Has the Supreme Court opened the door to a way to protect American jobs?
By
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Has the Supreme Court opened the door
to a way to protect American jobs?
In a recent decision, the supposedly non-activist U.S. Supreme Court overturned over 100 years of legislation; designed in part to prevent another Great Depression and to limit the ability of big money to buy elections. Like most thinking Americans, I was outraged by the decision that will allow nearly limitless corporate money, given no fairness doctrine, to buy up every minute of commercial airtime on radio and TV stations across the country and by doing so silence voices standing up for working Americans. After thinking about it a bit, however, I decided that the Court had opened the door to a way to protect American jobs.
In the past, I have pushed for what I call a "human standards import fee" that would impose a duty of approximately 75% of the savings accrued by producing products and services in countries with what amounts to slave labor and or with inadequate environmental and worker protection laws.
My proposal called for holding the fees collected in escrow for a period of two years during which time the producer could present plans to use the money, plus interest, to bring worker compensation up to a level approaching that of American workers and or to reduce damage done to the environment in producing the products or services. If approved the funds would be released for the expressed purpose and if no plan was approved, the funds would be used to benefit displaced American workers or to prop up Social Security. No politician of ether party, probably to avoid offending big money interests whose support even prior to the recent supreme courts decision filled their campaign coffers, would even acknowledge receiving the proposal for consideration.
Currently, I am pushing for rules requiring retail chains with over X dollars in sales or over X many employees to sell a minimum percentage of American-made products with said percentage increasing over time. In effect, it would be sort of like requiring Automobile companies to meet minimum average milage goals. Prospects of getting a politician of either party to bite the hand that feeds his or her campaign coffers is dim however and it would no doubt be in violation of trade agreements that have opened the floodgates to export of American jobs.
So why does the Supreme Court decision give me a glimmer of hope for restoring American Jobs? It may be a little far-fetched but it would seem to me that, if corporations can be declared a persons by the court, that the American workers can be declared endangered species and thus protected by the federal government. If it is legal to stop the cutting of old growth forests to protect spotted owls, why wouldn't it be legal to stop exporting American jobs in order to protect our workers?
Think about it!
Sincerely,
Charles Leach
Lynchburg
To the editor:
In a recent decision, the supposedly non-activist U.S. Supreme Court overturned over 100 years of legislation; designed in part to prevent another Great Depression and to limit the ability of big money to buy elections. Like most thinking Americans, I was outraged by the decision that will allow nearly limitless corporate money, given no fairness doctrine, to buy up every minute of commercial airtime on radio and TV stations across the country and by doing so silence voices standing up for working Americans. After thinking about it a bit, however, I decided that the Court had opened the door to a way to protect American jobs.
In the past, I have pushed for what I call a "human standards import fee" that would impose a duty of approximately 75% of the savings accrued by producing products and services in countries with what amounts to slave labor and or with inadequate environmental and worker protection laws.
My proposal called for holding the fees collected in escrow for a period of two years during which time the producer could present plans to use the money, plus interest, to bring worker compensation up to a level approaching that of American workers and or to reduce damage done to the environment in producing the products or services. If approved the funds would be released for the expressed purpose and if no plan was approved, the funds would be used to benefit displaced American workers or to prop up Social Security. No politician of ether party, probably to avoid offending big money interests whose support even prior to the recent supreme courts decision filled their campaign coffers, would even acknowledge receiving the proposal for consideration.
Currently, I am pushing for rules requiring retail chains with over X dollars in sales or over X many employees to sell a minimum percentage of American-made products with said percentage increasing over time. In effect, it would be sort of like requiring Automobile companies to meet minimum average milage goals. Prospects of getting a politician of either party to bite the hand that feeds his or her campaign coffers is dim however and it would no doubt be in violation of trade agreements that have opened the floodgates to export of American jobs.
So why does the Supreme Court decision give me a glimmer of hope for restoring American Jobs? It may be a little far-fetched but it would seem to me that, if corporations can be declared a persons by the court, that the American workers can be declared endangered species and thus protected by the federal government. If it is legal to stop the cutting of old growth forests to protect spotted owls, why wouldn't it be legal to stop exporting American jobs in order to protect our workers?
Think about it!
Sincerely,
Charles Leach
Lynchburg
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