I was really looking forward to watching the Townhall with Bernie on MSNBC. Rather, it has made me very sad, a little jaded. It was similar to the feeling you get when you catch your high school boyfriend not only picked his nose while driving, but also ate it with gusto. I guess he thought that the windows of his 1979 Pinto with the customized spoiler were actually the black-out kind
Bernie is one person I thought believed in equality for all, yet failed miserably when when moderator Chuck Todd suggested the benefits human beings living in third world, developing nations experience, going as far to suggest that the economic effects of free trade agreements on third world populations somehow uplifted them. Although Bernie made it clear that he did not support free trade agreements, whatsoever he said nothing in defense of exploited human beings.
Through free trade, we have greatly increased the amount of human suffering on our planet. These agreements facilitate a race to the bottom, in perpetual search for cheap labour Agreements that provide corporations the ability to demand huge wage concessions from an already underpaid, overworked workforce with threats of relocation, claiming the need to compete globally, while profit immensely.
Maybe I would have been happy if Bernie asked Chuck, “how uplifted Chinese employees feel when their employers found it necessary to install rooftop suicide nets to prevent their employees from jumping to their deaths, which are a direct result of insatiable, obsessive need for cheap electronics to facilitate our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram addictions? How uplifting is it to a five year-old sewing cheap clothing we buy at the local superstore rather than attending Kindergarten? Even if Americans and Canadians wished to make a conscience choice to commit to purchase goods manufactured solely in fair labour environments, as sadly, we no longer make anything.
Bernie should have asked Chuckles Todd, “just how the uplifting effects of free trade agreements to trade unionists in Colombia”?
“In 2011, the U.S. and Colombia launched the U.S.-Colombia Action Plan, intended to address concerns about Colombia’s poor record of protecting labor rights, just as the two nations were about to enact their bilateral free-trade agreement. Since then, dozens of Colombian trade unionists have been murdered, and about 1,000 have received death threats, according to trade unionists. Because of widespread fears of violence and employer retaliation associated with organizing or joining a trade union, only 4% of Colombian workers are union members, according to the non-profit U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project.[1]
Bernie also could have weighed in how uplifted Mexican autoworkers may feel in the wake of NAFTA.
According to Michael Robinet, of IHS Automotive, a consultancy firm in Michigan, “it is estimated that by the year, 2020, approximately 25 per cent of all North American vehicle production will take place in Mexico”.[2]
One would think that growth in auto manufacturing sector, would lead to upward mobility however, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America, “overall poverty rate in Latin America fell from 48.4 per cent in 1990 to 27.9 per cent in 2013. In Mexico, the poverty rate dropped from 52.4 per cent in 1994, to as low as 42.7 per cent in 2006. However, by 2012, it had risen again to 51.3 per cent.”[3]
I continued to watch with considerable sadness, the true champion of equality and fairness, failed to note that many workers in developing nations could use a little less uplifting from the economic effects of free trade agreements.. Bernie gave Chuck a pass.
[1] How Labor Issues Are Complicating the Latest Wave of Free Trade Pacts - Knowledge@Wharton. (2016). Knowledge@Wharton. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/...]
[2] NAFTA’s impact on Mexico: The good, the bad and the ugly | Canadian Sailings (2016). Canadiansailings.ca. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from www.canadiansailings.ca/...
[3] NAFTA’s impact on Mexico: The good, the bad and the ugly | Canadian Sailings. (2016). Canadiansailings.ca. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from www.canadiansailings.ca/...
