Labor is Not a Commodity

28 Trafficked Bonded Child Laborers were Rescued in India

Trina Tocco, Deputy Director, International Labor Rights Forum

It's with great pride that I wanted to share with our blog readers a recent victory in India where 28 child laborers were rescued.  ILRF has worked with BBA for years and years, most recently concerning the identification of child labor in the production of soccer balls.  Learn more about child labor and soccer balls here.

You can find out more about the 28 rescued children here or read the press release from BBA below.

18 December 2008, New Delhi: 28 trafficked bonded child labourers were rescued from leather units and zari embroidery units in a joint operation by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), labour department officials and the Delhi Police near Karmapura, North West Delhi.

The youngest child rescued is a mere 7 year old. He, along with all other kids, used to work from 8 AM to 1AM in the night without any money or wages for the last one year. All rescued children have similar stories of being trafficked from Darbhanga, Bihar and being forced to work in harsh living and working conditions. Many children were found shivering as they were only in T shirts and many had no footwear. They lived and slept in the same room where they stitched leather purses and did embroidery.

Obama's US Trade Representative Pick

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

Word on the street is that Obama will nominate Ron Kirk for the position of US Trade Representative (USTR) in a matter of minutes.  Like many people, you might be asking, "Who is Ron Kirk?"

Kirk was the mayor of Dallas, Texas from 1995 to 2001.  He ran an unsuccessful campaign for one of Texas' US Senate seats in 2002.  He is now a partner at the Houston-based law firm Vinson & Elkins.

At ILRF, we do a lot of work related to labor rights protections in trade agreements, so I would like to see a USTR who has a background supporting worker rights.  Unfortunately, the small amount I have learned so far about Kirk is not encouraging.

Hilda Solis Needs a Mandate

Bama Athreya, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum

The new Obama Administration disappoints on labor, and it hasn’t even taken office yet.

We have nothing but praise for Congresswoman Hilda Solis, and respect her strong record in defense of labor rights.  However, by leaving her appointment till late in the day, the Obama Administration has sent an unfortunate signal that as it has been for the past eight years, the Labor Department continues to be the ugly duckling of the United States Government.

We have written elsewhere about the intentional and systematic efforts of the Bush Administration to all but disband the US Department of Labor.  The Bush Administration dramatically cut support for the OSHA, mine safety, and other worker protection programs as well as for wage and hour, child labor, overtime and other employment standards enforcement.  To our particular dismay, for eight years now the Bush Administration has attempted to completely de-fund the Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), and it has only survived these efforts because of the insistence of Congressional appropriators on keeping the bureau alive.

Farmworkers are *** Over Under New Guestworker Program

By Eva Seidelman, ILRF Program Assistant

The Bush Administration had to give one more slap in the face to workers before leaving office (though there's probably more to come). The Labor Department’s proposed changes to the H-2A visa (agricultural guestworker) program would let employers cut numerous corners by adjusting the "prevailing wage" formula to push wages down on farmworkers who are already overworked and underpaid, according to editorials in the NY Times and LA Times. Not to say that the current program is just for workers, but the with the new rules, we're looking at something that looks very similar to the Bracero program of the 60s.

The new regulations will slash wages and worker protections for those who harvest our nation’s food crops, according to Farmworker Justice.  They will also limit how much employers have to reimburse foreign workers for the cost of going home and relax enforcement of existing laws at a time when abusive working conditions and wage theft are already the norm.  This is meant to help farmers fully take advantage of vulnerable workers abroad in the midst of this economic recession.

Take action to provide working families in Honduras with something to celebrate this Christmas!

By Beth Myers, Executive Director, STITCH

If you were the richest man in the world, what kind of factory would you operate? 
Would it pay a decent wage?
Would workers feel safe to talk to one another about their pay and working conditions?
Would you threaten to close it down if they spoke up and asked for a raise?

One of the richest men in the world invests in a sweatshop in Honduras. We need you to take action today to make Russell Corporation -- part of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Corporation -- treat its workers with dignity and respect.

Another Victory: the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Subway

By Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

In all of the recent excitement surrounding worker victories at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago and Smithfield in North Carolina, we somehow overlooked the recent campaign win for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.  The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) organizes tomato workers in Florida, many of whom are immigrants, and has won campaigns targeting Yum Brands (which owns Taco Bell), McDonald's, Burger King, Whole Foods and other companies.  On December 2nd, CIW signed an agreement with Subway, the third largest fast food chain in the world and the biggest fast-food buyer of Florida tomatoes, to improve workers' wages and conditions.  The campaign victory came right as workers embarked on a tour up the East Coast to Subway headquarters.  The tour quickly became a victory tour and a chance for CIW to rally supporters for the next stages in the campaign for fair food.

Worker Occupations North and South: A reflection on the Republic occupation and what it means for workers everywhere

By Charity Ryerson and Carol Hansen, USLEAP

Last Wednesday, USLEAP joined hundreds at a rally against Bank of America in downtown Chicago to support the 200 workers at Republic Windows and Doors who organized an historic sit-in and peacefully occupied their factory in Northwest Chicago.

While unique in the recent history of the US, occupations like this one are not unusual in Latin America where workers periodically occupy their factories with very similar demands. Unpaid wages and illegal firings are so common in many countries that this tactic is somewhat regularly employed.

This is particularly true in the textile sector in Central America, where industry players have rushed to close up shop and move to Asia, often leaving workers out in the cold. The workers at the Hermosa clothing factory in San Salvador occupied the company's cafeteria for almost a month in 2005. In February 2007, hundreds of workers started a long occupation of a Colombian flower plantation, and just recently workers at a Guatemalan clothing factory, Choi Shin, used this tactic as well. All of these occupations were in response to a sudden closure and failure to pay full legal benefits.

This raises the question: why here, and why now?

Who's Corrupt?

By Beth Myers, Executive Director, STITCH

It’s amazing how much money businesses will spend to avoid actually paying workers a living wage. Business associations spend millions on lobbyist to fight any regulation. They spend millions on PAC donations to politicians to hopefully weaken labor laws and increase imports from sweatshops.

And they spend millions on ad campaigns to distort labor rights activists’ work supporting working people at home and abroad. Often there’s a little wink and nod in these ads as they try to use outdated stereotypes and rumors to portray the “union bosses” as mobbed up criminals. In fact, they are currently peddling a line of guilt by non-association in the Illinois Governor scandal that is so ridiculous; it’s hard to even point out what facts aren’t flawed. These groups are convinced if they can just persuade you that unions are corrupt, you will vote against your own interest and distrust your friends and neighbors who make up labor unions. They are also trying to convince all of us that the business community is very concerned about corruption in politics and society.

Workers' Rights Snubbed at MCC Board Meeting -- Colombia and Philippines Selected as Compact Eligible

By Brian Campbell, International Labor Rights Forum

In a tremendous snub to workers' rights, and a set back to workers' rights advocates in Colombia and the Philippines, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) selected Colombia and the Philippines to be compact eligible. As one last gift from the Bush Administration, the Colombian government and the Philippine government are now eligible to receive US government grants worth up to $800 million or more. The Board made this decision despite unassailable evidence of widespread workers' rights violations in both the Philippines and Colombia over the past few years, and in the face of a Congressional mandate to ensure that every MCC eligible country "demonstrate a commitment" to respect workers' rights.

Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, 39 trade unionists were killed in 2007. While this number is down from the 72, killed in 2006, apparently, killings are on the rise again this year, where 41 trade unionists have been killed as of September 2008. Trade unionists in Colombia face abductions, arrests, death threats, and other harassment. In Cali, the local government was working with the Department of National Security gathering information on trade unionists and subjecting them to surveillance and harassment. Colombian trade unions have lodged no less than six complaints before the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association seeking aid from the international community to help protect their members' rights.

Victory for Smithfield Workers!

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

Last week, workers at the world's largest meatpacking plant, located in Tar Heel, North Carolina, voted  to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).  Wanda Blue, one of the Smithfield workers who was quoted in The New York Times, said, "It feels great... It's like how Obama felt when he won. We made history... I favored the union because of respect... We deserve more respect than we're getting. When we were hurt or sick, we weren't getting treated like we should."

This is a truly historic victory for many reasons.  There has been a union campaign at this plant for 15 years and it is exciting that workers are finally able to join a union.  The company had waged a major campaign to try to stop the workers from organizing, but last week's victory means that now the workers will have a chance to collectively bargain with the management.  Also, union organizing in North Carolina and in the meatpacking and poultry sector has historically been extremely challenging.  I was reminded of this fact when I recently listened to a story on This American Life called "A Pastor and his Flock" about an organizing campaign at a poultry plant in North Carolina.  Not to mention that these workers definitely need a union because these jobs are often very dangerous.  A report by Human Rights Watch detailed many of the abuses in meat and poultry plants in the US, including Smithfield.  The victory is also another example of the importance of community solidarity with workers.  The workers' campaign was supported by many organizations and activists all across the country.