This scenario is repeated in many communities around the world where transnational corporations seek low-cost access to minerals, oil, and other raw materials to fuel demand in industrialized countries like the United States. Governments in poor countries are desperate for foreign investment, aid, and loans. They continue to be shut out of opportunities and participation in the global economy. Poverty has many faces, and the negative effects of globalization are not limited to poor countries.
American workers are just as vulnerable.
Corporations can move manufacturing plants from North America to areas in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia where workers earn lower wages and do not enjoy rights to organize unions or work in safe conditions. U.S. workers have rights to organize unions protected by law, but in reality these rights are not well recognized. If factory owners detect their workers intend to form a union, they can threaten to move operations overseas. These threats have served to keep U.S. workers disorganized and wages low. As our focus has always been on finding permanent solutions to poverty, we have sought to empower communities to manage their own natural resources and implement their own ideas for self-sustaining enterprises.