In the book by Robert J. Flanagan, Globalization and Labor Conditions: Working Conditions and Worker Rights in a Global Economy, there is a lot of important information about the relationship between globalization and labor conditions. Globalization has three main parts and they are: international trade, international migrations and the activities of multinational companies on working conditions and labor rights around the world. Around the world today every country's labor conditions are affected by globalization. The one country or region that will be in the spotlight for this paper will be the United States of America. The main points of how the United States is affected are how the local labor conditions are affected by globalization, the role multinational corporations, and the local labor regulations.
Globalization affects the whole United States as a nation but the point that really needs to be looked at is how globalization affects local labor conditions. With the growth of international trade and international migration of people to work for companies the United States has had to try and keep people over in the states happy while they are at work so they can keep up with some of the output from overseas. The United States in a whole has pretty good labor conditions. There are many rules and regulations that must be met in order for a company to stay in business. In the United States there are various rules that prohibit child labor and many other restrictions that only allow the 16 year old or 14 year old with parental consent work up to so many hours. Also in the United States there are many national and state laws that govern how many breaks employees are allowed to have as well as many laws that ensure safety for the workers. With the U.S. being one of the major leaders in international trade and international migration there labor conditions have the upper hand because as the three of those things grow more and more the advancement of labor conditions also grow. Lastly, labor conditions in the United States are some of the best conditions in the world due to how big of a player they are in the global economy.
The next thing that plays' a pretty large role in how globalization affects the labor conditions in any country, not just the United States, is the whether or not there is multinational corporations present. In the United States there are not too many multinational corporations present due to the fact that most multinational corporations are present in developing countries that are trying to better not only their labor conditions but there economy as a whole. The United States is one of those countries that is high and powerful in the global economy and starts the multinational companies in different countries that are in much need of capital and jobs. The presence of multinational companies in the United States might not be that big in the actual states but that does not mean that the United States doesn't play a very big role in the multinational corporation world.
There are many national and state laws or regulations that make sure labor conditions in the United States that are very important in the business world. First of all, workers in America have many legal protections that make it possible for them to join and organize labor unions. Although the United States has a very low rate of union formation among the major industrialized nations, they still have many organizations that help those that are in the unions. The main one of these organizations is the American Federation of Labor or AFL which is involved with about 75 percent of the workers that are in unions. There are also many federal agencies that are there to enforce labor laws and make sure labor conditions are not dropping below what is expected of the United States. Another good thing is that there are not only federal agencies that look over work environment, there are also many state agencies that mirror what the federal organizations do. The massive amount of agencies that regulate the labor and safety laws helps make sure even more that the safety regulations are what they are supposed to be. Also there are regulations on how many hours salary workers can work before they will be receiving overtime pay. Not only will workers in the United States be able to get overtime pay they are awarded national holidays off as well as two weeks' vacation per year and two weeks' sick leave. Currently in the United States there are various fines and other penalties for companies that violate minimum wage laws or child-labor laws.