Jon Stewart took a hard look at how globalization has resulted in corporations getting away with lower pay and fewer benefits for its workers by shipping jobs overseas – and, as the comedian pointed out – to Texas!
“The last few decades of globalization allowed corporations to scour the planet for the cheapest labor and loosest regulations, devastating the working class. Capital is mobile and workers less. So entire industries packed up and abandoned the communities that built them,” he began on “The Problem With Jon Stewart” Friday night.
“The auto industry left Michigan and Ohio for Mexico and China. Textile companies left North Carolina for Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Vietnam. And heavy machinery manufacturer, Caterpillar, shipped jobs from Illinois to… wait. What? Texas?!”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott answered Stewart’s question in the simplest form: “We have low taxes, reasonable regulations, right-to-work laws.”
It was a lightbulb moment for Stewart. “I think I understand now,” he said calmly. “As China is to America, Texas is to Illinois.”
He went on. “Now, if you don’t speak business euphemism, allow me to translate what the governor said: Low tax means less money to spend on infrastructure, reasonable regulations mean ‘you weren’t using that finger anyway’ and right to work means weak unions — which means companies can get away with lower pay and fewer benefits. And they do.”
And Texas wasn’t the only state to play that game. Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee and South Dakota governors have all gone on the record with the numerous incentives they employ to bring big business to their states, all of which hurt workers in the long run while putting more money in the pockets of the businesses.
“I don’t wanna sound crazy, but isn’t this exactly what everybody was complaining about with globalization?” Stewart asked.
Although many are talking about how jobs are going to Mexico and to China, workers in states like Michigan are losing jobs to Tennessee and Texas, where employers are not bound by regulations or unions.
“If globalization undercuts workers by incentivizing companies to move to low wages, low regulation, low tax markets like China and Mexico, why would you do a mini version of that in America?” Stewart pointed out. “It’s bound to become a race to the bottom between the states at the expense of workers everywhere. And, of course, that’s what’s happening. Take wages — when GE moved operations from a union state, Pennsylvania, to right to work, Texas, wages went from an average of $34 an hour to a starting offer of $18 an hour.”
To prove his point, Stewart cited CNBC ranking North Carolina number one for business in 2022. In contrast, Oxfam, a global organization that’s mission is to “fight inequality to end poverty and injustice,” ranked it 52nd on its list.
“As a matter of fact, a hundred of America’s biggest cities and counties with the highest median tax abatement policies had the worst inequality,” Stewart said. “We’ve certainly demonized other countries for the same practices that some of these states are doing here.”
Stewart check in with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper to find out why states engage in some of these practices to attract businesses, even though it hurt workers.
“As governor, one of the reasons I’m trying to attract the better-paying jobs is because it’s gonna raise the wages of our families. At the same time, I’m fighting the legislature about raising the minimum wage. They won’t do it. They refuse to do it. And one of the reasons why we’re trying to attract these companies and are successfully doing it,” Copper continued, “that raises the boat here in the harbor that everybody is gonna do better.”
Stewart said in counterpoint, “That trickle-down economics theory, you know, when they say ‘the rising tide lifts all boats,’ I always think ‘yeah, if you have a boat.’ But if you don’t have a boat, it’s just a rising tide and you sink to the bottom.
