In The News

The Long Arm of the US Workplace

Patti Waldmeir February 8, 2004
Along with jobs, "is America also exporting its notion of what constitutes fairness in the workplace," asks the author of this Financial Times article. Whereas only a few years ago, sexual harassment litigations were unique to the American workplace, such cases are more and more common in other countries as well. Even American companies operating in countries without sexual harassment...

The Underbelly of Globalisation

Tony Woodley February 7, 2004
17 men and 2 women from China died off Morecambe Bay in northwest England when they were out picking cockles (bivalve mollusks found in wet sand). "This is not a migration issue. It is an exploitation issue." says Tony Woodley, general secretary of the UK's Transport and General Workers' Union. He criticizes both the "reckless employers" who benefit most from hiring...

Democrat Hopefuls, Lawmakers Denounce Outsourcing

February 7, 2004
The outsourcing of high-tech jobs to the developing world has become a potent issue in U.S. electoral politics. As job growth remains stagnant, politicians are turning on corporations that outsource to save money and evade American taxes. John Kerry, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has criticized CEOs who move “profits and jobs overseas”. US politicians from both...

Interviews Deter Thousands of Chinese Brides

Cody Yiu February 5, 2004
In September, the Taiwanese government began interviewing Chinese citizens attempting to enter Taiwan on marriage visas. The program has successfully identified hundreds of fake marriages, and may have made the job of Chinese "snakeheads", or people smugglers, more difficult. Many snakeheads traffic in young girls, who have a harder time passing the entrance interviews. Some snakeheads...

UK May Tighten Benefit Controls to Deter New EU Immigrants

Patrick Wintour February 5, 2004
Responding to pressure from right-wing press and the Conservative party, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair now says he will consider measures that would withhold benefits for migrants from EU accession countries when they join the Union in May. Previously supporting the free movement of Eastern Europeans across the EU, Blair found himself isolated when Sweden imposed immigration controls a week ago....

As It Wields Power Abroad, U.S. Outsources Law and Order Work

Andrew Higgins February 2, 2004
The US seems unwilling to face the hardships of maintaining a police force in Iraq. Instead, it has delegated the charge of keeping order to DynCorp, a multinational police contractor headquartered in California. DynCorp was subcontracted by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL, a division of the US State Department. Since 1994, the INL has dispatched...

A False Alarm: Overcoming Globalization's Discontents

Richard N. Cooper January 29, 2004
Jagdish Baghwati believes that globalization is unambiguously a positive phenomenon and aims to prove it in his recent book, "In Defense of Globalization." According to this review, Baghwati's book also aims to enlighten globalization's critics. Baghwati tackles two major criticisms of globalization: that it causes poverty, and that it depresses wages. He cites data that...