Cut-Rate Labor for Any Job

Just when you think that surely the offshoring craze has peaked, here come more stories of "Globalization Gone Wild."

McClatchy Co., the California-based newspaper chain, has announced that it is outsourcing some of its jobs to India. Copyediting and design work for certain sections of its Miami Herald newspaper are being shipped to a New Delhi corporation with the mind-boggling name of Mindworks Global Media. Ironically, part of the work to be handled 8,400 miles away from the Herald's readers is editing and design for a weekly section on community news.

But outsourcing is not just an American game. Waterford, the renowned crystal maker that has been in Dublin, Ireland, since 1783, has built its reputation on the fine skills of its Irish glass masters. Now, however, it has cut its Dublin workforce in half and moved about a fifth of its production to Poland and the Czech Republic.

The pricey, quintessentially Irish glassware — from chandeliers to champagne flutes — is being made in Central Europe by workers paid a fourth of what the Dublin artisans were paid. Waterford's CEO says that prices for the faux Irish crystal will not be lowered and insists that consumers won't care where the crystal is made.

Maybe, but do couples care where their baby is made? Apparently not. There's a growing global industry of outsourced pregnancies, with clinics in India making available young, very-low-income local women to be surrogate mothers for well-off, infertile couples from America, Taiwan, Britain and elsewhere. The couples provide the sperm and pay a fraction of the going rate for surrogate moms in the United States, and — viola! — the "wombs for rent" clinics deliver a baby.

It's all part of the globalization follies, where the wealthy can find workers at cut-rate costs to do any sort of labor they need.

THE DIMMING STAR OF STARBUCKS

About a year ago, a stinging message was delivered to the corporate honchos of Starbucks, the mega-chain of costly coffees.

The writer decried the "commoditization of the Starbucks experience," bemoaning the fact that the stores "no longer have the soul of the past and (instead) reflect a chain of stores vs.

the warm feeling of a neighborhood store."

He's right, of course. You go into a Starbucks these days, and the talented barista who used to make your cup has been replaced by automatic, push-button coffee machines. Instead of a friendly "Thank you," you hear, "Next."

The interesting thing about the guy who wrote to the honchos is that he is none other than Howard Schultz, the founder and former CEO of Starbucks! Shortly after delivering his pointed critique, Schultz returned to the helm of the sprawling chain, promising to restore the "customer experience."

It's not going very well. He has gotten rid of the warmed-up egg sandwiches, whose gross smell overpowered even the heady aroma of coffee, which is what entices customers to come inside. But he has stuck with those push-button espresso machines and the inadequately trained staff. In the year since Schultz's return, Starbucks' stock price fell 40 percent, and its stores are losing customers to genuine, locally owned coffeehouses.

As much as Schultz will tinker with image, the fact is that Starbucks is now just another huge chain, with 15,000 stores. They are so ubiquitous that have lost all mystique. One near my home, for example, shares space with Jiffy Lube — now there's an image for you!

What irony that Starbucks yearns for the image of the cool, independent coffee hangouts that Schultz spent the last 20 years trying to drive out of business. Those places survived and now thrive, while his corporate chain has to compete with McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. How cool is that?

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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