Leftists and union bosses are wrong on outsourcing

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you do know we have some vj members that work at wal-mart, don't you?

We have a bunch who work for various government agencies (federal, state, etc.), that doesn't stop people from dissing government employees. I don't even think it's debatable that the people who work in WalMart retail stores are the bottom of the barrel.

[chri'stina 190]

We have a bunch who work for various government agencies (federal, state, etc.), that doesn't stop people from dissing government employees. I don't even think it's debatable that the people who work in WalMart retail stores are the bottom of the barrel.

I kind of think that's snobby to say. There are people who get jobs over holidays to make extra money for their family. Stay at home moms, retirees, teenagers or young people going to college. Yes some people can't find a job better than Walmart but you can't say that about an entire retail store's employees.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Life isn't fair. Winners understand that. Losers just whine about it. Man up!

Tell that to the millions of children being exploited everyday to serve the interests of others.

According to UNICEF, an organization dedicated to human rights, approximately 246 million children are involved in this dangerous practice of child slave labor. They are involved in child trafficking, domestic labor, armed conflict, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. These children are virtually robbed of their childhood, forced to work under the harshest of conditions, and endure what no human being should ever have to endure. "Child labor ranges from four-year-olds tied to rug looms to keep them from running away, to seventeen-year-olds helping out on the family farm. In some cases, a child's work can be helpful to him or her and to the family; working and earning can be a positive experience in a child's growing up. This depends largely on the age of the child, the conditions in which the child works, and whether work prevents the child from going to school".

There are many countries around the world that institute the practice of child slave labor. Countries like "Angola, Colombia, Lebanon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda" employ children as soldiers. They are taken from their homes and forced to fight for rebel forces when they are as young as eight years old. These children are involved in horrific violence, "[t]hey wield AK-47s and M-16s on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts" The reasoning behind the use of child soldiers is simply this, they are young and therefore vulnerable. Children are weak and can be easily exploited, and they will comply to orders easily under the threat of physical violence. These children are virtually robbed of their innocence and their childhood. A "fourteen-year-old girl, abducted in January 1999 by the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group in Sierra Leone [said this], 'I've seen people get their hands cut off, a ten-year-old girl raped and then die, and so many men and women burned alive... So many times I just cried inside my heart because I didn't dare cry out loud'." There are millions of these cases around the world in over thirty countries that go unnoticed by the general public. Although organizations like the ILO have taken steps toward ending these practices, there is no guarantee that with the little exposure these issues have in the media, that they will end any time soon.

Domestic labor is another form of child slave labor that is going on in Asia. "Child domestic labour refers to situations where children are engaged to perform domestic tasks in the home of a third party or employer that are exploitative. Whenever such exploitation is extreme - and includes trafficking, slavery-like situations, or work that is hazardous and harmful to a child's physical or mental health - it is considered one of the worst forms of child labour" . These children are forced to work long hours with little or no pay, and they generally have no time off. Exploitation in child domestic labor takes place because children have almost no legal rights. "They invariably are deprived of the rights due to them as children in international law, including the right to play, health, and freedom from sexual abuse and harassment, visits to or from their family, association with friends, decent accommodation, and protection from physical and mental abuse". This is one of the worst forms of child slave labor next to child trafficking because of the serious damage it can do to a child's mental and physical well-being. Often times children are sold into slavery by poverty stricken parents with no way to pay off their debts. Parents may be reluctant or even forced into giving up their children and may even be set on getting them back but these children are more often than not, lost causes. They are forced to work and are punished when they don't perform to the highest standards. Parents may not have the money or the means to get their children back and if and when they do, it is too late. Children forced to work under such harsh conditions, depending upon the atmosphere and type of work they are involved in, may die soon after initial "employment".

"Although no precise figures exist, an estimated 1.2 million children - both boys and girls - are trafficked each year into exploitative work in agriculture, mining, factories, armed conflict, or commercial sex work". Child trafficking can occur within a country, across a national border, or even across oceans into different countries. Children are mainly commercialized because they are the cheapest labor force that exists. They are considered to be "cheap malleable and docile labour in sectors and among employers, where the working conditions and the treatment grossly violates the human rights of the children". The environments and situations in which these children are forced to work are unhealthy, unsound, and in many cases unclean and dangerous. The children, once trafficked, are forced to perform such tasks as "camel jockeying, child domestic labour, commercial sexual exploitation and prostitution, drug couriering, child soldiering and exploitative or slavery-like practices in the informal industrial sector". The International Labour Organization estimates that "Out of 2.450.000 trafficked forced labourers worldwide, 43 % are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation and 32 % are trafficked into economic exploitation. 25 % are trafficked for a mixture of these two main purposes. There is a strong gender bias in the profile of the trafficking victims. 98 % of the victims trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation are girls and women and 56 % of the victims trafficked into economic exploitation are girls and women." Approximately 5.7 million girls and women are forced into pornography, prostitution, debt bondage, or other horrific forms of slavery. Alongside this domestic labor, over 70 % of child laborers are working in agriculture.

According to UNICEF regional estimates, the Asian Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North Africa, and the Middle East play host to the vast majority of these children. Perhaps some of the most surprising statistics are that in Sub-Saharan Africa approximately one child out of three is forced to work and they are all under the age of fifteen, in the Middle East about 15 % of all children work, and "The Asian and Pacific regions harbour the largest number of child workers in the five to 14 age group, 127.3 million in total". These children perform such menial tasks as cutting sugar cane, mining diamonds, and harvesting cocoa to make chocolate. Manufactures around the world like Nike, the MARS candy company, and Mattel, a toy company that produces Barbie, employ the use of child slave labor over-seas. There are very few companies in fact that are completely child slave labor free.

http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=18

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... some people can't find a job better than Walmart ...

Exactly!

I am glad you agree with me.

[Ban Hammer 13,470]

We have a bunch who work for various government agencies (federal, state, etc.), that doesn't stop people from dissing government employees. I don't even think it's debatable that the people who work in WalMart retail stores are the bottom of the barrel.

got an extra helping of elitism in your free trade coffee this morning, eh?

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Tell that to the millions of children being exploited everyday to serve the interests of others.

That has more to do with the conditions of the other countries than our outsourcing jobs. Even if we didn't outsource any of our jobs those kids would still be forced to work. To stop our outsourcing would damage those economies further and bring more suffering to those kids. But to be clear, the jobs we are sending overseas are not the kind of jobs that kids are forced to do. Your strawman argument just does not fly.

[chri'stina 190]

Exactly!

I am glad you agree with me.

Grr!

[^_^ 5,021]

got an extra helping of elitism in your free trade coffee this morning, eh?

No. Basket of nachos for lunch. Halloween special. What Halloween has to do with nachos and cheese and guacamole I don't understand but this ish is goooood. BTW what kind of elitist likes nachos and cheese?

Edited October 29, 2010 by \

[chri'stina 190]

No. Basket of nachos for lunch. Halloween special. What Halloween has to do with nachos and cheese and guacamole I don't understand but this ish is goooood. BTW what kind of elitist likes nachos and cheese?

The kind that says "ish", a term I have never used in conversation - maybe it's an elitist thing. Those might be organic nachos too...

Edited October 29, 2010 by chri'stina

[^_^ 5,021]

The kind that says "ish", a term I have never used in conversation - maybe it's an elitist thing. Those might be organic nachos too...

They are organic nachos, at least supposedly. Everything in our cafeteria is supposedly organic. Supposedly.

Well, except for the pizza I imagine.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

That has more to do with the conditions of the other countries than our outsourcing jobs. Even if we didn't outsource any of our jobs those kids would still be forced to work. To stop our outsourcing would damage those economies further and bring more suffering to those kids. But to be clear, the jobs we are sending overseas are not the kind of jobs that kids are forced to do. Your strawman argument just does not fly.

Sound like you're justifying the exploitation of children for the 'greater good.' Are you sure you're not a Communist?

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Sound like you're justifying the exploitation of children for the 'greater good.' Are you sure you're not a Communist?

You are making arguments that don't hold water just to bash capitalism. Who sounds like a communist?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

You are making arguments that don't hold water just to bash capitalism. Who sounds like a communist?

Exploiting children is just part of capitalism? What kind of closet despot are you?

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At least despotism is all he's doing in the closet.

[chri'stina 190]

Organic nachos are known for brainwashing people. It's been studied.