First off, I'm not American, so I shouldn't be writing about this issue because it would be less authentic. I’m a Filipino living in the Philippines. But in the past week, I had a sad personal encounter with globalization, and now I feel I gained the right to analyze this issue. Besides, I’m part, although in the minutest degree, of the outsourcing industry -- one of the most sensitive and debated issues that arose from globalization.
The thing that awakened me to the personal impact of globalization was a comment made by someone from Arizona on my blog. Let’s call her Rose.
I've had criticisms every now and then made on my blog, and I've accepted them and explained my sides, but this one jolted me because Rose wished something bad on me.
The post that enraged Rose was my announcement of a paid-in-advance freelance writing project that I got through Craigslist from an American client based in Florida. The pay was $5 for every 400- to 500-word article. I wrote the post because I wanted to support the campaign of other Filipino freelance writers asking fellow writers not to accept $1- or $2-dollar articles. Some are even adamant that writers set $5 as the minimum, even if it gets harder everyday to find this rate. Rates on Craigslist and freelance bidding sites are full of the excruciating-to-see $1-dollar offer.
As I thought $5 was already a good price for an easy topic, I was shocked when somebody, which turned out to be Rose, said that I “deserved to be scammed” for accepting such a low rate and “for undervaluing myself and the profession.” At first I thought it was a fellow Filipino commenting, so I didn’t get why $5 so infuriated her.
Thankfully, Rose responded to my I-am-hurting note, and explained she has been writing for the past 28 years and has been the sole support of her family. But because of people like me accepting ‘cheap’ jobs, her income has plunged to just one-fourth of what it once was. Her clients have cut her fees in half, telling her they can hire for much less from Craigslist.
I made research on her email address, and true enough, she has been writing since the start of the Internet era and her work is all over the Internet. She has pics when she was younger, and now that she’s much older. I’ve scanned some of her blogs, and there are mentions about cheap writers.
A friend of hers, also a writer, (I followed some links), however, was more discerning as she vented her ire on what she calls sweatshops, and launched a petition against these writing mills. She must have pondered a lot about who was to blame – the American client who pays $1? Or the developing-country writer who accepts the dollar?
For an average American freelance writer, like for example in most cities in California, where the minimum wage is $8 per hour, $5 for a 400-word article is a sin. But for me here in Manila, where the minimum wage is around $1.1 per hour, and where the exchange rate is hovering at 46 pesos to a dollar, the $5 rate is already above average.
Using the $5 rate, a California writer would need to write about 13 articles per day to match the California minimum wage of $64 for an 8-hour day. Here, I just need to write 1.78 articles or less than 2 articles per day to match the Manila minimum wage of roughly $8.8 also for an 8-hour day.
But, of course, minimum is minimal. It’s not enough here; it’s not enough there.
The impact of globalization on Americans has been discussed a lot, and it’s an unresolved issue. Some say it only benefits the capitalists and the giant firms that outsource jobs offshore and it steals American jobs and gives them to foreigners. Others say it balances universal wealth as it transfers portions of it from the rich to the poor. Still others say it has made China richer and the U.S. poorer. Etcetera.
But there’s one thing that caught my attention – a contention by tech whiz John Carroll on ZDNet. He said, as I understood it, that low-cost computers, which resulted from globalization (one PC could have cost $10,000 each if parts were not made in lower-cost countries), facilitated the quick global reach of the Internet which is now creating jobs for many – and to which I add – opening communication among races.
As to my exchange with Rose of Arizona, it ended well enough. Her last response was: “I realize so-called globalization has fueled some of this... I am sorry you feel bad. I feel bad. This is bad.”
Fortitude Pays
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