SUMMARY:

GLOBAL VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE? shows constructive ways ordinary people around the world are addressing the impact of globalization on their communities, workplaces, and environments. It weaves together video of local and transnational activities, interviews, music, and original video comics to show that, through grassroots organizing combined with mutual support around the world, ordinary people can empower themselves to deal with the global economy.

THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM:

Today's global economy lets corporations pit workers and communities against each other to see who will provide the lowest wages, most abusable workers, cheapest environmental costs, and biggest subsidies for corporations.

• The result: "RACE TO THE BOTTOM" in which conditions for all tend to fall toward the poorest and most desperate.
• But that gives people around the world a common interest in opposing the race to the bottom. This movie shows how they are doing so.

COMBATTING SWEATSHOPS:

The campaigns to pressure corporations to establish basic standards in their workplaces around the world.

• The campaign which led the Gap to establish a code of conduct with independent monitoring.
• The 1999 student sit-ins for a livable wage for those who make university licensed clothing.

WORKERS HELPING WORKERS:

As corporations go global, workers in different parts of the world are increasingly giving support to each other.

• Workers in Japan, Latin America, and Europe pressured Bridgestone/Firestone to rehire locked out workers in the United States.

RESISTING GLOBAL OPPRESSION:

The global economy is largely governed by highly undemocratic international institutions, but people are learning new ways to control them.

• Local people in India, with support from environmentalists around the world, blocked a huge dam that would destroy their homes and livelihood.
• Religious groups around the world have forced governments to start canceling the crushing debt of the poorest countries.
• Activists in 70 countries joined to block a new "Multilateral Agreement on Investment" that would have given global corporations power over national governments.
• Unions and allies are campaigning to include basic human and labor rights in international trade agreements.

REVERSING THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM:

Through grassroots organizing combined with mutual support around the world, ordinary people are beginning to find ways to counter the race to the bottom.

Based on the book Global Village or Global Pillage by Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello