  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, June 25, 2007
Great Article by The Rev. Lee Alison Crawford
Ever since I was 13 and pestered my aunt and uncle living in the Netherlands to take me to Anne Frank's
house in Amsterdam, I have sought out holy sites as pilgrimage destinations. I have walked more than three quarters of the
medieval Way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago de Compostela) in both France and Spain and visited countless Romanesque and
Gothic churches with their medieval relics.
The pilgrimage destination that remains the most powerful for me, however,
is what I call Via Crucis or the Via Dolorosa of San Salvador, El Salvador. The capitol city of this small Central American
country of 6.6 million people has at least four stations that pilgrims can visit: Divina Providencia, the city cathedral,
the University of Central America and the central park.
Any pilgrim in San Salvador will go to the little hospital,
Divina Providencia, where Archbishop Oscar Romero lived and was assassinated while he said Mass on March 24, 1980. In his
little house of three rooms, one sees his vestments, stained with his blood, complete with the single hole of the bullet that
ripped through his heart.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
High Paying Jobs at Risk in El Salvador
(From Congressional Quarterly Today) Passengers boarding a JetBlue airliner are likely
to be struck by the soft leather seats, personal satellite televisions and generous leg room. What they probably don’t know
is that the sleek Airbus A320 may have just undergone heavy maintenance — in El Salvador.
Unions for U.S. aircraft mechanics have been fighting the trend of outsourcing airplane maintenance overseas
— without much success — since 1988, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began allowing domestic airlines to send
their planes abroad for scheduled maintenance, such as heavy engine overhauls.
But with pro-labor Democrats writing an FAA reauthorization bill, the issue has gained new prominence. House
Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James L. Oberstar said the House FAA bill,
which could be marked up as early as next week, will address foreign aircraft-repair stations.
Airlines argue that outsourcing repair work is widely accepted, safe and even necessary in a global marketplace.
Unions contend that foreign mechanics typically lack the skills and training of their U.S. counterparts and that the FAA does
little to oversee the quality of overseas facilities.
Both sides claim the high ground of safety, but in many ways the debate is a classic battle between jobs and
costs.
More at http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002535103.html
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Offshoring and Cheap Imports May Hurt Workers, OECD Says
(From The Wall Street Journal, By MARCUS WALKER, June 19, 2007 11:46 a.m.) Offshoring and inexpensive imports may be hurting low-skilled workers
in the U.S. and Europe to the extent that free trade and open markets could become increasingly difficult for politicians
to sell to their constituents, according to one of the world's leading economics institutes.
The Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based institute backed by the governments of 30 leading industrialized countries,
is a staunch believer in free trade, which most economists believe makes all countries richer overall, including those with
high wages.
But in its annual labor
study, published Tuesday, the OECD acknowledges growing popular unease about globalization -- the growing integration of the
world economy through trade and cross-border investment -- and frets about a popular backlash if governments fail to ensure
that lesser-skilled workers share the benefits.
"Millions are benefiting
from globalization, but at the same time there's a feeling something's wrong with the process," said OECD Secretary General
Jose Angel Gurría. That is creating political resistance to further moves to free up international trade and investment, he
said -- particularly in the U.S. and France.
A growing number of
economists are expressing concern about the number of losers from globalization. Despite strong economic growth, these economists
note, many workers in developed countries are struggling to find well-paid work amid a combination of cheap imports, the relocation
of factories and offices to low-wage countries, and changing technology.
"The
conventional wisdom was that all boats would be lifted by the rising tide. That was overly optimistic," says David Audretsch,
director of the Max Planck Institute for Economics in Germany.
Now, economists are recognizing that today's processes of globalization are posing new problems, he says -- but they are only
starting to overhaul their theories in response.
Read more in the Wall Street Journal newspaper
or at WSJ.com.
El Salvador to Hold Separate Elections
San Salvador, Jun 17 (Prensa Latina) Salvadoran electoral authorities confirmed on Sunday the country will
separate the 2009 presidential elections from the municipal and legislative elections.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) determined as possible dates January 18, 2009 for the municipal and legislative
elections, and March 15 for the presidential elections.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Globalization is a Mixed Bag
Interesting article in the WSJ (24 May) that gives many of the statistics of the effects of globalization.
I can't put the whole article here since it's so long (and that would be copyright infringement) so you'll have to go to the
library or subscribe to see it all. The data doesn't support the hard line positions of any of the extreme views.
Here are some excerpts.
...A decade ago, the globalization of commerce promised to be a boon to low-wage workers in developing nations.
As wealthy nations shed millions of jobs making apparel, electronics, and other goods, economists predicted that low-skilled
workers in Latin America and Asia would benefit because there would be greater demand for their labor -- and better wages.
In some ways, globalization delivered as promised. But there was an unexpected consequence. As
trade, foreign investment and technology have spread, the gap between economic haves and have-nots has frequently widened,
not only in wealthy countries like the U.S. but in poorer ones like Mexico, Argentina, India and China as well. Many economists
now say that the biggest winners by far are those with the education and skills to take advantage of new opportunities, leaving
many lagging far behind. Incomes of low-skilled workers may rise, but incomes of skilled workers rise a lot faster....
...Globalization deserves credit for helping lift many millions out of poverty and for improving
standards of living of low-wage families. In developing countries around the world, globalization -- defined as trading and
participating in the global economy -- has created a vibrant middle class that has elevated the standards of living for hundreds
of millions of people. That's particularly true in China, where the incomes of low-skilled workers have consistently risen.
The poor in countries like Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia have also benefited greatly since those countries have
opened their economies. In many developing countries around the world, life expectancies and health care have improved, as
have educational opportunities....
...Many developing nations seem to be following in the footsteps of the U.S., where the income
gap has grown sharply since the early 1970s. A 2006 study of Latin America, a region long marked by profound gaps between
rich and poor, by World Bank economists Guillermo Perry and Marcelo Olarreaga found that the income divide deepened after
economic liberalization in nine of the 12 countries examined.
While that could partly be explained by Latin America's slow rate of economic growth, income gaps
are widening in fast-growing Asian nations as well, including Thailand and India. It's even grown in the past decade in South
Korea, a country long known for an egalitarian commitment to education....
...The consequences of widening income inequality are profound. Those without much education or
skills often find themselves stuck in jobs in the underground economy that don't pay health-care or pension benefits. That's
boosted immigration to better-off regions domestically or to the U.S. and Europe, where anti-immigrant sentiment is surging....
...Access to education also plays an important role. Developing nations rarely crank out enough
college-trained workers to match growing demand, boosting the wages for fresh graduates. Unskilled workers who get laid off
can't find retraining and add to the pool of workers looking for low-wage work....Expanded education can ease inequality,
as more workers qualify for skilled jobs. In Mexico, the income gap has diminished somewhat since 2000, partly reflecting
improved education levels. Since 2000, for instance, Puebla State Popular Autonomous University, a large private university,
has added undergraduate degrees in such specialties as bionics, electronics and software and is planning to add degrees in
biotechnology, power-grid administration and plastics.
In El Salvador, however, the data shows the bottom quintile has experienced a 77% increase in
income.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
