"Cognitive dissonance. One of the most irritating human traits."
I Power
Scientific Research & Self-Development Activism
Social Dumping
Social dumping according to wikipedia:
"Social dumping" is a pejorative term that is used to describe a temporary or transitory movement of labour, whereby employers use workers from one country or area in another country or area where the cost of labour is usually less expensive, thus saving money and potentially increasing profit.
There is a controversy around whether social dumping takes advantage of an EU directive on internal markets: the Bolkestein directive.
I find this article surprisingly short. Social dumping can be used to describe much more than moving jobs abroad. Social dumping is something you can do yourself. It`s very easy. You just have to accept working conditions below the current standard, and then you are actually helping to lower the working conditions for many others.
Just to paint a picture. If you say you will do some job for 100 $, and then someone says they will do the exact same job for 90 $, the employer is more likely to hire the cheaper alternative. And if you still want the job, you will have to go even less than 90 $.
Immigrants that come from countries with lowers wages are more likely to accept a job with lower wages than their new countrymen. which then again lowers the wages and working conditions. What I`ve seen happening in Norway is that immigrants tend to take jobs in restaurants, cleaning hotel-rooms and elder-care (couldn`t remember what this was called in English). These are jobs that Norwegians mostly don`t want, so it`s not such a big issue in the eyes of the middle-class; but statistics show clearly that occupations with a high amount of immigrants are lagging behind in wages.
The unions here are trying to highlight this from time to time without much success, probably since Norwegians most don`t feel the consequences yet. Many unions are trying to reach the new immigrants and making sure that employers follow the laws and don`t exploit people who are in a difficult position.
The "nemesis" of the unions, NHO, has a tendency to support laws that make it easier to exploit immigrant-workers. Laws that means that immigrants from the EU won`t get the same welfare benefits as a Norwegian citizen. The EU has recently tried to implement a law in Norway that basically says that EU-citizens working in Norway can be paid the same wages as they are entitled to in their homeland.
The largest immigrant group except from Scandinavians, is Polish people. And if you pay them Polish wages they won`t actually make enough money to be able to live in Norway because of both price and wage differences. This would kill off most of the working immigration and probably make an increase in un-taxed labour. And we need our immigrants to the jobs they`re doing. People whining about immigration to Norway seem to forget that this immigration actually leads to that we have a much larger working-force than what we actually should have. This is especially important for us now since we have a large wave of old people going to be retiring in a few years, leaving a lot of jobs unattended and increasing the need for people to take care of these elders.
So we`re in a situation were we both need our immigrants, and we need to ensure that they get the same working conditions as the rest of us. Trying to exploit immigrant workers will only bite us in the ass.
Tags: Social, dumping, immigration
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by March E. on -
It's a bit like that in Texas as well. Most of the jobs that a lot of the middle class don't want end up going to immigrants such as yardwork, construction, and fast food jobs, cleaning, being a janitor...etc. Some people here look down on immigrants, but the hard truth is that they are doing the jobs that we don't want to be doing (in other words, jobs that we find humiliating).
although now, people here are desperate to have any job...
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Permalink Reply by Bart on -
the desperation seems to be a large contributor to social dumping aswell. I guess you have heard the phrase "...but i need this job" before. And of course, only having jobs that other people look down on bring with it it`s own problems as well.
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Permalink Reply by SparTom007 - Tom on -
Wow, I didn't know this was called "social dumping" but in the UK it's extremely common. Business people don't see people with jobs to get money to survive, we are all just numbers, workforce is just an expense to them. If they can reduce it, they will, no matter who it effects, not because it's anything personal, it's actually considered a "smart business practice". I think social dumping is one of the biggest contributors to the widespread discrimination in the UK, people hate foreigners because they come to the UK and "take our jobs" when actually, it's the employers' faults. It comes down to economic inequality in the UK being blamed on foreigners by mainstream media instead of the big banking syndicates, poverty in less developed countries which encourages them to move to somewhere where there although, compared to the "native" people, they will be relatively poor, they will be a lot better off than staying in their country of origin and also, I think mainstream media and politicians make out like the public have an undeserved sense of entitlement about what they can and can't have; even when it's people complaining about simple necessities such as housing, that everyone should be able to have, regardless of financial situation- especially during these times of scarcity and high unemployment.
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Permalink Reply by Bart on
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many of these problems can actually be handled very well by a strong union. A union backing these immigrants and making sure they know they don`t have to work like shit will help a lot.
I`ve noticed rich people have a tendency to point to try to make us look at working conditions elsewhere, so we can feel ashamed by asking to have it even better.
The NHO (some sort of "union" for employers) and the prime minister have said they want us to show some "solidarity", and accept worse working conditions because of the european economic crisis. This sounds nice, but when the members of NHO, the parliament, people in managing positions and rich people in general continues to increase their own wages, bonuses and retirement plans... i feel they loose some credibility.
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Permalink Reply by SparTom007 - Tom on
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One of their biggest excuses for continuously taking increases in income is they are "job creators" but if you do some digging around the internet, especially looking at credible sources such as the London School of Economics, you come to realise that this is, for the most part, bullshit. Those big fatcats are not job creators at all, in fact, they usually damage the job market. The ones who truly create jobs are small businesses and start ups.
Even then, as much as I defend this all, it's still looking to, what can only be short-term, fixes for capitalism, and the "free" market economic model. This model is always destined to fail because of how money is created and interest is charged even though it never exists. This creates inequality and, in a way, slavery, as those who owe debt which does not exist, will be forced to continuously take loans and add up their interest owed, in order to pay back the original interest. It's also completely unsustainable as it means creating new products continuously. Capitalism doesn't just thrive off consumerism, it depends on it, you could even say capitalism and consumerism are the same thing.
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