April is generally known as “Workers' Month” because Worker’s Memorial Day falls in April. But workers in the U.S. are still under attack by greedy corporations who want to take us and our families back to the Reagan Years wages and benefits. All the while the CEO’s and their staffs will party like its 2099.
Case in point is the Whirlpool Corporation from Benton Harbor, MI that announced plans in August of last year to close their Evansville, Indiana refrigerator plant and move the 1,100 jobs to Mexico. For this city of 122,000 that is almost ten percent of the jobs, or more when you figure in supporting employment.
It is time, as Americans, that we stop destroying the livelihoods of our fellow Americans and think twice about having a hand in helping another line of foreclosure signs to pop up. In the 2009 fiscal year, Whirlpool made a 2.39 billion dollar profit. It would seem all is well with this company without the outsourcing. Could it be that we never have enough? This is not Capitalism as Adam Smith, the Scottish political philosopher often called the father of Capitalism, intended. This is slash and burn economics that hurts the masses for the enrichment of a few.
If you recall the State of the Union address, that president Obama gave earlier this year, then you remember the solution he had for such issues. His resolution to this problem was to take the tax incentives away from companies, like Whirlpool, who move production across the border and give them to companies who keep or start production in this country. When president Obama spoke these words, all the Democrats stood and cheered and all the Republicans sat on their hands. If this wasn’t a telling moment for American voters I’m not sure what would be. The Republican free marketers want to pay Whirlpool to leave while the Democrats want to pay them to stay. And the media says there is no difference between the parties.
Consumers can have a say in all this. Maytag, Haier, Amana and Peerless all manufacture appliances in the United States. Many of these are made with union labor. Let’s support the home team and reward these companies for doing the right thing. As for the Republicans and the off-shore free market crowd, I only wish for one thing, that the decision makers of the company would have to live and sleep in the place where they move their production to. Live among those they exploit to get a feel for the life style that they have created; unable to return to the safety of the U.S. each night for a good nights’ sleep on a satin pillow. As the rock band Rage Against the Machine so aptly puts it “There Will be No Shelter Here.”
Case in point is the Whirlpool Corporation from Benton Harbor, MI that announced plans in August of last year to close their Evansville, Indiana refrigerator plant and move the 1,100 jobs to Mexico. For this city of 122,000 that is almost ten percent of the jobs, or more when you figure in supporting employment.
It is time, as Americans, that we stop destroying the livelihoods of our fellow Americans and think twice about having a hand in helping another line of foreclosure signs to pop up. In the 2009 fiscal year, Whirlpool made a 2.39 billion dollar profit. It would seem all is well with this company without the outsourcing. Could it be that we never have enough? This is not Capitalism as Adam Smith, the Scottish political philosopher often called the father of Capitalism, intended. This is slash and burn economics that hurts the masses for the enrichment of a few.
If you recall the State of the Union address, that president Obama gave earlier this year, then you remember the solution he had for such issues. His resolution to this problem was to take the tax incentives away from companies, like Whirlpool, who move production across the border and give them to companies who keep or start production in this country. When president Obama spoke these words, all the Democrats stood and cheered and all the Republicans sat on their hands. If this wasn’t a telling moment for American voters I’m not sure what would be. The Republican free marketers want to pay Whirlpool to leave while the Democrats want to pay them to stay. And the media says there is no difference between the parties.
Consumers can have a say in all this. Maytag, Haier, Amana and Peerless all manufacture appliances in the United States. Many of these are made with union labor. Let’s support the home team and reward these companies for doing the right thing. As for the Republicans and the off-shore free market crowd, I only wish for one thing, that the decision makers of the company would have to live and sleep in the place where they move their production to. Live among those they exploit to get a feel for the life style that they have created; unable to return to the safety of the U.S. each night for a good nights’ sleep on a satin pillow. As the rock band Rage Against the Machine so aptly puts it “There Will be No Shelter Here.”
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