"Million Manufacturers March"

[TexasEditor]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16685

Mad in the USA
By Stacy Mitchell, AlterNet

September 8, 2003

More than 1,000 people attended a rally a few weeks ago in Connecticut to demand fair trade and denounce the sweatshop buying habits of big retailers like Wal-Mart. The speakers were passionate, the crowd pumped. But this rally differed from the usual fair trade gatherings in one key respect: It was not organized by labor, student, or environmental groups. It was organized by an alliance of small and mid-sized manufacturers.

"The major retailers and big manufacturers are doing us in," explained rally-organizer Fred Tedesco, owner of Pa-Ted Spring Co. in Bristol. "They're destroying small- and medium-sized businesses. They're destroying jobs. They're destroying the middle class. . . That's the dirty secret of this whole thing."

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"I've never seen so many diehard Republicans say they are going to vote Democrat."

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continued

[Solon]

1. That is an alliance that Labor Unions and Enviromental Groups...

would profit from. With the backing of local manufacturers, then maybe real reform can take place. It would give "legitamacy" to the anti-globalization that it cannot so far attain. It would quicken the pace for change, so the world can benefit from it.

[MercutioATC]

2. We need to legislate this or just shut up.

WalMart is profitable because we make it profitable. We LIKE one-stop discount shopping. To vilify WalMart for giving us what we ask for is juvenile. We either need to legislate this (possibly something akin to Gov. Dean's trade plan) or just shut the hell up about it.

I'm no great fan of WalMart, but it's just stupid to criticize a company for making money by giving us what we ask for.

[Solon]

3. The point is to put pressure on the legislators so

they will pass legislation that puts reins on the corporate hegemony.

[el_gato]

6. That's why I don't go there

I would rather go to a locally owned business and interact with
the owner who actually knows something about what he or she is selling.

FUCK Walmart

[study_war_no_more]

14. even if im in the minority

I will still argue against the ideology of a cancer cell and cannibalism.

[JanMichael]

4. Bwahahaha! I love it when one group of exploiters feel exploited!

Boo hoo, the wittle/mid-sized bidness is mad that the biggun's is kicking their ass.

What about the businesses smaller than the mid-sized ones? How about when the 4 location grocery store puts the mom & pop grocery out of business due to greater leverage in purchasing? Huh? What then?

That sort of "competition" is just GRAND but when they get it back in spades they shriek bloody murder.

It's hypocritical and short sighted.

No don't get me wrong, big retailers will exist and grow because they can. They're more efficient.

What needs to be done though (To make them palitable) is a democratization of those firms, they need to be run like the Mondragon Collectiva.

[JanMichael]

5. PS: This is similar to when the Grangers protested Trusts.

And yes, the Trusts were busted, but can't we all see the regeneration of the mammoth corporations as a rebirth only in different forms?

[Bandit]

7. "They're more efficient."

I guess it all depends on how you define efficient. The GOP mantra is bigger is better. It is More efficient. Here is an example of what I experienced and you can decide. I was a commercial fisherman in Alaska for two decades. There were several thousand little boats like myself with one or two deckhands. We fished out of any of twenty to thirty small ports in Southeast Alaska. Our Republican Representatives thought the area should be opened to factory trawlers. They are huge ships that drag the ocean bottem with huge nets. They kill everything in their paths. They usually had a crew of seven or eight men and hauled in hundreds of thousands of tons of fish. They bought all their supplies in Seattle and spent only fuel money in the State of Alaska. Three big ships like that could catch the same amount of fish that two thousand small 40 foot boats could catch. Two thousand small boats with a crew of two or three which spent all of their monies within the state in local hardware and grocery stores. Okay now you decide is it more efficient for twenty five people to catch the same amount of fish as six thousand people or not. Business all throughout southeast were hurt drastically so a few individuals could make millions of dollars of which they donated a good portion back to the campaign coffers of guess who? Our representatives that basically killed off a huge portion of their constituents reaped huge rewards but the state suffered greatly. Not to even mention the bycatch issue.

[JanMichael]

9. I was using a broad brush.

I can see your point but I also believe that economies of scale do in fact exist and if it took, lets say, 85% of the population to provide the food and a way can be found to do it with only 15% then that other 70% can be freed up to accomplish new things. Remember I'm speaking on a Macro level.

That said I despise WalMart with a white hot passion. IF they paid Living Wages, IF they insured all of their workers, IF they didn't but off planning commissions to increase sprawl, IF they democratized themselves then I could tolerate them.

They don't though.

[MercutioATC]

10. Again, it's the market...the people decide.

I'm assuming that the commercial trawlers were able to harvest the fish for less money per pound than the local fishermen. THAT'S a "more effecient" operation. If the locals could sell fish cheaper than the commercial operation, the commercial operation would suffer. As it is, the people get cheaper fish, and that's what they want.

Small towns in Alaska might have lost revenue because the commercial ships bought all of their supplies in Seattle, but Seattle gained revenue. That happens. The common result is that people move to follow the money. It's been happening for centuries.

The fact that it now takes less jobs to complete a given task has also been happening for centuries. Quite a few manufacturing workers have lost jobs over the past 40 years due to plant modernization. It just doesn't take as many people to, say, build a car as it used to. It took time for new jobs to be created to employ these people, but jobs WERE created in the service sector. Should we have legislated improvements in technology or large factories out of existance?

My point is that, while I know that modernization can take a toll in jobs in the short term, it's a necessary evil. It's actually healthy for the economy because it faclitates higher productivity levels. Hobbling ourselves with artificial restraints would be worse than the temporary job losses.

[Bandit]

11. So your point is it's better for a few to make millions while thousands

starve. That's being efficient. I just disagree with that approach. I think it is better all around for thirty communities and six thousand people to benefit rather than twenty-five individuals. I should know better than to try and stop "Progress"

[MercutioATC]

12. I hear what you're saying, but don't you think workers in factories

that were modernized in the 50's said the same thing? Had they gotten their way, where would we stand as a nation now?

Change is painful. Lots of time, the price we pay for change just sucks. I think, however, that we have to be mindful of what the larger picture is here. We seem to agree that 10 workers making a car as opposed to 100 is a productivity gain and a good thing. I know it feels different when it's a personal loss, but the theory remains unchanged. 100 people harvestin g the fish it used to take 3000 to harvest IS a gain. It's happened numerous times before and our economy actually improved as a result (and those workers found jobs in another sector). I really feel that the emphasis should be placed on retraining displaced workers than artifically protecting their jobs.

[DesignGirl]

13. When nothing is left

What happens when they over fish (or trees or land) in much less time and there are no fish left. They leave the area with nothing and move on the cause the same problems elsewhere.

Why should people be left with only low paying usually unfulfilling service jobs at the Wal-mart or McDonalds. Many people love to use their hands or work the land. Why is it always the many have to suffer in the name of progress for the few.

It seem like there should be some compromise to "coporate" progress, which is where most of the so called advancement starts. It is always the bottom line that overrides all else.

[MercutioATC]

16. Overfishing is an environmental issue, not a labor issue.

...and I completely agree with you on that matter. I'm not advocating letting big business do whatever they want, I'm advocating not restricting them beyond effective environmental and social regulations.

By all means, hit them hard for environmental violations. Actually, that may force them to develop better methods, resulting in an overall improvement (environmentally) in the fishing industry.

[study_war_no_more]

15. cancer is effiecient and cannabals are cost effiecient

Hello??????

[Bandit]

8. Kick

:kick: