Offshore hiring isn’t anything new, yet given the current political climate, it has proven to be increasingly controversial. Indeed, cheaper labor costs and fewer regulations in countries such as China have created an incentive for U.S. corporations to move assembly plants there for decades. Corporate entities readily embrace outsourcing as their operative economic philosophy, but they won’t, however, support the domestic production to prevent a world in which unregulated sweatshops and environmental degradation are accepted as the cost of doing business. According to the most recent data available, U.S. companies employed 14 million workers in their overseas affiliates in 2013. The 14 million outsourced jobs are nearly double the 7.4 million
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Jobs outsourcing helps U.S. companies be more competitive in the global economy. They can sell to foreign marketplaces by having offshore divisions and offices, and they keep labor costs low by hiring in emerging markets with lower standards of living. This allows lower prices for the goods they ship back to the United States. How long do we have until a global equilibrium of sorts is reached, one in which the incremental savings from outsourcing do not offset the cost and disruption of that outsourcing? Most companies are already on their third or fourth offshoring country because the previous ones became too expensive. Not to mention, some of these countries have terrible workplace safety standards. The outsourcing movement as a whole does not seem to be stopping anytime soon, which is why companies have a moral obligation to establish ethical guidelines for this model. A corporation can save money on labor costs without having workers die on the job. We can have a global economy that operates ethically and prosecutes those who violate standards, despite the fact that some corporate giants certainly don’t want this accountability. However, the workers of the world want it, and businesses and the public should …show more content…
We have to fight for international standards that would set minimum limits on goods sold in the United States. Those standards must be mandatory, even if corporations outsource their production, and they must have real punishment clauses. They also must empower workers and citizens around the world to take action against corporations that violate these standards and to sue these corporations in American courts. If a company wants to source production in Bangladesh, that’s fine. But there should be standards for wages, workplace safety, and pollution. If a factory poisons or harms the environment, citizens should be able to charge the business with violating pollution standards. The same should apply to workplace
Jobs outsourcing helps U.S. companies be more competitive in the global economy. They can sell to foreign marketplaces by having offshore divisions and offices, and they keep labor costs low by hiring in emerging markets with lower standards of living. This allows lower prices for the goods they ship back to the United States. How long do we have until a global equilibrium of sorts is reached, one in which the incremental savings from outsourcing do not offset the cost and disruption of that outsourcing? Most companies are already on their third or fourth offshoring country because the previous ones became too expensive. Not to mention, some of these countries have terrible workplace safety standards. The outsourcing movement as a whole does not seem to be stopping anytime soon, which is why companies have a moral obligation to establish ethical guidelines for this model. A corporation can save money on labor costs without having workers die on the job. We can have a global economy that operates ethically and prosecutes those who violate standards, despite the fact that some corporate giants certainly don’t want this accountability. However, the workers of the world want it, and businesses and the public should …show more content…
We have to fight for international standards that would set minimum limits on goods sold in the United States. Those standards must be mandatory, even if corporations outsource their production, and they must have real punishment clauses. They also must empower workers and citizens around the world to take action against corporations that violate these standards and to sue these corporations in American courts. If a company wants to source production in Bangladesh, that’s fine. But there should be standards for wages, workplace safety, and pollution. If a factory poisons or harms the environment, citizens should be able to charge the business with violating pollution standards. The same should apply to workplace