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Comment by ivanstojic | Hacker News Reader

Your colonialism is showing.

There are two assumptions here that I’d like to point out: that the US labor laws are the best worldwide, and that there is an inherent problem in other countries that would be solved if they just adhered to the US laws.

US historically had, and still has a large number of cases (either legal or just public discourse) of employers treating their employees unjustly, unfairly or with malice, despite all of the legal protection that US provides. There are always edge cases and loopholes. That said, I do believe that to an extent, the precedent based legal system of US trumps European style jurisprudence systems.

Secondly, there is no evidence that by and large the workers are treated better in the US, or that other counties are clearly inferior. International employee engagement is pretty close to the world average in most modern countries.

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How is not allowing US companies to exploit workers in developing countries "colonialism"? If anything, exporting work to cheaper countries with less worker protections is the modern day version of colonialism.

As another commentator said, the US can have fewer worker protections than Europe and still more than developing countries. I assume that the OP meant that US labor laws would be a minimum standard chosen because that's what US companies would have to follow if they didn't outsource, not because it's objectively the best labor standard.

Have you BEEN to India?

No one pays taxes and it is obvious. The infrastructure is horrendous to non-existent.

Meanwhile, I have to pay taxes and fees to support my community. From the school teachers to the street workers.

Companies here benefit from it to. Companies can feel free to move their headquarters to New Delhi if they don't want to do any business in the US. Contribute or GTFO.

Freelancer.com and similar are enabling companies to escape their social responsibilities. You can't blame them but.. there should be costs/fee or tariffs associated with outsourcing.

The OP is not claiming US labor laws are the best. The OP is saying that the US has decided that these are the laws it wants for itself and so if you want the output of your work to be sold in America, then these are the standards that should be maintained.

It’s similar to a Kosher or halal restaurant demanding that any meat that they purchase must adhere to the standards they have.

The foreign workers are free to provide their services to non-American companies, just like a non kosher butcher is free to sell their meat to a different restaurant. It’s just not the rules that the US meets.

And in fact, this is true if nearly everything you purchase. Ivory cannot be sold in the US. Blood diamonds cannot be so,d there. A whole host of products need to meet certain standards to be sold in the US. The OP is suggesting the same sort of laws apply to services that apply to goods.

I think the assumption was however the US ranked worldwide other nations had to have at least that level.

Historically that's why unions were created to offer a level of protection.

Neither assumption you describe is necessarily present in the position you are responding to. The US could have below average labor protections and still legitimately be worried about outsourcing labor to countries with even lower labor protections.

This is precisely what globalization agreements don't just say "ok, no tarrifs guys". Those low tarrifs are tied to mandated regulations to out a floor on "races to the bottom".

Thus globalization is necessarily a trade off between economic performance and regulatory autonomy.

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