Thread: free trade agreements, do they work both ways?

NAFTA didnt do me any good. Shortly after implimentation the company I worked for relocated to the USA. Several others that were in the area shifted as well.Only one winner I knew of. He privately imported Harleys and Jeeps to take advantage of the stronger Cdn dollar.

No from what i see in my work they are mostly a one way deal, they encourage companies to move offshore and use sweatshop labour to get even cheaper manufacturing costs.

IMHO there is no such thing as a free trade agreement unless both ends of the agreement have the same social conditions. e.g.:

1. Mandatory employer paid superannuation system.
2. Paid annual, sick and long service leave.
3. Worker health and safety including workers compensation, enforced by legislation and actual prosecution.
4. National health system available to all.
5. Unemployment/pension system.
6. Public housing available to everyone.

Which means that Australia will never be on a level playing field with our so-called Free Trade partners or the World Trade Organisation rules.

Market prostitution perhaps it is a good definition for this under Australians point of view specially the ones that lost their job.
GM likely to shift Holden production to Korea under FTA
They took our money and most probable they will built cars using our raw materials.

Didn't GM buy Daewoo in SK when it went under and aren't Captivas out of that factory in SK? So GM has been in SK for a while now - guess they will just be expanding their SK manufacturing base at our cost. I may be wrong but this is what I was told.....

I just wonder if legally under the tax legislation (I do not claim that they are going to do that) it is possible for a company in this situation to claim lost for all the costs in disassemble the plant and decommission the equipment?
Can be done that and at the same time take all the good tooling OS to start a new assembly plant in the country of destination?
That would be the mother of all..................

forgive me if I am wrong, but isnt the coil steel that the cars are being made from imported from korea now, it was when my brother was working in the press plant a couple of years back.

Originally Posted by Marty110

Didn't GM buy Daewoo in SK when it went under and aren't Captivas out of that factory in SK? So GM has been in SK for a while now - guess they will just be expanding their SK manufacturing base at our cost. I may be wrong but this is what I was told.....

yes, pretty much all small holdens are from the Daewoo factory.