Reverse Outsourcing: How Master Lock is Bringing Jobs Home
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While labor conditions in America are far from perfect, there is no doubt that they are significantly better than the sweatshop conditions faced by low wage earners in many other countries.
That is why, since the 1990s, many companies have been "outsourcing" American jobs to other countries like Mexico, China, India, Vietnam and more. It has been a race to the bottom with corporations looking for the place with the lowest labor costs possible, which usually means the worst treatment of workers they can get away with. This trend was one of the major reasons for the loss of so many manufacturing jobs in the US, which tended to be decent jobs one could support a family on. The loss of manufacturing jobs was made worse because the service industry jobs that have increasingly replaced them pay much less and offer precious little in terms of benefits.
In a surprising and hopeful reversal of this trend, Master Lock, based in Milwaukee, has started bringing some manufacturing jobs from China back to the United States. Master Lock never completely shut down their manufacturing facility in Milwaukee (which has been operating since 1921) when they moved