Details

42 mins, 2009

Three films look at how people in countries around the world are feeling the bitter effects of globalisation – from Europe and the USA to China.

USA: Detroit, the city of Motown music and big cars is turning into an industrial wasteland. When the car industry was booming Detroit was the fifth largest city in the US. But foreign competition has changed all that. Unemployment is soaring. Residents have fled the city. Troubled General Motors, once the world’s biggest car-maker, is gambling its future on more environmentally friendly cars.

CHINA: This once booming supplier of cheap goods to the world is now seeing factories close their doors and workers being fired and sent back to rural poverty. A watch factory owner says: “I have been in the watch business for forty years. This is the most difficult time I’ve ever seen.” The Chinese government is trying revive the economy, but smaller enterprises are still going bust.

EUROPE: Finnish company Nokia moves its factory from Germany to Romania, putting over 2,000 employees out of work. Germany workers are protesting, but in Romania many welcome the move. A Romanian village has been renamed Nokia Village and its mayor is planning what to do with the new income. But how long before Nokia goes elsewhere in search of cheap labour?

DVD EXTRAS: Nigel Harris, policy consultant to the World Bank, puts the economic case for globalisation. Also: a film on Detroit’s social problems.

Key Topics

• Multinational Companies
• Economics
• Employment
• Manufacturing