In Case You Forgot How Awful U.S. Corporations Are

I cannot recommend highly enough Brendan Smith, Tim Costello, and Jeremy Brecher's article "Chinese Heat is on U.S. Sweatshop Lobby" at Asia Times. These authors detail how U.S. corporations are working to undermine the tiny improvements for workers in Chinese law pending before the National People's Congress in Beijing. U.S. corporations, especially Microsoft and Google (with their laughable "Don't be Evil" slogan) are particularly behind this lobby. They are threatening to move jobs from China to nations with even less worker protections such as Pakistan. They have had an effect. The law was first significantly watered down to undermine labor unions and then was not even taken up at this year's Congress meeting.

Luckily, people like the authors have done an effective job of publicizing this evil coming from corporations. A significant number of congressional Democrats such as Barney Frank and Barbara Lee are working to support the Chinese workers. And a few corporations such as Nike also are publicly supporting giving these workers more rights.

Let this be a reminder of just how awful most corporations are. The level of social responsibility is nil. They have undermined the hard-fought gains of American workers and attack workers of the developing world for demanding even the most basic human rights. They dump whatever they want to into the environment and then lobby against any regulations to protect the human body and natural world. If there is a Hell, I can name a few corporate leaders and managers who have a nice, hot spot waiting for them.

You can see the author's expanded findings here.