Nixon was the first President given authority in the
1974 Fast Track Bill. It was awarded every president thereafter
through 1998.

Fast Track gives the President sole authority over trade negotiations.
Congress, after the fact, can accept or reject the negotiation, but it
cannot amend it in any way whatsoever. In effect, Fast Track
effectively removes Congress from the process of world trade
negotiations.

Ronald Reagan, however, was the first to propose a free trade
agreement in his 1980 presidential campaign. Proudly, The Heritage
Foundation boasts its role in articulating President Reagan's vision
in no less than three dozen reports.

The Heritage Foundation predicted that free trade would, "over a
fifteen-year time span, create the world's largest market: some 360
million people, with an economic output of more than $6 trillion a
year." Moreover, they asserted that NAFTA would guarantee that
American workers would remain the most competitive in the world. That
American consumers would continue to have access to the world's finest
goods and services.

They also emphasized that NAFTA would assure Americans cheaper goods
while increasing U.S. exports to the rest of the world. Moreover, the
American workforce was told NAFTA would stimulate and create an
estimated 200,000 jobs annually.

Later, The Heritage Foundation wrote, "Economists are virtually
unanimous in their conclusion that the NAFTA will have a strongly
positive impact on job growth throughout the US, with most estimates
in the hundreds of thousands." They also predicted NAFTA would
effectively reduce illegal immigration from Mexico, would be
instrumental in tackling drug trafficking, would strengthen Mexican
democracy and human rights, and above all else, would serve as a model
for the rest of the world. It all sounded so cheeky.

Lofty predilections. The only aspect that has proven true for
Americans is "cheaper goods." Instead of the 200,000 promised new jobs
yearly for Americans, American workers are losing their jobs - to
date, conservatively speaking by 2.7 million. The rate of which is
growing steadily. As a matter of fact, 200,000 additional jobs were
lost to American workers in September alone. However, The Heritage
Foundation and the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) say
the converse is true.

The USTR offers, "Too often, bad news grips the imagination, while
good news goes unheard. In a dynamic economy such as ours, it is not
surprising to hear of some firms closing shop. However, in a typical
month, our country gains a net of over 150,000 jobs." My guess is
these jobs are akin to a hologram. Sarcasm aside, the numbers simply
don't jive.

As to the remaining gobbily gook, it doesn't take a rocket scientist
to know the dire state of the American economic picture. According to
the Congressional Budget Office, the forecast looks very bleak with
the national deficit expected to reach $480 billion next year with
unemployment continuing to rise.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported, "Long-term unemployment
is at its highest in over a decade". The BLS stated, "The last time
the share of long-term unemployed surpassed this level was 20 years
ago, in September 1983. BLS also reported the startling decline in
education employment as the largest one-month loss since July 1982.

There are 1.4 million individuals stuck in the quagmire of personal
bankruptcy. According to foreclosures.com, foreclosures are at record
highs, especially homes in the upper six figures. Bank One in Chicago
anticipates a tidal wave of foreclosures in 2004. Bleak, how about
downright abject gloom?

Perhaps we overlooked the loss of jobs because, well, they were just
factory workers, after all-and besides, clothing was never cheaper.
Cheaper is the key word, not merely less expensive, but threadbare
cheap, made to literally fall apart after a few month's of laundering.

Then words such as, "child labor", "slave labor" and "abusive,
horrendous working conditions", started seeping into the American
psyche. Clothing designers went on the defensive, but they needn't
have concerned themselves, the uproar was short-lived. The consumer
greed won out. After all, cheap is cheap-and nothing wins like saving
money!

The consumer then began to notice that there were fewer and fewer
American-made automobiles. Advertising agencies expounded on the
consumer concern and began a national advertising campaign to buy,
"Made in America" automobiles, etcetera, etcetera. However, despicable
as Corporate America is, the truth that nearly no part of an American
car or truck, van, or SUV is made in America mattered not.

NAFTA has made us partners with the countries of the world with whom
we do business. It has made us culpable to the abuses and horrifying
conditions workers of the world work under. And we know it. Our
legislators know it. Corporate America knows it-and yet, we allow it
to continue.

A famous film company reportedly pays Bangladesh workers between eight
and nineteen cents an hour toiling in deplorable, sub-human conditions
for 14 to 15 hours a day. Corporate America knows it, so do our
legislators, and yet we still buy their products. Corporate America
rushes to their shore anxiously bringing their contracts and opening
their factories.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) protects corporations but
abashedly, blatantly ignores the torturous existence of laborers.
Burma, ruled by a military dictatorship since 1962 is a very poor, yet
resource rich country. It is also a haven for sweatshops and many
American corporations.

Until 2000 and adverse publicity threatened their bottom-line,
Anheuser-Busch, Apple, Estee Lauder, Hewlett-Packard, Macy's, Ralph
Lauren, Oshkosh B'Gosh, Levi-Strauss, Liz Claiborne, and many more did
business with Burma. Colgate, General Electric, Ford, Halliburton,
Gillette, Jordache, Lockheed, Nautica, Adidas, Chase Manhattan Corp,
Proctor and Gamble, and Perry Ellis are among the businesses that
continued to do business with Burma after 2000.

In Burma, Unocal was named in a human rights lawsuit in the course of
building its pipeline. The suit charged Unocal knowingly used forced
labor. Hundreds of eyewitnesses testified that the government's
military provided Unocal with unpaid labor by forcing thousands of
villagers to work at gunpoint. Reportedly, women who refused to work
were raped or murdered.

In 2000, a California Federal Court found Unocal blameless because
they did not have direct participation in the wrongful acts. The case
and the appeals are stalemated. In 2003, the Bush Administration filed
a brief on behalf of Unocal arguing that allowing the case to go to
trial could interfere with US foreign policy and even disrupt the war
on terrorism.

Eight months ago, when I called my Dell Computer Support Department to
register my new laptop, my phone call was routed to India. The helpful
young man on the phone and I became chatty. He was very excited about
his new job, although he still had to live at home with his parents
and couldn't afford to marry. He was 34 years old. He was on his
twelfth hour of a fourteen-hour day. He earned $9 a day! A day-and he
was happy. Before Dell, he earned less than a dollar a day. When I
hung up the telephone, I cried.

Yet, in India, a country that Corporate America is actively
outsourcing American jobs to in record-breaking numbers is a country
that purportedly exploits and abuses children as laborers. Working
conditions are often filthy and many bosses are worse than inhumane.
NAFTA and WTO turn a blind eye; so do our rich and super-rich
corporations.

Rajesh is a partner in an executive search firm. He is well educated,
from the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad, as are many of
his counter-parts. Rajesh refers to his alma mater as "The Harvard of
the East". He also bemoans regrettably, that so many of his brethren
with MBA's are applying for call center jobs. A waste of their
impeccable and hard-earned degrees. But until America actively sought
employees from India, opportunity was dismal.

Rajesh's firm offers accent trainers to teach Indians to speak like a
Yankee; there are soft skill trainers teaching how to approach an
American client. He has an event manager that updates and teaches
about American events and festivals and he says they have doctors on
the premises and on call because working odd hours, Rajesh says, "has
its consequences. Health is definitely a concern".

Obviously, Rajesh is not one of the employers that disregard his
employees. In fact, he is a man of great sensitivity and grace. He
struggles with the concerns of Americans and he worries about their
anger about their jobs going abroad. "So much money has been invested.
So much controversy. Such uncertainties."

The sole winner for outsourcing is Corporate America. Everyone else
loses.

After 9/11, President Bush announced to the world "that if any country
harbored, fed, housed, or protected terrorists, then they would be as
guilty as the terrorists." Does the same not hold true for us if we do
business with countries that abuse workers; that enslave women and
children? Does it not count because we have the entitlement of NAFTA
and WTO? Are we not breaking the greater laws of human dignity?

Now our President wants to Fast Track NAFTA and WTO and open free
trade to all of Latin America. Considering the supreme success NAFTA
has been to the American worker, his motivation is very clear indeed.
Money talks.

Pointing fingers and assessing blame is a favorite pastime of the left
and the right, the democrats and the republicans. It would appear that
there is plenty of blame on both sides of the fence. Richard Nixon may
have grandfathered the concept that begot NAFTA. It may have been
Ronald Reagan that first introduced it and George Bush, Sr., who
endorsed it, and Bill Clinton who signed it momentously into law. But
of all the candidates running for the office of President of the
United States, only one promises to repeal NAFTA the day after he is
sworn into office.

Perhaps it is time for the electorate to put our elected officials on
notice. Perhaps it is time that we find our voice and express our
displeasure in the only way they seem capable of hearing. Perhaps we
should write our legislators and let them know that we are adamantly
opposed to The Thomas Bill, HR 3005, because it will catapult the
further decline of the American worker. NAFTA and WTO and President
Bush's new Fast Track are designed to destroy the American worker and
to further demoralize and destroy the countries on faraway shores and
keep everyone beholding to Corporate America.

It's time to just say, No!

Ó Norma Sherry 2003

904-829-9583

Bio: Norma Sherry is co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an
organization devoted to educating, stimulating, and igniting personal
responsibility particularly with regards to our diminishing civil
liberties. She is also an award-winning writer/producer. Her Email:
norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Side Note: Norma Sherry will be a guest on the national radio show,
The Chris Moore Show, Saturday, November 15th from 7 - 8 pm, 1020 on
the AM dial, KDKA, Pittsburgh, Pa. She will be discussing outsourcing.
Listeners can call-in.