The War of Labor and Profits

To fight against corporate profits taking significance over human rights, native workers go on strike to improve their wages and other benefits. In response, companies outsource jobs to foreign workers which usually saves them a lot of money.

Image result for outsourcing jobs

The outsourcing of jobs to cheaper foreign workers is a major problem plaguing striking workers in the United States as any attempt to improve working situations could backfire immensely.
An example of this is Verizon, which in 2016, had 40,000 workers strike over the outsourcing of jobs. This is the largest strike in Verizon's history, and almost the largest strike ever. This is in response to Verizon attempting to assign workers contracts which would allow them to relocate workers without appeal, and increase outsourced labor.

Similar to counter-strike measures used in the past, Verizon is training thousands of nonunion employees to fill in for the gaps during the strike. The entire situation caused Verizon's stock to drop a decent amount.

While this is a more specific example, strikes in general allow US companies to be more competitive in the global market, since overseas labor allows access to overseas markets. The lower labor cost allows lower prices of goods for all consumers, including those in the US.

One of the only downsides is the negative effect on jobs availability in the US, with outsourced jobs doubling the size of the unemployed population in the US. Bringing all outsourced jobs back to the US would allow all unemployed and part-time employed to have full-time jobs, at the cost of consumers.

Thinking about the issue from the eyes of a company, a US employee, a foreign employee, and aconsumer each provide an interesting take on the issue. What's the right decision, and is the trade off worth it?




http://fortune.com/2016/04/13/verizon-workers-strike/
https://www.thebalance.com/how-outsourcing-jobs-affects-the-u-s-economy-3306279

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