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 muc