[lotsofpulp]

Worker protections raise the cost of doing business. Is it hypothetical that manufacturing facilities relocated to China to be able to sell products at cheaper prices than their competitors?

Is it hypothetical that a business that a retail business offers their employees lavish benefits and sells commodity products will be put out of business by lower prices from Walmart/Target/Amazon/Best Buy/etc?

Both of the above examples have happened, and capital flight is real. A few countries with better safety nets, who don't have a comparable emigration situation like in the US, does not mean that one of the two parties in the US is not trying at least a little bit.

[claudeganon]

>Is it hypothetical that a business that a retail business offers their employees lavish benefits and sells commodity products will be put out of business by lower prices from Walmart/Target/Amazon/Best Buy/etc?

None of your examples are headquartered in California, nor would any of these companies stop operating in the most populous state in the US with its largest economy were worker protections put in place.

>Is it hypothetical that manufacturing facilities relocated to China to be able to sell products at cheaper prices than their competitors?

The hollowing out of the industrial core was a bipartisan decision made in the 1990s with full support of Democrats, so its a bit rich to say "if we don't let them treat people bad, they'll make it even worse than we already helped them make it." The same power that them globalize manufacturing can force its return to the U.S. Again, every other developed country with a strong industrial base engages in this kind of protectionism for strategic and national security reasons. Germany is again, here, a salient example.

>Does not mean that one of the two parties in the US is not trying at least a little bit.

You keep insisting this without providing evidence of its reality. What major worker protections have been advanced and put into law by Democrats since the Obama presidency?

[lotsofpulp]

> None of your examples are headquartered in California, nor would any of these companies stop operating in the most populous state in the US with its largest economy were worker protections put in place.

The argument isn’t that they would stop operating, but that they would experience less growth or maybe even contraction from people or businesses moving away due to higher costs (and taxes).

> The hollowing out of the industrial core was a bipartisan decision made in the 1990s with full support of Democrats, so its a bit rich to say "if we don't let them treat people bad, they'll make it even worse than we already helped them make it." The same power that them globalize manufacturing can force its return to the U.S. Again, every other developed country with a strong industrial base engages in this kind of protectionism for strategic and national security reasons. Germany is again, here, a salient example.

I didn’t write “if we don't let them treat people bad, they'll make it even worse than we already helped them make it that.” My example was intended to show that capital does go to wherever it’s cheapest, whether it be labor costs, lack of environmental regulations, etc.

> You keep insisting this without providing evidence of its reality. What major worker protections have been advanced and put into law by Democrats since the Obama presidency?

The proof is that the Democratic states on the west and northeast coasts and Illinois have passed laws requiring mandatory sick days, family leave acts, higher minimum wages, better unemployment benefits, etc. (including since Obama, even though that’s irrelevant).

Just because Democrats in the federal legislature have to play a different game doesn’t mean the state level ones aren’t able to get anything done.

Lest we get off track, if you go back to the beginning of this discussion, my contention is that Democrats have done a better job enacting legislation to protect workers, especially lower income workers, than Republicans. The proof is all the states that have better worker protections, did it with Democrat legislatures. What happens on the federal level may or may not matter, but Democrats haven’t had solid control of Congress for a long time, and with the little control they did, they managed to pass ACA, which is still at least something for poorer people, especially workers, and which Republicans continue to fight.