So Long America!

This morning I looked at the headlines on my local paper and read that GM will be closing some plants and laying off 25,000 (yes, that's TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND) American workers. The only thing I can say to this is; I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO. If you want to know when I told you so, read on.

From: Alan Adaschik

To: Letters to the Editor, The News-Journal

Sir:

In the editorial, “Have we all become Hooverites?”, Marie Cocco urges the great middle-aged American middle-class to get mad and get organized so as to halt the downward spiral of pay and benefits being experienced by this nation’s workforce. While her intentions and motivations are admirable, her recommendations are naive and out of touch with the realities faced by American workers.

When Congress passed the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) in 1994, making the United States a member of the World Trade Organization, it placed American workers in the global job market where they would be in direct competition with the low paid workers of the 3rd world. The direct and inevitable result of this action is what American workers are now experiencing. In order to compete in the global market place, American companies must be competitive and this means that to survive, they must offer lower salaries and reduced benefits to American workers.

In 1994, when I expressed the above concerns in an open letter to the people of this nation, Vice-President Al Gore wrote me and said, “This agreement (GATT), by eliminating barriers to American goods and services around the world, will mean new jobs, higher incomes for American workers, and a strengthened position of leadership for our nation in the global economy.”

I responded to Vice President Gore’s posturing as follows:

“The standard of living of the American worker is among the highest in the World. In contrast the vast majority of the World's workers are virtual slaves to their employers; earning barely enough to provide their families with the essentials of life. If all tariffs and barriers to trade are lifted, the American worker will be in level competition with the low paid workers of the 3rd World who greatly out number him. This being so, logic and basic economics tell us that the tendency will be for the American worker to be pulled down to the salary level of the 3rd World worker and not the other way around. To maintain that this situation is to the benefit of American workers and thus our Nation is shear sophistry.”

In conclusion, what is happening to the American worker, today, is a direct result of the willful and deliberate globalization of our economy by Congress and despite Marie Cocco’s opinions, there is nothing that anyone can do improve the situation.