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Labor and advocacy experts presented a gloomy picture of globalization, predicting that it will continue eroding the quality of life of people of the middle and professional classes and weaken government safeguards of the welfare of already marginalized poor and immigrant workers.
“Who would believe that we have to fight the battle for a safe workplace when we already have the laws?” asked Richard Cunningham, executive director of New Labor, a New Brunswick, NJ, community group that represents Latino workers. “People are working high-risk positions for low wages. Injury and death rates are rising among these low-paying jobs.”
According to Eileen Appelbaum, a labor economist who runs the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University, 300,000 high tech jobs have been “outsourced” so far, but “it happened so quickly that it is not a stretch to count the other 14 million U.S. high-tech jobs in grave jeopardy. Look at what happened to manufacturing jobs.”
The outlook is bleak. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics, the 10 occupations expected to grow fastest through 2012 include seven that are considered low-paying — retail sales people, customer-service representatives, food prep and service workers, cashiers, janitors and cleaners, waiters and waitresses and nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants. Only three—registered nurses, post-secondary teachers, and general operations managers, require college degrees.
“All of this leads to increased anxiety among white-collar workers,” Appelbaum said. “Families suffer. People are afraid to ask for time off to take care for a sick child or elderly parent. Workers take pay cuts to keep medical benefits or exchange health care coverage for more wages.”
Appelbaum noted that skilled workers are facing uncertainty while corporations are enjoying their highest profits. According to the Center for Economic and Public Research, corporate profits have grown substantially since 2000, cutting into employee compensation. Meanwhile, corporate reinvestment is at its lowest point ever.
“Even the great boon of the ’90s was really a hoax,” said John Shure, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective. “Local governments offered incentive packages to corporations where many pay little or no taxes. Median wages in New Jersey actually declined. Wages fell for everyone without a college diploma. Today, half of New Jersey’s Latinos and one-third of its African-American population do not earn a living wage.”
Shure said faith-based groups can strengthen other labor advocates because they can “play to peoples’ noblest sentiments.”
“We live in a culture that exalts the rugged individual,” he said. “If you haven’t made it economically, it’s your fault. Our task is to return to a sense that we are in this together. That won’t be easy, because we will need to fight individual greed that permeates our government, culture, and consumer nature.”
Tanny Mukhopadhyay, a policy specialist for the United Nations, urged religious leaders to promote international documents on labor rights, such as the International Labor Organization’s Standards of Aspiration.
“The spectrum of debate worldwide has shifted dramatically to the right,” Mukhopadhyay said. “What most of us knew as the left is now the center. Unless there is a way for people on the ground to network through organizations, global economic forces will look only for low corporate overhead and low labor costs.”
Labor has been weakened in recent decades. Only 12 percent of workers belong to unions today, compared to nearly 40 percent after World War II, according to Alan Kauffman, an official of the Communications Workers of America.
The connection between globalization and church finances was not lost on those who took part in the Port Newark seminar. Churches’ endowment income and pension plans are linked to the revenues generated by a stock market dominated by global corporations.
The Rev. Geoffrey Curtiss, rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Hoboken, NJ, encouraged church officials and members to become involvedin “established networks of social justice.”
“We all need to get involved,” he said. “People of faith need to build another constituency for social change that builds community and does not reward greed.”
The United Nations Association of the United States of America is catalyst for dialogue on global issues. The Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey, an ecumenical agency affiliated with the Episcopal Church, advocates for the personal, professional and spiritual well-being of mariners. |
