Though the world’s attention is focused for the moment on the Middle East, America is engaged in another war with permanent and ominous implications. At least that’s the way Catherine Schuldt sees it. Schuldt is the owner of Butler Wire & Metal Product, a Menomonee Falls custom metal fabrication shop, which she says is endangered by America’s trading policies with China.

Schuldt and Jerald Skoff, president of Badger Metal Tech, Menomonee Falls, are forming the Wisconsin Chapter of Save American Manufacturing (SAM). Schuldt is the chairwoman of the new Wisconsin organization, which is putting out a call to arms for the state’s citizenry and business community to fight for fairer American trade relations with China. Schuldt and Skoff aren’t mincing any words.

They see Wisconsin manufacturers increasingly outsourcing their production work – and jobs – to China, where companies operate with miniscule labor costs and virtually no environmental standards. Schuldt says those Wisconsin manufacturers are “slitting their own throats” by outsourcing their production to China. She says the following scenario is unfolding with alarming frequency. An American company contracts with a Chinese company to produce parts. However, before a Chinese firm can manufacture an American company’s wares, the Chinese company needs to know the equations of the materials, the technology and the processes needed to make those goods.

Once those products are manufactured in China, the Chinese company, replete with the American technology, begins manufacturing the same product “on the side.” The Chinese company then sells the pirated products, often even bearing the American company’s name and logo, at a lower price than the original American product is being sold. Ultimately, China will displace America as the world’s most powerful economic force, Schuldt says. America will be beholden to the prices and the timetables that Chinese companies will dictate, she says.

”This is America’s ‘other’ war. It is the Chinese government that is putting the money back into their country, into their military. And it’s a military that they are not even going to have to use, because they already will have taken over us financially in the next 10 years They’re going to take us over without even firing a missile,” Schuldt says. Schuldt is not about to just let her company bleed to death.

Enter SAM.
SAM was formed last October by some Illinois manufacturers who wanted to address the problem of American companies and jobs being lost to China. Schuldt and Skoff contacted the Illinois SAM chapter and discovered it already has grown to more than 500 members. Soon, they hope a SAM chapter will be formed in every state. As they launch the Wisconsin chapter, Schuldt and Skoff are busy recruiting members and lobbying for legislative support for their mission. SAM members believe that unless the Chinese government begins to better enforce penalties for the theft of American patents and intellectual properties, China should be revoked from the World Trade Organization.

Furthermore, the United States should rescind China’s status as a “most favored nation” trading partner unless China enforces those penalties with more vigilance, SAM members contend. Additionally, SAM members say the playing field should be leveled for trading between the United States and China. With the most favored nation designation, Chinese companies pay no tariffs for products they export to the United States. However, American companies must pay tariffs and many other penalties to export products to China.

SAM members know they may be outgunned in pushing for such reforms. After all, it was America’s largest corporations that fought for increased trading with China. Those companies were enamored with the notions of selling products to China’s 1.2 billion population and employing China’s cheap labor force. In many ways, the issue is evolving into a civil war between America’s largest corporations, which have supported more commercial trade to China, and America’s small businesses, which are closing up shops because they can’t compete with such cheap labor and lax environmental standards.

”The General Electrics, the Motorolas .... To go and change their minds that this bad for us. ... I don’t think that’s going to work,” Schuldt says. “American greed is American greed. And these large corporations, they don’t care. And to some extent, you don’t necessarily blame them. The rest of us, the smaller manufacturers, we need to represent ourselves. We need to tell what’s going on in our businesses and what the big corporations are doing,” Schuldt says.

”I’m not against free trade. I’m against unfair trade. I believe that the stuff coming in from China should at least be taxed to the minimum standards of living in the United States,” Schuldt says.
”The impact is on everyone here. For so long now, we’ve been hearing that the only thing keeping America from going into recession is that the consumers are still spending,” Skoff says. “Well, guess what? The consumers are stopping their spending now. Their confidence is down. People are no longer maxing out their credit cards, or they’re maxed out, and they’re just not buying those things they used to buy.”

‘They’re slitting their own throats’
Manufacturer says outsourcing isn’t the answer
Jerald Skoff, president of Badger Metal Tech, has seen his firm’s potential client list of American diecasting companies dwindle from more than 1,200 to fewer than 300 in a few short years. Correspondingly, his Menomonee Falls metal surface treating company’s revenues shrunk 15% in 2001, another 25% in 2002 and he projects another significant drop in 2003.
To Skoff’s way of thinking, American manufacturers who are outsourcing their production to China, taking advantage of cheap labor and lax environmental standards, may benefit in the short term, but they ultimately are “slitting their own throats.”

The following are excerpts from an interview of Skoff by Small Business Times executive editor Steve Jagler.
SBT: From a Wisconsin manufacturer’s point of view, what is happening with China, and how is it playing out in your industry?
Skoff: The dies are going over to China to be made, because they’re less expensive. When that happens, they (American companies) no longer need the tool shop here to make the dies. In China, the labor cost for a worker is a dollar a day. We can’t pay a guy a dollar a day and expect him to live here. Once that tool goes over there to China, contrary to what people think, instead of making one tool, they make a number of tools. They don’t tell you they’ve made a number of tools, they just copy it. It isn’t long before they cut that tool shop out. Pretty soon, they’re just passing over that guy and going right to the guy who uses the tool. It then progresses. The end user says, “Great, I’m buying my tool from the Chinese company cheaper.” And then he says, “Can you make these parts for me?” A lot of times then, they just move the plants to China. In order to do that, they have to make the technology transfer. They can’t set up a plant in there, whether they’re making Bayer aspirin, electric motors or gasoline engines, without sharing their technology. So, you not only share your technology with them, but you lose the business. They go right to market with the product. That’s what happened to New Balance shoes.

SBT: How bad is the product piracy problem in China?
Skoff: What happens is the manufacturing job at the American tool shop is lost. The Chinese suddenly cut out the (American) manufacturer. It’s the profit mongers of the corporations that start this, because they want to make more profit and make it for less money – at the cost of the worker here in the United States. The tool shop is closed, and you then have the high unemployment.

SBT: Then a Chinese company can take that American technology and manufacturing process, even put the American company’s brand name on it, and sell it more cheaply, right?
Skoff: There’s a company in Milwaukee (Briggs & Stratton Corp.) that makes engines, and they know for a fact that at least three engines are being reproduced over there that are counterfeited. One even has their logo on it. That’s a fact. There’s another company. It’s Crain Tools. They’re a customer of ours. They sent a carpet-cutting tool over to China, with good intentions. The parts came in. The first couple loads were real nice. They looked good. Then they got a shipment, and they were sorting through it, and there wasn’t a Crain logo. There was a Chinese logo in place of the Crain logo. It wasn’t long before the Chinese flooded the market with these carpet-cutting tools, and it hurt Crain. There’s no rule of law over there. It’s a communist country.

SBT: On the issue of patents, the Chinese government has policies and laws against patent violations. Are they not enforced?
Skoff: The violators are challenged by our attorneys. But when you’re dealing with a communist government that doesn’t respect their own citizens, you really are beating your head against the wall, because they’re not going to listen to the case. There’s no way to stop them. And it’s so rampant, that the government over there can’t control it. Microsoft has thousands of copies that are pirated all the time over there. Cummins actually found its logo on engines that weren’t made in the United States, and I’ve heard rumors that there’s a whole car being put together over there. And the thing is, it’s good stuff. They’ve got newer technology than our poor shops have over here. So, not only can the Chinese companies compete on a price level, but on a quality level.

SBT: What’s the impact in Wisconsin?
Skoff: The impact in Wisconsin is you’ve got companies like Zuelzke Tool & Engineering Co. in Milwaukee ....

They’re gone. They’re closed. You’ve got Badger Pattern Works Inc. down in New Berlin. They’re out of business. They closed. They just couldn’t compete. There’s a number of other businesses that are going that way, that are hurting. If they’re competing overseas, then they’re getting killed. In our company, we’re hearing from our customers over and over and over that business isn’t good, that they don’t have anything to send us. I say, “Foreign competition?” And they say, “Ya, China’s killing us. Everything’s going to China.”
If we keep going down like this, we’re going to be one of the dominoes that falls over.

SBT: Has China’s entry into the World Trade Organization accelerated China’s dominance over American manufacturers?
Skoff: The World Trade Organization has increased the amount of business over there. As our trade deficit gets larger and larger, our country gets weaker and weaker. The trade ratio between China and United States is the highest of any country we do trading with, including Japan. It’s growing exponentially.

SBT: What about the United States granting China the most favored nation status, under the Clinton administration? Has that accelerated this problem as well?
Skoff: That has definitely done it. If you don’t believe me, have somebody pick up some objects in their home and try to find something that’s made in the United States.

SBT: So, the United States is losing manufacturing and manufacturing jobs as a component of its gross domestic product?
Skoff: Manufacturing is the backbone of the American economy. People think America went through its industrial revolution, and it’s now time for others to do that job. I’ve been told that Americans need to be retrained in high-technology jobs. Who are we kidding? Why will you need high-technology careers if no one’s working here to buy that technology? Even your job is in jeopardy. If you have no companies here, who’s going to read your newspaper? It will trickle down all the way to the level where we’ll become a third-world country and dependent on others for manufacturing. Ya, we’ll have a service company. Great. But we’ll service the people over in China.

SBT: In a worst-case scenario, could this problem have an impact on national defense, on America’s ability to defend itself?
Skoff: It already has. Oshkosh Truck gets a lot of its parts for its trucks from China, and it was not able to meet an American Defense Department deadline because of the import it had to make on the parts. Our national defense is in jeopardy, because when you get to the point where you have no manufacturing, and someone declares war on you, and the other country, if it be China or wherever, is making your weapons, that’s kind of like asking the Indians if you can buy their arrows to shoot them with. It doesn’t work that way.

SBT: Former Gov. Tommy Thompson went on a couple of trade missions to China with the notion of advocating for businesses in Wisconsin. Was that mission misguided? Was that naïve?
Skoff: That wasn’t intentional, but I think it was misguided and naïve. When you look at it on the outside, you’ve got 1.2 billion people over there to market to. But you’re not marketing to anybody over there. And the Chinese people are really getting treated unfairly too. I feel sorry for the people over there. The people are in terrible economic conditions over there. And if I were talking like I am to you in China, and you came to visit me again, I wouldn’t be here to visit with you again. The Chinese people are not at fault. They would like to end this too and get some fair wages.

SBT: Relative to the US trading relationship with Japan, this is not a level playing field with China, is it?
Skoff: The democracy and the equal market and the number of people, not 1.2 billion, eventually raised their standard in Japan, and now they’re right back even with us again. Japan has actually moved some factories over here to the United States. China isn’t going to do that. You’re not going to see China building plants in the United States to ship products back to be sold in China. Sorry. You’re not going to see that, ever.

SBT: We’ve laid out the problem. What’s the solution?
Skoff: I don’t have a solution. That’s why we’ve formed SAM (Save American Manufacturing)

SAM: Save American Manufacturing-Wisconsin Chapter
Mission:”To build public and government awareness of the devastating effects the increasing economic trade deficit with China has had on US businesses and to create solutions that will reestablish the United States as the manufacturing leader and promote reinvestment in the American labor force”
Goal: To form a grassroots organization for the average American worker and small-business owner to speak up and be heard in Washington.
Founding organization: SAM was formed in Illinois in 2002 and has grown to more than 500 members. Wisconsin is the second state to open a SAM chapter. The organization intends to open chapters in all 50 states.
Web site: http://wombat.fp.execpc.com (temporary). The group’s eventual Web site, www.samnow.org, is under construction.
Contact: Wisconsin SAM chairwoman Catherine Schuldt, owner of Butler Wire & Metal Products Inc., Menomonee Falls, 262-252-3355.

By Steve Jagler, of SBT
March 7, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

George P. Shultz on China and Bosnia
Interview by Peter Robinson

Former Secretary of State Shultz recently spent a morning talking about the challenges posed to U.S. foreign policy by China, one of the biggest countries on earth, and Bosnia, one of the smallest. Shultz answered questions put to him by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson.

Robinson You visited China in March. What struck you most?

Shultz All the visible evidence of tremendous economic progress. You can see it just looking around--the appearance of the place, the quality of the hotel you stay in, the way people dress.

Robinson How have they produced this transformation?

Shultz They've done it by adopting more open markets, more market-based thinking, and more semiprivate property. Their economic system is in a sense still very primitive, but they're working on it. They realize that they have to have a reasonable inflation environment, and they've taken some disciplinary action on that. They're working hard on their financial system, their central banking functions, and their tax system--but they have a long way to go.

Robinson That's the good news about China--but there are many who believe there is some very bad news as well. The Beijing regime is still communist. China uses forced labor. To enforce its one-child-per-family policy, China engages in involuntary sterilization and abortion. China has been providing Pakistan with nuclear material. How do we deal with all of this?

Shultz There are a bundle of problems, no doubt about it. You have to address them. The question is, how? First you have to ask yourself, do you want to try to isolate China? Do you want to impose a trade and investment embargo? The first consequence of an embargo would be that nobody else would adopt it. We would be more isolated than China. It's not like the old Soviet situation--

Robinson --when the entire Western world joined in isolating the Soviets?

Shultz--right. Today China is taking on all the attributes of a great power. So you can't say to yourself that you're going to ignore China. What you want to do, I think, is take advantage of the opportunities that go with a U.S.-China relationship to address the problems.

Robinson Let me give you a test case. A year ago, according to The Economist, there were twenty-eight major operations in the People's Republic of China engaged in violating intellectual property rights by counterfeiting software and compact discs. We protested. One year later, there are thirty-two such operations. How would you handle that?

Shultz You have to be very tough. You also have to recognize that it's a hard issue. I can remember struggling on this issue with Taiwan, with Singapore, and with Hong Kong. It takes a while, and you must keep pushing hard. But once you've convinced them that they have to get hold of intellectual property rights, they do.

Now, one thing that needs to be said to the Chinese is this: "You, China, have a huge stake in getting the issue of intellectual property rights resolved worldwide. The people in China are gifted. You're smart. With your vast population, you're going to produce more than your share of intellectual property, and then you'll have a stake in seeing that it doesn't get counterfeited all over the world. So in your own interest, you'd better buy in."

It's when you get people to see what's in their own interests that you begin to get somewhere.

Robinson Let's turn to Taiwan. This past spring, as Taiwan was preparing for presidential elections, the People's Republic held extensive military maneuvers. They massed some 200,000 troops on the mainland across from Taiwan. They engaged in naval operations in the Strait of Taiwan. They fired missiles that landed within thirty miles of Taiwan. All this looked like a throwback to old-fashioned, loutish communist behavior. Why did the mainland stage these provocations?

Shultz The mainland view is that Taiwan has been putting itself on a path toward independence. When the president of Taiwan tells people that they should think about Moses and the Book of Exodus, the people on the mainland say, "Well, what is that supposed to mean?" In response they're saying, "If where you in Taiwan are heading--and if where the United States wants Taiwan to head--is toward independence, then that's very likely to produce a war."

Now, I think the military maneuvers show a misunderstanding of how democracies work. People in free countries react to intimidation like that very negatively and in exactly the opposite way that people in oppressed societies tend to.

Robinson And Lee Teng-hui, the candidate for president of Taiwan who the mainland wanted to see defeated, ended up winning by a big margin.

Shultz By a bigger margin than he would have otherwise, although he took his added votes entirely from the explicitly proindependence party.

Robinson Let me ask about the military situation. Imagine that one day the mainland Chinese simply declared all the ports on Taiwan closed, then, at random intervals, began lobbing missiles into the sea-lanes approaching those ports. What could the United States do about it?

Shultz It's a pathetic fact that the United States is not anywhere near taking advantage of what is possible in defending ourselves against ballistic missiles. It's a sin, and a crime, that we don't push harder to develop a defense against ballistic missiles.

We should be pushing to learn how to defend ourselves against a weapon that is increasingly common around the world. And if we learn how to do that well, then we'll have a capacity to help friends of ours.

But right now, we can't help Taiwan--or ourselves--anywhere near as much as is desirable and possible.As far as freedom of navigation and access to Taiwan's ports are concerned, we must stand up to that. If our attitude is clear, and if the Chinese actions are not a response to a move to independence by Taiwan, then such action by China would be much less likely.

Robinson On July 1 of next year, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong will cease to exist, reverting to Chinese sovereignty. Some predict that the thriving economy of Hong Kong will be badly undermined. Others believe that China will let Hong Kong continue to flourish. What do you see?

Shultz It's not easy to predict. But when you ask the Chinese leaders what they want in Hong Kong, they all say continuity. And when you ask the leaders of Hong Kong what they want, they all say the same thing.

Robinson Would you hold part of your portfolio in the Hong Kong dollar right now?

Shultz You mean as a currency speculator? I'm not smart enough to be a currency speculator, anywhere.

Robinson The Chinese have Tibet already, they'll have Hong Kong next year, and Macao reverts to them in 1999. That makes Taiwan the last unfinished item on their agenda--

Shultz --they don't consider it unfinished. They consider Taiwan part of China already--and, for that matter, Taiwan, the United States, and all other major countries have all had the view that there is one China and Taiwan is part of China.

Robinson But as China strengthens its military, do we have reason for concern? Will China pose threats to Indonesia? Or Australia? Or attempt to project its power elsewhere in the Pacific?

Shultz The Chinese don't show any signs of that, and the old communist expansionist ideology doesn't seem to be there. Nobody in China talks about communism anymore, except for the record. It's just not a motivating force. The Spratly Islands are a problem--

Robinson --the Spratly Islands?

Shultz Small islands in the South China Sea. A number of countries claim them, including China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. They believe there's a lot of oil and gas underneath the Spratlys. But the Asians are working on that problem themselves, and they'll work out some reconciliation.

But I think when you're talking about security issues, you can't afford just to assess China's intentions. You have to assess China's capabilities and then base your policies on that.

Robinson And are you content with our security policies?

Shultz No, I'm not. I don't think we're paying enough attention to our national security needs by a long shot.

Robinson Mr. Secretary, China has the biggest population and the fourth-biggest land mass of any nation. In turning to Bosnia, we're turning to a country with a population of less than four and a half million--some two million of whom are refugees, both inside the country and out--with a land mass not quite as big as Vermont and New Hampshire combined.

My first question about Bosnia is this: Why should we care about such a tiny country, so far away?

Shultz From the standpoint of American interests, it seems to me we have the following things to think about.

One, if the Bosnia conflict spreads, and becomes Europeanized, then you have a major set of conflicts on your hands.

Two, we aspire to a world in which there are at least some rules that countries observe. The violation of somebody else's border, by force, is against the rules. Rightly or wrongly, the United Nations, the United States, and the European countries all recognize Bosnia as a nation. And its borders have been totally violated.

Three, there is the problem of genocide, of killing people because of their ethnicity or their religion. In this diverse world--for that matter, in this diverse country, the United States--if ethnic or religious hatred turns into violence or murder, then a very important norm has been violated.

That doesn't mean we should be putting a land army in Bosnia, but there are good reasons for us to pay attention.

Robinson One of the arguments against intervention in Bosnia is that the history of the region is so tangled. You have a group of Slavic peoples who have been fighting each other roughly since the collapse of the Roman Empire. Isn't it naive to suppose that we can end hatreds that date back more than a thousand years?

Shultz I don't pretend to be a student of the Balkans, but I would point out to you that other people have fought with each other throughout history, too. The Germans have fought with the French quite a few times. But today they live in peace.

And from what we've been able to understand about events in Bosnia, the violence did not erupt from the people. It was something brought on by leaders. Remember the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo? The city of Sarajevo was regarded as a model of what can happen when you get the tide of goodwill going.

People of different religions and ethnic groups were living together in peace. It was the leaders, particularly the Serb leaders, who started the violence. To my way of thinking, they are war criminals.

Robinson What is your view of the Dayton Accord?

Shultz The accord has a military and a political aspect.

The military aspect is the easier part. Using NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces, corridors have been established between the different groups. So you solve the fighting by separating the people who are fighting. In other words, the accord in its immediate implementation tends to cement the ethnic cleansing that has taken place by violence and brutal displacement.

It's the political side that people are skeptical about. What you're trying to do is construct some sort of internal balance of power, so the warring parties will have to respect each other. Out of that, you're trying to construct a constitutional Bosnia, with a recognition that different parts of the country will be occupied by different ethnic groups but that there will somehow be a central government.

Robinson President Clinton has promised that our troops will be out by the end of this year. Can they meet that deadline?

Shultz It's always a mistake to put a known termination date on an intervention like this, because then everybody can play against that date. You need to have some uncertainty, just as a matter of technique. But do we want our forces out of there? Yes. Is it an uncertain situation that they will leave behind? Without a doubt.

By Bill Walton
BayToday.ca
Sunday, January 04, 2004

This past month has to have been one of the toughest for people earning the minimum wage. The constant bombardment to buy, buy, buy puts a strain on most wallets, but when you have to settle for a game of checkers instead of the Game Boy, parents must wonder how they will get through the holiday season without discouraging their children. It would be a nice time to receive a surprise inheritance from a distant uncle.

Ever since Uncle Sam, my 43rd cousin twice removed, declared that I was not closely enough related to share in the wealth he created with Wally Mart, I have tried not to shop at his stores. But every once in a while I am lured into his store by the advertised low prices.

Then I whine at my wife for a week about the quality of the goods I bought and swear not to return. Not that Wally Mart has the corner on cheaper goods, but I blame Sam for the slippery slope of lower quality we seem to be on.

Wally Mart has set the standard in low prices. In the beginning they sold same quality goods as everyone else using their purchasing volume to demand lower prices from manufacturers. Other department stores, without the huge purchasing lever that Wally had, fought back by purchasing cheaper goods from countries where there was no minimum wage.

Old Sam replied by going to the same sources, and using his purchasing power, demanded even lower prices. The local manufacturers complied, hoping for more business from the giant of merchandising. But as the competition continued, the quality of the ingredients was reduced to save money. Soon goods made at lower than minimum wage with lower quality were on the shelves. The result is products that lose their shape or colour or wear out just a little sooner than they used to. But they are inexpensive to buy.

The methods used by Wally Mart were not lost on others. Soon brand names were buying all of their product offshore. Even at our low minimum wages in North America, our workers could not compete with India, Hong Kong or China. Manufacturers tried to meet Wally Mart dictated prices, but when there is no profit, businesses close.

For instance, say Sam wanted to start marketing Dill Pickles. They would survey the market and establish that they wanted to sell 4 litres of dill pickles for 2.99 – a dollar lower than the closest competition. Farmers would complain to the pickle plant owners but if they wanted to sell their cucumbers, they had to meet that 2.99 retail price. So the farmers and the packers try, fail, lose their farms and packing plants and Wally gets his pickles from Chile or Indonesia. We can buy the soggy dills at Wally’s for 2.99.

But that is only part of the great Plan. We now have people working at minimum wages to meet the demands of Wally. All they can afford to buy is stuff at Wally’s store because of their low wages. It’s the old Company Store philosophy – workers get a discount for shopping where they work. Since they have to shop at the most inexpensive store, the competition who may have higher quality (at comparably higher prices) cannot stay in business.

Brand name companies try to compete by opening “Manufacturer’s Outlets” to sell their surplus, overruns and seconds. This seems like a good idea until the pencil pushers determine that they are making more at the outlets than at the main stores. So they begin to manufacture product solely for the ‘Outlet’. Guess what? They can get their ‘brand name’ stuff made in China or Indonesia at a fraction of the cost! They close the North American factory and supply their Outlets from China!

The natural progression is that the brand names all move off shore, the quality drops when there is no competition and I end up with Made in China light bulbs from CTC that do not mate with my Made in Canada fixtures!

Even worse, fakes appear – names like Rolex are a prime target, but now even Duracell batteries are being counterfeited! And only the Bunny knows the difference when he stops three drumbeats short or his tail starts to smoke from a leaking battery.

Yet Wally Mart isn’t the only company that uses the minimum wages here and abroad to create and maintains markets. Fast food outlets use the same techniques. Low wages, lowest possible quality and plastic utensils to match their food. People and families earning the minimum wage can only afford to eat at these places and it soon becomes a regular place to eat.

Food outlets that serve prepackaged, precooked servings of meat products imported from plants that also pay minimum wages replace restaurants where the chef actually cooks a cut of meat. And because we are accustomed to the fast food quality, we really don’t miss the fine dining, or perhaps cannot even appreciate it.

Does it matter that we no longer have trades people who can sew dresses and jeans? Do we care if our pickles come from Chile or Indonesia and not Ontario or even the States? Do we care that our sports shoes are not really Nikes even though that is the name on the side? Who cares if we no longer have chefs to prepare a nice meal for us? So what if our electronics are all made in China by people earning minimum wages? Do we care that we are losing minimum wage Call Centre jobs to India?

As long as the Wally Marts and the McFoods can feed and clothe us with the bare essentials they can make a case for the minimum wage. The captains of industry can and will threaten that jobs will be lost if the minimum wage rate is raised, and they only have to point at the hundreds of examples all around us to convince us. They forget that those workers who could use a boost in the minimum wage will spend all of that money and contribute to our tax base.

Most of us do not think that when we buy Wally’s imported stuff we are causing a serious balance of payments problem for ourselves. All the money going out of the country to pay for the foreign goods is not circulating and attracting taxes here at home. The US is facing a fiscal disaster as their balance of payments continues to worsen and their debt climbs out of control. And I blame the Sam Walton’s for much of this problem.

The solution to this problem may be to add a tariff to Wally’s imported stuff equivalent to the American or Canadian minimum wage. If Chinese exporters, for instance, had to add the equivalent minimum wage of the importing country to their stuff, we might see jobs returning to our own countries. (I know this sounds like the Softwood Lumber fiasco, but we all know Free Trade doesn’t work)

Perhaps if the Dalton Gang had to survive on minimum wage for a month they would advance the minimum wages much sooner. They might even crank it up a notch when they recognize all the extra taxes they will reap from a decent minimum wage.

I must ask my wife if there was a Samus Waltonius in Rome just before the Empire crumbled. It seems to me that they were importing cheaper grain and goods, relying on the distraction of games and hiring minimum wage warriors just about the time the barbarians arrived at the gates.

模倣品対策への取組み！

China Cracks Down on "Black Economy

Global Newsstand: Chinese Fake-Out

Getting China to engage in fair free trade - CBIA News

China Business Gateway - Professional Services

Technology News: International: China's Technology Standards ...

www.paris-hongkong.com/articles/ 20001216shenzhen/

archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/ 2002/06/06/story53674.asp

icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/ eveningchronicle/c...

www.chinaonline.com/homepages/ 2002/triptych_020702.asp

http://www.biztimes.com/bizTimes/americasotherwar.cfm

newstrove.com/topics/China.html

www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/ Selections/961/shultz.html

www.reformpartyofmichigan.homestead.com/ files/Americas_Other_War.htm

http://www.baytoday.ca/content/editorials/details.asp?c=1323

www.biztimes.com/bizTimes/americasotherwar.cfm

喂我叫jason在哪里浴室？

中国伪造的戒指 (Chinas counterfeiting ring)

http://tech.china.com/translate/

4. China's exploited toy workers still toil in toxic sweatshops

By Jasper Becker in Beijing
THE INDEPENDENT
24 December 2002

In the crowded sweatshops of China's Pearl river delta, the world's toys are
churned out, not by Santa's elves, but by 1.5 million peasant girls toiling
through shifts of 12 or 14 hours, inhaling toxic fumes.

A 10-year campaign to introduce basic workers' rights has barely begun to
improve the shabby treatment of the girls, new research shows.
"The Chinese toy factory workers are more exploited than before," said May
Wong of the Asia Monitor Resource Centre who investigated the toy industry,
with the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee. Another investigator,
Monina Wong, author of a soon-to- be-published report for the Hong Kong
Coalition for the Charter on the Safe Production of Toys, said: "Wages have
actually gone down, there is so much surplus labour. Conditions have
improved a little, especially in overtime because big buyers are putting
pressure on sub-contractors."

But workers still have no contracts or unions, and little protection from
owners who sometimes withhold part or even all of the wages due. China makes
70 per cent of the world's toys and its exports, now worth .5bn (£4.7bn)
annually, have doubled in eight years. In addition, China exports nearly
of plastic Christmas trees, ornaments and lights, tinsel, plastic
angels and bells, Santa suits, framed pictures of Jesus and Bible scenes.

Hong Kong and Taiwanese companies that make goods for the likes of Hasbro
(whose brands include Action Man and Bob the Builder), Mattel (makers of
Barbie) and Disney have shifted production to the Chinese mainland, lured by
the plentiful supply of cheap, unregulated labour.

China has 6,000 manufacturers, largely funded by foreign companies and
clustered in the Pearl river delta, or Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. Dr
Anita Chan, an expert on Chinese labour issues at the Austrian National
University, said: "People who buy toys should care, [because] conditions in
the toy sector are probably worse than other factories." Sixty per cent of
the toy workers are women between 17 and 23 who live in cramped company
dormitories, 15 to a room, earning 30 cents an hour painting colours with a
brush or spraying, or clipping the pieces together. Most get only two days
off a month. Inhaling the spray paints, glue fumes and toxic dust is a
health hazard, causing dizziness, headaches and rashes. Over time, it can be
fatal. The case of 19-year-old Li Chunmei, who fainted on the production
line and died hours later, was reported by The Washington Post this year and
taken up by trade unions in America. But such deaths are common in the Pearl
river delta. This year, China introduced laws on health and safety but
campaigners say these make the workers
responsible for compliance and are hard to enforce.

Of the remaining , $1 is shared by the management and transportation in
Hong Kong, 65 cents shared by the raw materials. The remaining 35 cents is
earned by producers in China for providing the factory sites, labour and
electricity. Although big companies including Disney have drawn up codes of
conduct, enforcing them in China is not easy. Dr Chan said: "My guess is
that big factories might have shown improvement, but not the smaller
sub-subcontractor." Chinese workers had the right to strike in the 1954
constitution but this was taken away when it was amended in 1982. Now that
the Communist Party is privatising the means of production, legal experts
say the only logical step is for the workers to be allowed trade union
freedoms.

Factories & Sweatshops Fighting for Chinese workers' rights
	China : China Labour Bulletin, CLB Founded in 1994, China Labour Bulletin (CLB) is a Hong Kong based centre that works exclusively for the promotion of independent, democratic unionisation and the protection of labour rights and standards. Over the last two years, the CLB have expanded their focus from advocacy to incoporate projects around ILO Conventions 87 and 98, upholding peoples' rights at work. War on Want are currently supporting the writing of a 300-page book (in English) which will focus on workers' comments on and analyses of various labour-related practices and official policies. Contents of the book will be primarily based on accounts by Chinese workers, taken from interviews conducted between 1997 and 2002. The main issues covered by the book will include: working and living conditions; economic reform; unemployment; social insecurity; enterprise reform; international trade and foreign investment; the role and function of the official union; labour standards; human rights; corruption; democracy; independent labour organisation, and the political implications of these issues.

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Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent • Mom Hopes Mystery Boy Is Her Son • 'Silly Season' Begins in 2004 White House Race • Lowly Fruit Fly's Amazing Flight Secrets MORE ON THIS STORY VIDEO • Chinese Knockoffs Big Business   Charles Scholz is a genuine, fake buster. As the Asia director for the security consulting firm, Kroll Associates, he is hired by international corporations to root out and help shut down the counterfeiters. When inspecting a pair of ski gloves with a North Face label emblazoned prominently, Scholz determined, "The tag is real, the product is not." Not only would these gloves not keep you dry, "If you buy this, you get soaked." Chinese counterfeiting now costs foreign firms an estimated billion a year in lost profits. "In the case of one consumer goods manufacturer, as much as 70 percent of the goods on the market are counterfeits," said Scholz. Buying the Label, not Quality Just across the border from Hong Kong, the town of Shenzhen has become a Mecca for cheap knockoffs. With small cameras under wraps, ABCNEWS found an amazing variety and quantity of copies. Not only were there the latest DVDs, like Monsters, Inc. for $1 each, the latest software, like the newest version of PhotoShop and Windows, at one-tenth the cost, but just about every consumer product imaginable. Most of the Yamaha motorbikes here are not made by Yamaha. One-fourth of the Duracell and Energizer batteries are bogus. American Standard toilets, Head & Shoulders shampoo, Gillette razors and even reliable Skippy peanut butter are almost all of dubious quality. They even sell fake Viagra. "Anything from shampoo that might burn your head, batteries that only work for two days before they cut out, light bulbs that go out after two days," Scholz said. Many of the auto parts made in China are unreliable, dangerous knockoffs of well-known international brands. The result is shoddy goods that often make their way around the globe. A five-hour drive out of Shanghai is the city of Yimu, which calls itself the "Capital of Small Commodities." In the merchandise trade, it's better known by another name: "Counterfeit Central." This is where international buyers come to purchase knockoffs in bulk. Some 40,000 wholesale shops sell about 100,000 products that are up to 90 percent fake. Occasional Crackdown Affects Much-Needed Jobs And every day, tons of phony goods are shipped out, mostly to the Middle East, Africa and South America — right under the noses of the Chinese police. China does crack down occasionally. Pirated videos and music CDs are regularly crushed for the news cameras. But counterfeiting is now so big, officials are reluctant to shut it down completely, since it provides millions of badly needed jobs. "Actually, trying to put a stop to it is going to take some fundamental changes in the society and economy here," Scholz said. In the meantime, counterfeiters remain so brazen that one of the most popular markets for fakes sits in the center of the Chinese capital, right across the street from the U.S. Embassy.

ABCNEWS.com

Tug-of-War Over Trade
As China becomes the world's factory, U.S. manufacturers are getting hurt. Do the Chinese play fair? The answer is more complex than you might imagine
By MATT FORNEY/BEIJING


Jerry Rowland feels the dragon breathing down his neck. He's the CEO of National Textiles, a T-shirt maker in a state that has lost more than 37,000 textile jobs since the U.S. lifted quotas on Chinese imports two years ago. Unless Rowland's North Carolina workers suddenly become competitive with Chinese counterparts who earn just a few dollars a day, he fears his employees will be next. The plainspoken Southerner ticks off what he regards as China's unfair advantages: excessive government protection, an underpriced currency, cowed and underpaid workers, exports dumped below cost.

WWW.TIME.Com

The Counterfeit City

For some people Shenzhen, the Special Economic Zone of China neighbouring Hong Kong, is synonymous with dynamysm and amazing growth rates. For others Shenzhen is mainly synonymous with counterfeit business: fake Prada bags, fake Swiss watches, fake statistics on amazing growth rates, in China everything can be faked, and for all to see.

www.paris-hongkong.com/articles/ 20001216shenzhen/

fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200112/ 19/eng20011219_87084.shtml

P&G Plagued by Counterfeits in China

Procter & Gamble Co, the largest US maker of household goods, reported a loss of US million last year in China due to counterfeit products, with up to 18 percent of their Safeguard brand products on the domestic market fake, eastday.com reported on March 20. "Our largest rival in the Chinese market is not a single brand, but the imitators," said Zhu Shaolong, vice chief attorney of P&G's Chinese affiliates.

The proportions of counterfeit P&G products declined from 15 percent to 10 percent in China last year, with lower rates in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Zhu said.

Safeguard, one of the leading P&G brands, is the leading victim, with 17 to 18 percent of products on the domestic market imitations, 3 to 7 percent higher than other brands, Zhu said.

The counterfeit problem in China is much more serious than in other nations such as India and Ukraine, said a senior P&G manager. "We began to crack down on counterfeits in 1991 and the imitators got more clever, choosing more hidden locations for production," the senior said. Many counterfeit factories were moved from the Southeast coastal area to middle and western areas of the country, he added.

Yiwu of Zhejiang Province, Shaole of Hunan Province and Linyi of Shandong Province have been found to be counterfeiting centers, according to an inspection department. "They usually form counterfeit groups with complete organizational structures," said an employee with the department.

Counterfeits are the biggest obstacle for foreign investors in China, a major threat to domestic economic development during China's second year in the World Trade Organization, said an industry analyst.

Lenient punishment for violators and protectionism by local authorities where the goods are produced are cited as the two main reasons for the problem, the analyst said. (Eastday.com)

Written by:

BEIJING, China -- China is making little progress in ending piracy of music, movies, software and consumer goods, a U.S. trade official has said.

China has a rampant counterfeit industry and has a long way to go to fulfil its promises as a new World Trade Organization member, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Joseph Papovich said in Beijing on Wednesday.

Industry groups have estimated that more than 90 percent of computer software in China is pirated.

Vendors openly hawk pirated DVDs for as little as $1.00, while street markets sell fake name brands including Nike shoes and several other sports brands.

China has repeatedly promised to shut down its huge counterfeiting industry, especially in the run up to becoming a WTO member in December.

But while Beijing has enacted laws and trained enforcement officials, the penalties and fines are too low, Papovich said.

Referring to his last visit to China in November 2000, Papovich said at a news conference, "Companies tell me the problem is still as severe as it was then."

Avanlanche

CNN.com Asia More news from our Asia edition

Business groups have said China is likely to face an avalanche of complaints in WTO dispute forums about lack of protection for patents, copyrights and other intellectual property.

Papovich said that the United States hasn't threatened to file such a complaint.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a trade group, estimates that China's piracy of entertainment and computer goods cost businesses million in lost sales in 2000.

Besides pirated computer software, music CDs and movie VCDs and DVDs, counterfeit consumer goods ranging from band-aids and cosmetics to razor blades and shampoo are widely sold.

Most pirated music, movies and software goods are made overseas and smuggled into China, while fake consumer goods are produced domestically and, in some cases, exported.

'Slap on the wrist'

Papovich said administrative sanctions the government uses to punish violators are little more than "a slap on the wrist."

"We believe that more of these counterfeiting cases, of product counterfeiting and copyright piracy, need to be referred for criminal prosecutions," he said.

Although WTO members can resort to sanctions over lack of enforcement, the United States wants to help China tackle the problem by sharing information and making suggestions.

But foreign firms could pull out of China or hesitate to enter the market if high levels of piracy continued, he said.

Piracy is one factor hampering China's development of its domestic software industry, which lags much of Asia.

"I think the Chinese government recognizes that its ability to develop its own indigenous industries is adversely affected by high counterfeiting and piracy rates," Papovich said.