Was an editor at the net and hes combined the history into a potent argument about the problems that we face now in todays politics and in todays world and its out now of course from the new press and i am going to turn over to him for a minute to let him tell you a little bit more about the book and then i will have a few questions for him and we will take questions from all of you. We are also on the cspan book tv right now. So take you to them for coming and i will turn over to eric. Okay. Thank you all for coming out on a hot, hot day. I would rather talk for just a few minutes and give you the sort of general argument about the new book the story about the outsourcing catastrophe. So, i want to start by march of 1911 in the famous incident that many of you know, 146 jan female mostly immigrant workers died at the factory fire in new york and this event was precipitated by an industry that was highly explicative. Its where they contracted out to some contractors into the conditions conditions in the sweatshops were terrible. There was everything from exploitation of workers to poor pay, Workplace Safety issues and they went on strike in what is called the uprising of the 2000 in order to improve their lives and they won a few things but they lost the Workplace Safety. Two years later the cost of that was clear when 146 of them died and because it was in downtown new york people saw this happen. They solve the workers that made her clothes by and because of that they finally begin to began to identify with the workers and began to fight for accountability in this apparel industry so that leads to a series of reform on workers and building safety and fire safety etc. And that is kind of a beginning point of the 20th century when americans said we want to stand up to the excesses of american capitalism. But the bad days of the corporations being able to do whatever they wanted to do need it to and over much of the 20th Century Americans made enormous impact in taming the excesses capitalism so that leads to all sorts of laws that range from the Social Security act to the minimum wage to the 40 hour week to the high rates of unionization and then after world war ii, americans continued to dump this without any accountability so they begin to demand accountability so you have a variety of clean air act, clean water act, all sorts of environmental legislation that clean up the american cleanup the american environment so that we today dont really experience the kind of Environmental Impact our ancestors did, whether in brooklyn or pittsburgh or anywhere around the nation. And so this is a really successful story. Corporations began to look for a way out of this. They wanted to escape the unions and want to escape the Workplace Safety regulations and the environmental regulations. But from a very early point even as though they are kin of starting to begin to do this with some companies beginning to move to the south where you dont have the same workplace regulations, but beginning in the 1960s you really begin to see Companies Start moving their factories overseas in order to escape the regulations because what corporations want is to repeat the nature overseas. They were never accepting the system of the law so they begin to move overseas. And then they begin to move to places like korea and taiwan and then to china and eventually in the 21st century to Central America and poor countries in south and southeast asia. That brings us to the end of the story. In 2013, over 1100 workers died the plaza in bangladesh and the story is almost exactly the same young women working in the apparel industry with powerful Department Stores like walmart putting high cost pressures on the local contractors to make sure that the good stayed cheap and the profit for walmart state high. The factory collapses and it would be the greatest single workplace disaster in history and its almost the same thing as 1911 except we dont see it. We cant even find a bangladesh on the map. Forget about seeing the workers die and working to improve those conditions. What has happened is the corporations have the skate the legal code that came to them. We are still bound by them here in the United States or honduras or mexico. But if the Corporation Says that to stringently apply this raises too much, but pollution and regulation is too strong they are going to move to another country and in doing that, we created an exploitation that allows these companies to create a tremendous amount of profit while undermining the workers around the world. So, they would actually stand up for this and what happened . The Union Organizers get fired, the Union Organizers sometimes get murdered were put in jail. The government ignores them because the government is basically owned by the company that is if 10 of the parliament is a pearl of contractors. But look at the United States that are things Getting Better for the workers in the United States . Though they are not. The industrial jobs that were created in the 20th century, the big union jobs with the united autoworkers and united steelworkers, those jobs were largely moved overseas or sometimes to the south where you have strong antiunion regimes. Wisconsin and mific turning right to you have a united Decision Just like 25 years ago, corporations are able to control the agenda and workers cant unless you have extreme income inquality and you have beginning of social movement to fight that. The story i tell on this book is not a happy one [laughs] but its a story with solutions. We can recreate stable good work for people, but what we have to do is hold corporations leg accountable no matter who they sub contract to, no matter where they put the companies. Countries like walmart can say, this isnt our problem, no it needs to be their problem. If their company, if their contractors tell workers, they need to be held legally and financially responsible for that. Theres a lot of case that is we can talk about it in the discussion if people want of the government getting involved to make a difference in the country. Theres a long history of this, we can do that. In doing so, we can undermine the capital mobility that destroys jobs in the United States and we can help workers in beng ben honduras, and also trying to think ahead of how we can fix the problem. Its not about a decline but hopefully a book about a way forward. So ill go ahead and send it to you. That is impressive. So i want to start out with the way and labor talked about in the media and between one another, it presents the idea that these things are in odds. Why is it so important in this book and this work to talk about the way that are the same thing . Sure, basically both the waiver movement and Environmental Movement have effective common corporations. The corporations are seeking to lower costs in any way they can. Thats for point of a corporation to maximize profit. They are going to do that in any number of ways and that includes pressing down on workers and pollution, dumping things in the environment, not cleaning it up. So they in many ways they both know that. Theres a history like Academic Work because there was a long, for instance, in 50s, 60s and 70s. The workers knew that it was destroying trees and jobs, conservationists knew it would destroy the forest. What happens if the beginning of 1970, again, these jobs in the u. S. Were disappearing. At the same time they were proceeding. Soond what employers began to to do, even though they planned on moving the jobs oversee anyway, many cases where they are openly lying about what they are doing this, they tell workers if you support this on asbestos, law about how much we can belch into the air, we are going to move the factory to mexico. The companies werent doing that. The workers were scared because they need to eat and feed their family. They dont want nature to spoil because they go out. They hunt, they fish, they enjoy nature and their union gave them time. Workers had a harder time supporting environmentalism, thats why today with the pipeline, the controversy pipeline that would bring an oil band from canada to texas, you had environmentalists outraged by this because it contribute to Climate Change. You have unions opposed to it. How can we turn them down, our members dont have work in this antiunion economy, we need jobs. You tax environmentalist and union without supporting because they need jobs. They have tremendous amount in common and need to unite, but its very difficult when youre telling workers, hey, youre going to have so sacrifice the job because they cant sacrifice that job because they need to feed their families. So begin with, and you talk tonight about triangle fire, the same as people who saw that happen, perkins, later secretary. This is a great story but also a story of reform from this house. People like me or the audience it becomes hard to hear because it has to come with the workers within. Why is it important that people outside of the workplace see what happens and get involve in these struggles . Sure. The thing to know about workers is they are always struggling for a better life. You have in 1909 the uprising which i mentioned. But what has to happen, workers dont have enough power in this country to succeed on their own. They need some kind of middleclass allies, politicians that are going to pas the legislation that is going to be needed to fix these problems. You know, its a tricky participation. Walker activism, involved in the struggle is absolutely necessary for any of this to happen, because politicians arent going to do it by themselves. They are not going to do this unless workers are pressuring them. You have workers around the country outraged by this, and so you know, but what has to happen is workers and other sectors have to be able to thats one of the problems you see today with organized labor, a lot of the rest of society doesnt see organized labor ally anymore, including a lot of people in the democratic party, and so, you know, you really begin to see people begin to take labor for granted, for instance. Basically whats going to have to happen and what is happening and fight for 15, is what you see, you see workers standing up, we have these demands and this is what we want, we are going to put pressure on society to make this happen and politicians begin to cave. Thats what happened in the new deal with fdr didnt pas legislation out of the goodness of his heart. Hi passed because hundreds of thousands of workers were going on strike in 1934 and scaring society that something really radical was going to happen and youre seeing it again today. [laughs] something, anyway. On the other side, what happens when theres disaster the thing that we need in order to care . When you have sort of everyday problems of just low wages of Sexual Harassment in the workplace, how do we get attention to those things . Its awfully hard. The power of video, visualization is tremendous. It happens in all sorts of way. Think about the Domestic Violence is an enormous problems. Nfl lining back cut on video. Look at whats happening with black lives matter. Its now the video cameras some of them and so many people have cell phones and can record the cops doing stuff. How much does that matters . Its tremendous. The police has havent victimizing African Americans since 1619. Legal discrimination or the fact of discrimination is a constant. Video matters so much. And so, theres a certain amount that we can do without that, but it sure helps to have video. I think that this one thing that technology can bring us. I mean, you know, you could see you know, we can record conditions inside of factories that could be sent out by the internet. You see food issue, ago Agricultural Industry. They are getting jobs in the factory farms and taking secret video of how the animals are treated and becomes a powerful piece of propaganda. That would make private ownership of Surveillance Video inside the factories a crime, and if the Agricultural Industry gets away with it, why cant any other industry . It sure is a lot easier to make that change. To see horrors, most of us are good people, moral, most of us try to make life better. If its in your face its much harder to ignore. Thinking of the audio from audience and union meetings. Absolutely. That begins in the idea, you hear ridiculous things, workers try to unionize, people record it. Yeah. So in the middle of all this, in middle of your book coming out, the fight takes up allot of the issues you write on this book. How does your book help us to prepare for stage two of that . Yeah. And, yeah, what should we be thinking about Going Forward . That would be a trade agreement that makes it easier to outsource more jobs and larger impact including extended, extended patents from pharmaceutical companies so they can make more money, taxing laws, corporations, perhaps most frighting state disputed courts, to sue countries or sue governmental function that would when they pass new legislation that would potentially upset the profits of that company Going Forward. If malaysia wanted to if they werent investing in the United States, then the court may force the United States to pay malaysia all of the companies all potential lost profit. The u. S. Company is doing that to malaysia. Its going to be about power. You already see, for instance, a French Company suing egypt over a minimum wage law using one of these courts for pushing new antitobacco legislation because thats going to negatively benefit profits. This is a real thing. I think that the one thing i would say about it, though, that you remember thinking about solutions to this, the idea is a disaster but we do need International Law with the accountability in order to create the the mechanism so that in youre exploited by walmart in bangladesh you can sue walmart in the United States. The one thing the courts if the courts didnt exist, thats a pipe dream. No, we are already creating that system. They help the corporation, not to help the workers. Helping us speak of globalization is not going away. How can we create the structures to help out workers or help out citizens if etch even if theyre not working if they are dumping dyes into the river. Its an enormous disaster along with education is probably president obamas worst policy. I think its deeply disturbing, but maybe we can build on some of the International Legal agreements to help our workers and citizens around the world. Youre so optimistic. [laughs] so in the book you also write about the Environmental Justice movement. People face outsourcing, even right here in new york city, and so, yeah, i want you to talk a little bit about the way struggle of communities of color against that. Its not moving abroad per s. Okay, so the industry staying in the United States, they work in National Resources, National Resources exist where interNational Resources exist. Some of that might be companies, toxic Waste Management companies, right. They get a contract from the federal government to place toxic waste some where. They are going to look around the nation, do you want toxic waste in your backyard, no you dont. Who doesnt have the power to resist that. African american communities, latino communities. They consistedly seek out intentionally these faces often in rural areas, sometimes county where theres majority white but isolated community of latinos, usually mexicans, Central Americans, sometimes in cities whether new york, populations of people of color, quite often is the fact. And so what happens is that you have an environmental injustice that goes on, environmental racism. The movement gets started in the early 1980s with communities of color, hey, wait a minute, why is my community being targeted for toxic waste, we should fight against this. It continues, but its hard because these are poor communities, they are to track outside allies, get their attention in order to fight because they have lawyers and they have the money, and theyre fighting, against, you know, shell, exxon, billiondollar companies. Thats a very difficult fight. Part of whats happening here separating consumers from the impacted production so when you go to the store the meat it just appears in a package, the clothes, they are just on the self, how shelve. Nobody wants to know. Whether its happening in alabama or honduras, as long as you dont know, youre not going to do anything about it. Certainly a lot of that is foreign outsourcing, companies are very cautious where people have power and taking advantage of that. One of the chapters that the chapters that struck me the most with the food chapter in which you sort of detail the way that food is the ultimately globalizing commodity, i guess. About how capital ability leads to migration, people who are coming to the country because of various things that happened where they are from and the conditions here and other types of production. I want you to talk a little bit about the argument in the way all of those things connect up. Sure. Food is something that obviously matters to us tremendous. Of all the industries around these capital mobility issues is food. Food is something that we put on our body on a daily basis, a personal experience. Its become more and more so, right. And so we dont want to be poisoned, right. We want ethical production in our food. The story around food and these issues is actually much larger, the question why you people from mexico and Central America come to the United States. But a big part of it is that thanks to the global trade agreement nafta American Company can dump on the market and it becomes cheaper in mexico to buy the corn from the United States than local farmers who are on their land. The working farmers can no longer be can no longer farm in their globlized economy. This happened for a variety of reasons. Theres a lot. Starvation. Plowing with your donkey, thats not going to be able to compete with dumping corn on the market. These people lose their ability to farm and lo and be hold they became the labor force. Now these people need jobs. And so, when people say, you know, these people mexicans should be grateful. We also have to why that is, why are they so poor . The state of mexico in oaxaca a right to stay on the farm, people want to stay on the farm. Some dont but they shouldnt have a choice. They are forced off their land and they go to mexico city, make cross over to the United States. And so, when we think about how dare they cross the border, its all possibility. Theyre wanting to cross the border in the first place, and so theres really complex issues. The food issue is tremendously complicated. Yeah. So Climate Change which we make a joke on twitter because its a million degrees outside. Look every time its cold out, all the climate, its cold. Right. And so, yeah, and we sort of often hear about it in terms of polar bears and ice caps melting and not what it is going to do to you in brooklyn. We seen recent successes and also manage to stop tracking come to go new york because a lot of people gone angry because there will be a cracking well in their backyard. How do we get people to understand that this fight is going to end up in all of our backyards . Its difficult because, you know, its hard to create a video. We do have a video of water come coming to new york city subways. Fair enough. I think the messaging part of it is difficult. Climate change is really about us. Environmental huge issues and for very good reasons about funding and fighting on corporates. Its 100degrees today in brooklyn. How many people dont have airconditioning in brooklyn . A lot of people. The older people, poor people, particularly people of color. You have going to have much higher death rates from the lack of airconditioning. You have going to see much higher asma rates. These are issues that affect human as well as things like [laughs] cover with water. Okay. The Florida Governor refuses to do anything about it even though miami is getting flooded more and more every year. Yeah. I dont have an answer of how you make this happen. I think to an extent better messaging about this matters, but you have a such a highly funded campaign to ensure that nobody knows. Its complicated. People dont have the time to follow the details of climate science. Its very easy to ignore and be confused about it. Interesting because i also think one of the things about joked about being op mystic, i kind of thing that what we hear about climate we turn it off. The fact that you sort of give us, here is a way to challenge this, here is a way to move forward, that, you know, it makes it easier to accept, its his or her his or her we are might as well as drink some more wine. Right. I want to sort of talk about that. I think that the conservative corporate lobby since the 1970s has been very successful at one thing which is convincing the government doesnt work, okay, and you do so in a number of ways. Theres also an intended strategy and theyll trust us more to get rid of more government. But in fact, we cannot create effective change without getting the government on our side to make it happen, without taking over the government to make it happen, and we have you walk the streets of pittsburgh in 1950, its going to be beijing today. Your life expect its a beautiful city. In the past when pittsburgh no. Thats a wholly new thing. Government got involved and cleaned up pittsburgh and forced industries to quit polluting so much. You know why workers stop dying so much on the job is because we created osha, they have tried to crack has reduced or put safety problems. The government is absolutely necessary, a well functioning government that is moving forward on issues. The American Government where we said, we have to do something about this and the only way its going to happen its not going to happen about who is driving, its going to happen because the government gets involved and creates massive changes. We done that before and we can do it again including on Climate Change. The climate is not going to change to some extent. We can do a lot to limit these changes. Its not going to be easy but we can do it. We are not going to do it without the government stepping in and being an active government thats working for international, public transportation, all sorts of Government Programs that it could do. Look at the freeways. You drive 70 miles an hour. Government can do that. Thats part of it. We have to not only make government work but we have to believe government can work. So you find of foresaw my next question there. Im sorry. Thats okay. Its all good. It all flows very nice. When we hear about a workplace is after environmental disaster and thinking about the recent new york time story of nail salon. Right. You just said that becomes response and doesnt actually solve the bigger problem here. And this is a long standing thing in this country where we sort of learned not to think collectively and politically about anything. What are the Building Blocks of thinking about political solutions, collective solution that is can tackle huge terrifying things like Climate Change . Sure, another way that a corporation is effective is making us incredibly em powered individuals. We define who we are to the extent that in many cases like we are showing it off to the world. Its mine. Its about me. You see it all of the time. Im not going to support sweat shop. Im going to buy secondhand clothing. That does nothing to solve the problem. Im not going to change because of Climate Change but im not going to fight for collective action. It doesnt do very much to solve the problem. It really isnt doing anything but making you feel good. The same with the nail salon, its okay to get your nails done, you have to demand that these nail salons are well regulated, they are not force labor contract. The government can do that. We have to believe the government can do that and demand and force the government to do the right thing because they wont do it on their own because they control the government. So you have to move the government to work for us. Weve done it before. We are seeing it again with the pipe 15. Sometimes people do you believe the government can do good. What can i do . I can change my consumer choice. There are times where boycott is useful and there are times where the workers themselves are demanding. There are cases where workers are saying please boycott the product to support our strike, you know, our action. Support the workers, built collective power, help them built power. For us as consumers if we dont think about collective solution, these things do not get done. If we start thinking about how we can make this happen in political arena versus im im t going to buy new clothes, thats how lives get better for workers in bang last question or i and i will open it up for you guys. Why is it important for us to know kind of labor history . Sure. I think that we cant understand the problems that we have today. Yeah, everybody understands. You cant know why things went wrong and we cant know why things went right with the understanding how we got them. In a situation today, i see 21st Century America very similar to late 19th Century America, thanks to union ancestors fighting for a better life, but similarly to the 19 century changes in capitalism have slapped news the face and we dont know how to respond. At that time the factory, huge corporations per here over night and the promise of hey, i thought this system was going to work for everybody, was going where is mine . It disappeared almost over night. Should we band immigrant. We didnt know. We believed in the mid 20th century that this was working for us. We had union jobs, 40hour weeks, vacation. We dont know what to do. Whats going on here . We have no good answer yet. Were starting to work. Well, i think its very interesting to put occupy in the global context of this. Out of no where, america said, yeah, we had enough of this. We are going to fight back and then it disappears for various reasons. Its a response to the changes and they demand changes, but we still dont know where to go. I think that looking at how america built a functional, safe, clean, nonpolluted society is vital to do that international and National Global scale in the 21st century. Thats essential and what i hope the book does, labor history does but hopefully, this book, can give people a quick overview of some of the information they need to know. Hey, we can move forward, hey, you know, what can we learn from the past to solve the problems. I dont have resolutions to change the nation but influence some people. All right. Well, i want to take some questions from yall. Microphones. Raise your hand and she will come with a microphone on your face and you can ask some questions. [inaudible conversations] yeah. If you can give us your name, that would be great. [inaudible conversations] i was noticing how you reach out to other people my question is not directly the globalization. What can be done and what is happening right now . Yeah, i mean thats a tough question. Its happening because you have strong workers, you have strong work protection where people could speak out. People like me speak out. If you work for, you know, chase, youre not allowed to speak because your job is on the line, right . What they are trying to create a situation where you can be fired for saying whatever you want. As related to id like to point out thats a big part of the reason, what happened with the university, is the same corporate control with the nation corresponding issues may go. If you say universities arent working, we are not going to fund them anymore, we are going to cut the funding more and more, youre telling americans the private option the university of phoenix is a great idea and graduations of university of phoenix is 3 . People are throwing the money on online degrees. Nobody graduates with these things because people dont come. If you dont have that facetoface impact youre not going to learn. They dont want that. You know, for political reasons for people like me. And so, i guess what i would say is the issues around the university are complicated. This has not come up the entire issues that the University System but it should be seen in context with the other appointed and related issues going on in the world today and how corporations are seeking to take over every part of the world and the attack on the universities to make it very hard for people to get a permanent hard on that is part of the global strategy. [inaudible conversations] so do you think theres an opportunity to recapture that passion, and so how do we go about doing that . Yeah. Thats a great question, and here is what i think about that. I think that the and i talk about this in the book to some extent. You have, you know, a big movement against sweat shops. Im part of that movement and you you had real successes labor and environmentals working together over these issues, Licensing Agreement to fair production and it did lead to little wins, right. Will, this is like government matter so much actually because after 9 11 the organizing energy moved from the antisweat Shop Campaign to war on terror and iraq, right. The reality is people will work all these issues their whole life but nobody knows whats going to cap a social movement anyone time. When we do from a popular prospective. Theres only one issue at one point in time. That should be supported and its not going to stay there forever. Thats why, you know, rather than just say we need a social movement in the streets to fight for these things, which we do, ultimately the social movement has to consolidate villt victory in law. Once that social movement moves on without the law, regulatory structure theres not much left. So right now rana plaza, limited gains in bangladesh. [laughs] thats why activist theres no answer about how do you start something again. People try and try and try, and sometimes it happens. But then if the president wins probably so. Probably so. Somebody else would be. Somebody else would have thought of it. Its not. I can say when we do have the energy to move toward real legal, is the way that you ensure that the legacy in that movement moves on. Yeah, this gentleman up here had a question. Hi, im an activist. All right. The problem from my side is we cant get them out of their coaches and into the field. Sure. I say pretty outlandish things. By reasonable things because we cant get them out of their living rooms. What do we get to do workforce thats ready to be put to work thats a good question. And once again, theres no easy answer. If there was an easy answer you would know the answer. So i think that the one thing i would say about that is that i think that sometimes we look back on the grate successes of organizing whether its the Civil Rights Movement or Labor Movement of the 30s and say why cant we do things when everybody was in the streets. For the most part it wasnt all true. Some of the people in streets i think the biggest example of that is the famous strike in 1937 that really created a functional a struggling organization, and we think of hundreds of thousands of auto workers and auto plants around the nation, no, people were scared to death to join the union. It was a tiny group of activist who decided to do this not knowing it would work and once amazingly it did, then the flood of workers came and signed up to the uaw members. And so, you know, i think that theres a lot of reasons why people everyday people dont get out and organize or get on the streets or join protests. I think that to some extent they are scared, to some extent they are busy with family things, i think to some extent corporations have been very effective in convincing them that the union doesnt really do anything or i think that all you can do in a situation is keep trying. You just never know. Like in the 1930s you just never know what is going to spark people to go in the street. Again, theres no easy answer to that. All you can do is you just keep trying and sometimes, not very often, sometimes it works. It can work wonders and the world can change. It has in the past and it will again. Youre seeing it. Were seeing that right now. I think thats all you can ask for is just to keep trying. Actually signed something. It was a very telling thing. [laughs] [inaudible conversations] there seems to be one of the things is an entire group of people that whole group of people thats an outstanding question. I think the Tech Industry is a great example of how of how corporate and propaganda have been so successful. What youre really seeing is an entire industry developed that is based around the opposite of workplace rights. Its based around, you know, the true committed workers working 16 hours a day. You can become wealthy. Youre going to be part of something new if you dont get rid of this old economy. Its a perfect example of this problem, is that the story that you can work for yourself, your own hours, you can control, you dont have a real boss, you can be a freelancer, all the things that makes it seem you are going to be a better life, i think the entire Tech Industry powerful is really a sign of how small and successful that corporate propaganda has been and has strong influenced i dont think people today. The idea of collective action is really the opposite of the individual that this tech individual promotes and has created. I think its a sign of how scare things are. Its symbolic of whats happening in the overall economic. I think its a great question. Its not new. Sure. Its not the same as the Trucking Industry which is 40 years old. The companies are working for me, no, youre working for them. Lets be clear. All the advantage is to hover. All right. We have time for one more, so i see a hand in the back there, somebody i havent heard from yet. I think erik is going to sign books if you want to hang out and chat. [inaudible conversations] youre going to create public sector. Its unlikely that it will be denied. To the teacher obviously are concerned about. I have theres no question that its a bad thing. I think that when its going to demand you