Assembly Line
1 November 2009
Paper #2 Assignment
What is life like on the global assembly line?
In the article “Life on the Global Assembly Line” Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes did a very good job of portraying what was really going on in the lives of women working in an assembly line in Third World countries. I felt like the authors were not happy about what the corporations were doing. I think that the corporations are like a hungry dog that never could be satisfied with anything. I only disagree with one little thing in their article, the term “first world” or “third world” do not exist anymore, because the cold war ended three decades ago; however, I agree with Ehrenreich and Fuentes’ argument about women being exploited in the third world countries by evil corporations by wage difference, gender inequality, and ruthless working and living conditions. If I am given a chance to own or run a multinational corporations; I would do anything to make sure no one is taken advantage of, and everyone would be treated equally, and be a role model corporation that other corporations would also do the right thing. First of all, in my imaginary corporation, I would pay all my employees equally. In fact, as the CEO of the corporation, I would set my salary as $1. There are numerous CEO’s such as Steve Jobs (Apple) around the world that has set their salaries at $1 annually (Julian). I think this is a brave move and a smart one. The big CEO’s don’t need all the money. Even without the millions of dollars every year as a salary, these CEO’s live abundantly. “In the U.S., an assembly-line worker is likely to earn, depending on her length of employment, between $3.10 and $5 an hour. In many Third World countries, a woman doing the same work will earn $3 to $5 a day” (Ehrenreich and Fuentes 176). All I can say is that it is not fair. Why is it that a woman in an underdeveloped country works hard for a whole day and still makes the same amount of money that a woman in a
Paper #2 Assignment
What is life like on the global assembly line?
In the article “Life on the Global Assembly Line” Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes did a very good job of portraying what was really going on in the lives of women working in an assembly line in Third World countries. I felt like the authors were not happy about what the corporations were doing. I think that the corporations are like a hungry dog that never could be satisfied with anything. I only disagree with one little thing in their article, the term “first world” or “third world” do not exist anymore, because the cold war ended three decades ago; however, I agree with Ehrenreich and Fuentes’ argument about women being exploited in the third world countries by evil corporations by wage difference, gender inequality, and ruthless working and living conditions. If I am given a chance to own or run a multinational corporations; I would do anything to make sure no one is taken advantage of, and everyone would be treated equally, and be a role model corporation that other corporations would also do the right thing. First of all, in my imaginary corporation, I would pay all my employees equally. In fact, as the CEO of the corporation, I would set my salary as $1. There are numerous CEO’s such as Steve Jobs (Apple) around the world that has set their salaries at $1 annually (Julian). I think this is a brave move and a smart one. The big CEO’s don’t need all the money. Even without the millions of dollars every year as a salary, these CEO’s live abundantly. “In the U.S., an assembly-line worker is likely to earn, depending on her length of employment, between $3.10 and $5 an hour. In many Third World countries, a woman doing the same work will earn $3 to $5 a day” (Ehrenreich and Fuentes 176). All I can say is that it is not fair. Why is it that a woman in an underdeveloped country works hard for a whole day and still makes the same amount of money that a woman in a
Cited: CIA, comp. “Population below poverty line.” World factbook. CIA, 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. . Ehrenreich, Barbara and Annette Fuentes. “Life on the Global Asssembly Line.” The New World Reader, 3rd Ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. Wadsworth: New York, 2010. Julian. “10 CEOs on $1 Salaries.” Businesspundit. N.p., 8 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. .