Hightower Lowdown

The corporate chorus is that all countries must rewrite their laws to let the benefits of globalization flow to everyone. But suddenly, the Chinese government is singing a different tune: Responding to public demand, China is proposing new laws that would lift the wages of workers and extend basic democratic rights to the workplace. "Oh, good gracious, no!" Wal-Mart, Google, General Electric, and Microsoft are screaming. Globalization is supposed to protect our investments and profits, not people!

So the sweatshop lobby has descended on China like a plague of locusts, demanding that the new labor law be repudiated. These global giants moved factories there specifically to slash their labor costs. This relocation meant that these businesses could offer poverty wages in China and then use the deplorable pay and conditions there as a sledgehammer to knock down workers everywhere.

China, which now constitutes about 25 percent of the global work force, has become the global standard for low wages and poor working conditions in industry after industry. If China were to lift its living standards, this could have a ripple effect on conditions for people around the world --an ironic reverse benefit of globalization.

This has led to major corporate heart palpitations and an unseemly, embarrassing, self-serving lobbying blitz in China by brandname corporations to stop true globalization in its tracks. They've had some success, but now there's a growing global backlash against their greed. To learn more, contact the watchdog group Global Labor Strategies at www.laborstrategies.org.