Globalisation

The negative impact of Globalisation

Companies always want to save money in order to increase their profits even if it means venturing to locations with lower labour costs. Free trade and new information technologies have edged some industries and workers out of the market; however, it has allowed others to prosper.

Globalisation in Australia has changed employment opportunities. Many employees have been forced to retrain, become self-employed or to take retirement due to the increase in competition from imported goods and services.

Increased reliance on outsourcing and competitive tendering has reduced the employment security of workers, even those employed by profitable enterprises or public sector organisations. The insecurity has been enhanced by the removal of constraints on the power of employers to hire and fire at will.

Has globalisation contributed to labour market inequality?

Certainly has by favouring managers and highly skilled workers and have removed interventions that protected the interests of less skilled workers. The increased of wages to highly-skilled workers and reducing wages for less-skilled workers clearly leads to greater inequality.

Globalisation taking advantage of third world countries

Companies take advantage of local conditions and move production facilities in response to changing local conditions-regardless of the impact of these changes on local population such as a factory in Indonesia maybe profitable today, but less so tomorrow. Globalisation is the latest stage in the development of capitalism, a stage in which freely moving capital working through multinational corporations has succeeded in imposing its priorities on nation-state and local populations.

One example of how globalisation affected Australia and other countries

In the mid of 1998 Australian Gas Light (AGL) announced its intention to construct a natural gas across rural Queensland. AGL’s natural gas business was growing as world consumption of natural gas continued to expand. In order to meet both local and export demand AGL expanded its interactions activities. The proposed pipeline however, crossed aboriginal traditional land. In 1992 the High Court of Australia established the legal right for indigenous people to claim traditional ownership of land. The global demand for natural gas and the global trend to recognise indigenous land claims, interrelated with local conflict resulting to a broader process of reconciliation in Australia. In the AGL case globalisation acted as a catalyst for both conflict resolution and peace building.

In addition, another particular example of how globalisation and conflict interact can be found in the story of ‘blood diamonds’, where diamonds are used to fund military operations. In the late 90s, raw unpolished diamond totalled around $7.5 billion. This globalised market is dominated by the South African DeBeers cartel which has 40% of the world’s diamond mines.Link something to Australia


To conclude, globalisation can impact on the escalation and de-escalation of a conflict or whether it tends to encourage more conflict than it resolves. After different conflicts that have arose it can be demonstrated that globalisation is no longer only positive and benign.


References

Findlay, M and Maccormack, J. 2007, ‘Globalisation and social work education and practice: exploring Australian practitioners’ views’, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare.
Midgley, J. ‘Perspectives on globalisation, social justice and welfare’.
MacDonald, F and Midgley, J. 2007, ‘Introduction: globalisation, social justice, and social welfare’, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare.