Differential labour costs among countries

With increasing economic interrelationships between countries, conditions of workers in one country are negatively affected by conditions in another, and also by their own consumption of imported goods.

1. A major reason that, say, women workers in the garment and textile plants in some industrialized countries are paid just barely above the minimum award wage is that tens of thousands of Asian young women and children work long hours in such plants at below subsistence wages, producing export goods that flood the market with "cheap" goods in the same industrialized countries.

2. The differentials between wage and social costs in corporations in industrialized and poorer countries are so large that it is unlikely than many European or American jobs can be saved by cutting wages or social entitlements.

1. Unequal income distribution between countries
2. International economic injustice

1. Underpayment for work
2. Transfer of industries to low-wage countries
3. Protectionism in the textile and apparel industries
4. Misuse of free production zones and export enclaves
5. Loss of internal political borders
6. Import competition from low-wage countries
7. Export of hazardous industries
8. Exploitation of cross-border differentials
9. Cheap manufactured products

1. International economic interdependence
2. Inadequate working conditions

1. Trade barriers against developing countries
2. Incomplete utilization of external relations

1. Unconstrained free trade
2. Authoritarian division of labour

1. Undertaking cost-cutting
2. Trading across borders
3. Preventing illegal border trade
4. Neutralizing negative impact of cross-border trade
5. Evaluating effects of world trade agreements on labour standards
6. Enabling competitive wage initiatives

1. Difference
2. Unfairness
3. Cross-purposes
4. Competition [D]
5. Negativity