The Stories Project: Oregon Livelihoods Traded Away

Mike Swaim Residence: Salem, OR Occupation: Mayor of Salem from 1997-2002

Snapshots "Too often we hear the ra, ra, of jobs, jobs, jobs, without a question of what type of jobs, and at what wages, and what benefits and so we hear a call center going in, 600 jobs, and people are jumping up and down, and about to hold a parade on mainstream about that announcement, and then you find out that they are minimum wage jobs ...the fact of the matter is most call center jobs, most boiler room jobs, are low paying jobs." "Workers are just essentially being sacrificed to the name of profits in these multinational treaties. I am not in favor of them at all. I feel they need to be renegotiated."

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