Thom Hartmann: World's Richest Woman Wants Africans To Work for $2 A Day

[thomhartmann]

So generally, the corporate elite like to stay tight-lipped about how they view their workers. Most don't want to come across as greedy - or a Scrooge. But every now and then a cocky billionaire comes along - spouts off about entitlements and the work ethic - and we get a glimpse into how the billionaire class thinks. And this week - we recognize Gina Rinehart - the world's richest woman - as that billionaire big mouth. Here's a little bit of her background: she's worth about $18 billion - all of it is thanks to the lucky sperm club.

She was born into wealth - never having to work a day down in the iron-ore mines that she now owns it - as a billionaire with really clean hands - she thinks she knows what motivates workers. And she thinks the key to economic success in her home country of Australia - is to pay those workers basically nothing - slave wages like $2 a day. This is what she said, "We must be realistic, not just promote class warfare. Indeed, if we competed at the Olympic games as sluggishly as we compete economically, there would be an outcry. The evidence is unarguable that Australia is indeed becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export- orientated business. Africans want to work. Its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country’s future."

Just to clarify what she said - she's worried about Australia's future as long as Africans are willing to work for $2 a day - and Australia isn't willing to race to the bottom of that same wage scale. Aside from the tinge of racism in her comments, they’re also completely uninformed. In August outside the Lonmin platinum mine in South Africa 34 African miners - those people who Gina Rinehart claims are willing to work for $2 a day - were on strike demanding better wages - and getting massacred for their resistance. They weren't risking their lives for a $2 a day paycheck - or a modest raise to $3 a day like Rinehart imagines. They were asking for a $1,500 a month minimum wage. That's roughly 40-times more money that Rinehart thinks these workers deserve.

Rinehart's comments that Australia needs to be employing slave labor to compete in the global economy prove that she - and other who agree with her - just don't give a damn about workers. To her - those who toil in her mines, who develop chronic illnesses, who risk death every day - aren't humans who have their own passions and goals - who have families they want to raise - who even one day might want to own their own businesses. No - to Gina Rinehart those workers are just numbers on a spreadsheet - numbers that can be edited - or even erase - if the drive for profit requires it.

And in an increasingly globalized world - where transnational corporations hold more power than sovereign governments - the race to the bottom in wages is spiraling out of control - affecting not just miners in Africa - but factory workers in America, too, who've seen their paychecks shrink - and have dropped out of the middle class and into the working poor class. Gina Rinehart would have been right-at-home at last week's RNC - where so-called job creators were exalted - where the billionaire class was revered - and where workers were criticized as lazy - living off the government - and screwing over taxpayers with collective bargaining.

She would have applauded Eric Cantor's attempts to redefine Labor Day as a day for CEOs and business executives. But she shouldn't fit right at home in America - a nation that once cared about its workers. A nation that understood that most people don't want to be billionaires like Gina Rinehart - or the Koch Brothers - they just aspire to be part of the middle class. A nation that made a middle class lifestyle possible for those who wanted it, through government policies like a minimum wage - protection for unions - and reasonable high taxation on the rich.

We need to find that nation again - and find it soon - before the billionaire class and Gina Rinehart take us back to the days of feudalism - when there was no middle class - when all of us would be lucky to do a day's work for just $2. That's what's at stake.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[Pharaoh]

1. kickin for later

[heaven05]

2. damn

a real piece of work. evil and without a moral compass. Just like someone in this country at the present moment,who is uber rich and not willing to stop his lies and, well you know.....

[DeSwiss]

3. You know, I kept wondering who it was......

...that Gina Rinehart reminded me of. Over and over the idea that her face was familiar to me, tossed around in my head. It was a visceral memory, one tinged with fear and rejection but I couldn't put my finger on it.

And then today it came to me. And I knew immediately why I so abhorred her. It was a fear and dread that was borne in childhood, and oddly at an amusement park:

- Some things you learn in childhood stay with you for a reason. I think all would do well to avoid this woman.

K&R

[Southerner]

4. I was in Australia two years ago.

A sit-down dinner at the equivalent of an American diner was $35. A small paperback at Borders was $27. To see a movie at the theather was $25. And yes, I factored in the exchange rate at the time.

I don't have any data, but I would expect manufacturing of any kind in Australia would be equally expensive. They probably can't compete with even the industrialized countries. I can't remember seeing any product with "made in Australia" on it. I kinda like Gotye though.