Charles Murdock’s article “Your jobs; A leading U.S. export?” (Perspective, Aug. 22) could not have been more timely. During this election year, it is instructive to know that during the Bush administration, more than1 million jobs have been lost and most have been in manufacturing. Many manufacturing jobs have been sent overseas to impoverished countries whose workers are willing to work for a fraction of what American workers had been paid for the same work.
Are American workers overpaid, simply getting rich from their factory jobs?
Not likely.
More likely, their corporate masters want more and more and more, so the only option left is to outsource jobs somewhere so that they don’t have to pay employees as much. Since these workers are not U.S. citizens, the corporations also save on Social Security taxes and other statutory benefits.
It is time that politicians and elected officials stopped being apologists for business and started supporting the individuals who got them into office in the first place. Corporations should not be given tax abatements and concessions to open offices and set up businesses if they are going to be allowed to pack up and leave when they find a cheaper labor force in another country. In the case of Red Flyer, the company has agreed to pay the City of Chicago back for the concessions the city made for the business to operate profitably in Chicago. Workers make the company what it is. They make and sell the products as well as buy them. Loyalty is asked of workers, but rarely is that loyalty returned by the companies other than through their paychecks, which are always as small as the company can possibly part with. Workers who are treated well are also likely to be consumers of the products they produce.
It is time in this country to place value on something more than mere financial gain.
A successful business should be judged by the overall benefit it gives to society, not merely by the return to its investors. Investors will always get out what they put in and then some if the company is successful. Companies are not going out of business because they must pay their workers, it is more a question of maximizing those profits by eliminating the workers who helped to build the success of their companies.
