Harley Shaiken Economy Quotations

What's new about the global economy is First World productivity combined with Third World wages. That can create some real downward pressure on high-wage countries.

I think this case is, in fact, a watershed. I think what it does is -- in the most dramatic way we've seen to date -- it introduces the wages of the global economy into Main Street in Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere,

These are very important findings that come at a critical moment in the immigration debate. What the study indicates is that if we view the contribution of immigrants to the total economy there may be important gains to all workers that have previously been ignored.

If you cut wages by two-thirds, that creates a class of people that can't afford to go to Wal-Marts. If other industries do this, America will have a far smaller middle class, and the whole economy in the 21st Century begins to unravel.

The global economy has become a blast furnace that seeks to eliminate many of the gains that steelworkers have won over the years.