In The News

Outsourcing at Crux of Boeing Strike

J. Lynn Lunsford September 9, 2008
Job security used to mean workers didn’t have to worry much about competition. But a strike at Boeing has redefined the notion of job security, with striking workers pleading for the chance to compete for company projects. The aerospace industry has adopted outsourcing supply methods of the automobile industry, and suppliers around the globe increasingly contribute more to Boeing products. “In...

High-Tech Ties Bridge Mideast Divide

Robert W. Gee September 8, 2008
With any lull in the violence, Palestinian and Israeli representatives reach out to each other for business and trade opportunities. One example is Israeli high-tech executive, Jonathan Levy, president and general manager of Nuvoton, who did not hesitate in outsourcing some software engineering work to seven recent graduates from West Bank universities. More than 2000 Palestinian students...

China’s Rumble With Globalization – Part II

Jonathan Fenby July 24, 2008
Despite a turbulent history, China has enjoyed two decades of growth and self-confidence, boosted by diplomatic and business engagement with the rest of the globe. But China has only entered “the first generation of China's globalization,” described by Jonathan Fenby in this second article of a two-part series. Now entering its “second generation of globalization,” the world’s most populous...

The Voice of Labor

July 23, 2008
Organized labor looks to be well-organized for politics in advance of November’s US presidential election. Backed by vast war chests and armies of volunteers, unions address workers’ concerns over soaring prices at home and growing competition overseas. Given labor’s strength in key Midwestern swing states and amongst blue-collar whites in general, these efforts to cast the election as a...

Guidelines Call for Chinese Pay to Rise With Inflation

Kang Yi July 11, 2008
Chinese workers could soon receive a pay raise. To combat rising prices for food, energy and other basic goods, the government mulls proposals to address income inequality. Guidelines for salary reform mostly target private companies, report a team of authors for the Economic Observer Online, "as most of the low pay and low growth rate in salaries occurred in the private sector, especially...

A Self-Inflicted Wound

Jacob F. Kirkegaard July 1, 2008
The US, long home to many of the world’s most highly skilled workers, could soon be scrambling for replacements. Baby boomers are starting to retire, and their high education levels will be missed. Since the baby boomers emerged in the work force, the US became complacent about its public-education system. As a result, young American workers increasingly struggle to compete with skilled foreign...

Labor Row

June 30, 2008
The economies of oil-rich nations depend on immigrant labor from Bangladesh to clean and build, fix and cook. Workers are separated for months from families and work in harsh conditions for low wages in countries with lavish lifestyles. The alleged murder of a Bahraini supervisor by a Bangladeshi mechanic has exposed the inequality and tensions that go hand in hand with relying on immigrant...