The announcement that a German company is opening a small manufacturing facility in Wisconsin brings up a question that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable:
Is this another case of a European company coming to the United States for the cheap labor?
As contrary to the stature we're accustomed to the United States having in the world, this is a very real trend. Ikea, a company that has done just fine in Sweden with strong unions and a $19 minimum wage, came to Virginia and started its employees at $8 per hour, with many of them temps at lower wages and no benefits. T-Mobile, owned by a heavily unionized German company, fights unions here. BMW recently drove down wages by laying off unionized workers at a California distribution center and outsourcing their jobs to a subcontractor. But in South Carolina, BMW skipped ever having a union, paying its workers $15 an hour, half what German BMW workers make.
Is this another case of a European company coming to the United States for the cheap labor?
As contrary to the stature we're accustomed to the United States having in the world, this is a very real trend. Ikea, a company that has done just fine in Sweden with strong unions and a $19 minimum wage, came to Virginia and started its employees at $8 per hour, with many of them temps at lower wages and no benefits. T-Mobile, owned by a heavily unionized German company, fights unions here. BMW recently drove down wages by laying off unionized workers at a California distribution center and outsourcing their jobs to a subcontractor. But in South Carolina, BMW skipped ever having a union, paying its workers $15 an hour, half what German BMW workers make.
Read more here - Daily Kos
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