Posted on 10/21/2007 10:26:09 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has accused foreign textile companies, mostly Taiwanese, of "enslaving" workers and leaving the country instead of paying higher wages.
Ortega said several industries closed in free zones following the government's recent decision to increase the minimum wage by 18 percent.
"There is talk that the companies are going to leave the free zones, that people are going to be left unemployed," the leftist Ortega said in a speech late on Wednesday.
"When they find that they have to pay more, it is no longer worthwhile and they leave," he said.
The president said the owners of textile industries "enslave" Nicaraguan female workers, forcing them to work long hours in exchange for "the lowest salaries in all of Central America."
"When they see that they should increase their employees' wages by 18 percent, they decide to leave for places like ... China and Vietnam, although they are Taiwanese," Ortega said.
The Nicaraguan president said his country needed "long-term investment and not this kind."
Free zones, which offer incentives to foreign companies by cutting tariffs and quotas, started to operate in Nicaragua in 1990 and have become an important source of jobs. More than 83,000 people work in 112 firms, most of them from Taiwan, South Korea and the US.
Miguel Ruiz, secretary general of the Sandinista Workers Union, which is close to the government, said on Wednesday that at least five factories have closed this year.
He attributed the fact to "a 30 percent reduction in work orders."
In related news, Taiwanese Ambassador to Nicaragua Wu Chin-mu (吳進木), who was also present yesterday evening, told a Central News Agency reporter that Huang Ming-wei (黃明偉), general manager of Nien Hsing Textile Co (年興紡織), verified that the company had set up a plant in Vietnam but that it had no plans to leave Nicaragua.
Wu said the policy to increase salaries was put in place after Ortega took over the Nicaraguan presidency, but that labor costs still were the lowest in Central America.
A Nien Hsing official who mentioned some of the problems encountered in Nicaragua's free zones in an interview with the Miami Herald last week said that pulling out its investments was one of the company's possible strategies.
The report was picked by Nicaraguan newspapers this week.
Duh.
Sure, Danny. Slave laborers running to China and Vietnam is like the pigeons running to the cat.
When they have to pay more, it becomes more profitable for them to hire the illegals here.
It’s pretty embarrassing when Ortega is right about something.
Well, yeah. We can’t pretend we don’t benefit from slave labor when we buy goods produced in countries without labor rights. Of course I’m going to buy the cheapest underwear or electronic junk (or whatever) at the store, but I can’t complain when the poor workers in Nicaragua or Mexico or one of our neighbors feels they have to emigrate to the U.S. when their only choice is a crappy job that means their children will starve or take their chances and come north.
If we’re going to have Free Trade Zones with our neighbors, we shouldn’t at the same time be giving “Most Favored Nations Status” to countries like China, which lack even a modicum of human (and labor) rights.
I guess if they’re not actually forced to be there, then I guess they aren’t actual slaves.
Something tells me that if one quits, 10 are right there to take their place.
FREE TRADE IS NOT FREE
Patrick J. Buchanan
Address to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
November 18, 1998
. . . I am called by many names. “Protectionist” is one of the nicer
ones; but it is inexact. I am an economic nationalist. To me, the
country comes before the economy; and the economy exists for the
people. I believe in free markets, but I do not worship them. In
the proper hierarchy of things, it is the market that must be
harnessed to work for man - and not the other way around.
As for the Global Economy, like the unicorn, it is a mythical beast
that exists only in the imagination. In the real world, there are
only national economies . . .
I’m not “forced” to live next door to an illegal alien either - it must be magic. I can’t get the borders closed or the employers to obey the law . . . maybe if I only tried harder.
non sequiter.
Sez you.
Maybe Ortega should repatriate his Swiss bank account money.
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