AUGUST 1981 - VOLUME 2 - NUMBER 8
Dear Monitor: Though I have only received two issues of Multinational Monitor, as an old newspaperman I am deeply impressed with its solid content. Surely, it is the best popular medium for one to have any understanding of what goes on in the world of our multinational companies and their sometimes obscure developments. The general public needs more such information if we are to make sound and informed judgments on international trade developments. For with the present administration freeing the hands of all corporations doing business both here at home and abroad, someone other than the fox needs to watch the henhouse while the night is dark and there is no moon. - Harry E. Chrisman Dear Monitor, There were several errors made in my June article on south Korea. I would like to clear them up for the record. First, Korean wage rates were listed incorrectly to be $1.50 per hour (average) and [in an accompanying article by the Pacific Studies Center] $1.75 per hour (with fringe benefits). These highly overblown figures-which I did not supply-diffuse the basic premise of my article: namely that low wages are a structural part of the economy. From interviews in south Korea, I found that average wages per day for manufacturing workers range from about $3.00 a day for women and $4.00 to $5.00 for men. Average wages per hour are about 40 cents. According to the Asian Wall Street Journal (July 6, 1981), women workers making garments for K-Mart Corporation make $139 a month-slightly above the average. It is important to remember that most workers labor for 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Second, a minor error: the visits of David Rockefeller and Westinghouse president Robert Kirby came during Chun's first inauguration last September-not in March as stated in the article. - Tim Shorrock Dear Monitor, I am involved with Ikenga Publishers Ltd., a small publishing venture registered in Nigeria. Our idea is to publish books which will fill an unmet need in Africa for alternative literature which, though scholarly-based, will be aimed at the ordinary reader. A kind of model would be Susan George's book, How the Other Half Dies, although we would be looking for shorter manuscripts of not more than 50,000 words. We are particularly looking for authors who could write on the militarization of Africa, and food dependency. Since we are unashamedly small, we cannot offer advances, but we can offer individualized attention to our authors coupled with aggressive marketing-not only in Africa, but also to all those libraries world-wide with African studies interests. - Dr. B.E. Harrell-Bond |