Labor is Not a Commodity

No more money for asbestos: protestors call for an end to Canada’s deadly export

By Vanessa León, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum
 
Whether you’re at work, in class, at home or outside enjoying the summer weather, chances are that if you’re reading this, you’re doing a special something. Everybody does it. I’m doing it right now and even though I can’t see you, I bet you’re doing just the same. What could be such a popular hobby you ask?

Breathing. I told you you’re doing it!

Now, imagine that the very air you were breathing was slowly killing you. Even worse, imagine that such contaminated air was completely avoidable yet still responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. Unfortunately, this hypothetical is all too real for many countries still using the deadly mineral known as asbestos.

As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) http://www.who.int/en/, asbestos is one of the most important occupational carcinogens and responsible for half of the deaths from occupational cancer. WHO estimates that 900,000 people die each year from asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis resulting from occupational exposures. Primarily used for cement building materials, asbestos contributes to a deadly working environment for all those in its paths and between its walls. Simply put, the most efficient way of eradicating asbestos-related diseases is to stop the use of all forms of asbestos.

Invisible Workers: The Domestic Workers' Struggle

Ledys Sanjuan Mejia, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum 

As many other middle class people in Colombia, in my household we have hired a domestic worker. The woman raised me and is part of the family. So as I was researching for this blog I looked at her and thought how much of her fate as a domestic worker depends on luck, rather than the power of the rule of law and the state. Like her, many women and girls depend on the benevolence of the families that employ them to treat them with respect and dignity. The domestic workers’ struggle raises issues about gender, child work and how we understand and change ‘what is considered work?’

Domestic workers fight for the right to be recognized as workers. The isolation and privacy in which they work prevents them from being recognized as workers, and as a result, prevents them from the ability to seek justice when their rights are violated. During the 99th Session of International Labor Conference in June 2010, the International Labor Organization (ILO) discussed a draft standard to be voted upon by member states during the June 2011 conference. The ILO recognizes that domestic workers are usually excluded from States’ legislation. At the conference, governments expressed reservations about regulating domestic work as they could not monitor families and households in the same ways as companies, due to the conflict between the right to privacy and domestic workers’ rights to safety and protection.

On the One-Year Anniversary of the Coup, Honduran Social Movement Announces General Strike

By Liana Foxvog, National Organizer, SweatFree Communities

Today, on the one-year anniversary of the June 28, 2009 coup d'etat, the Honduran National Popular Resistance Front is raising awareness about the ongoing human and civil rights violations with a general strike. Fabia Gutierrez, an active member of the National Popular Resistance Front, a Honduran social movement that formed in response to the coup, said that the participation of two million people -- one quarter of the country's population -- is expected. Rallies, marches, blockades on bridges and roads, and cultural events are planned for throughout the day. The National Popular Resistance Front is calling for the return of constitutional order, a national assembly, and a new Constitution.

"For the past year we have been living in an environment of death threats and assassinations," said Gutierrez. "We ask for international solidarity and for investigations into the deaths so that we can achieve our goal of making Honduras a democratic country characterized by social justice and equity. For the past year we have been suffering under a new order in which freedom of expression and group meetings are not permitted. Telecommunications, electric, and water utilities have been privatized. Our hard-won legal increase to the minimum wage has not been granted and we are facing a variety of anti-union measures."

Colombia-US FTA: 100 more years of solitude for the working class?

Ledys Sanjuan Mejia, Intern
 International Labor Rights Forum 

The US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement affects how we understand and defend trade unionism in the most dangerous country to engage in trade union activities.

The Colombia-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed in 2006 during the Bush administration, was protested by President Obama and many other Democrats as far back as 2008, “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” Under the current US administration the conditions for ratification are simple: either the Colombian government takes direct action to safeguard the lives of trade unionists and strengthens its judicial system as to enforce workers rights or the treaty will not pass in Congress.

Incredible Bravery, Relentless Oppression: 2010 ITUC Annual Survey of Workers Rights

Matthew Hale, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF)

Here's just a few things that are important to know about the state of workers rights around the world

• dramatic increase in the number of trade unionists murdered in 2009, with 101 killings, 10 attempted murders and 35 serious death threats recorded.
• 50% of the global workforce now in ‘precarious jobs’
• Firestone highlighted for working conditions in Liberia’s rubber industry. 

They say ‘Happy is the land that need no heroes’, so it is with mixed emotions that one read the 2010 International Trade Union Confederation’s Annual Survey of Violations of Union Rights.  The report registers many inspiring acts of bravery but the economic crisis has clearly crashed down hard on the most impoverished and wiped out key labor rights and protections.  Being an active trade unionist has become increasingly dangerous.  The report provides a useful country by country overview of the state of workers rights as well as spotlight interviews with labor organizers. The sharp increase in animosity and violence faced by the labor movement abroad points an urgent need to step up global support for local unions as organizations such as the ILRF seek to do.

ILRF and SweatFree Communities at the US Social Forum

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

Next week, activists from across the country will be converging in Detroit for the second US Social Forum (USSF).  United in a belief that "Another World is Possible," organizers working on a broad range of social justice issues will gather from June 22 to 26th to share information about their work and discuss how to work together to build a stronger movement for change in the US. 

Unions and worker rights advocates will be planning many activities throughout the week.  The International Labor Rights Forum and SweatFree Communities are working with our partners to organize several events during the USSF.  Keep reading to find out more about the workshops we are participating in!

People Power Creates Purchasing Power for Decent Work

By Bjorn Claeson, Director, SweatFree Communities

Three years in the making, the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium passed another milestone last month, when it became a legal entity, adopted bylaws, and established a Board of Directors.  A total of 41,203,017 people live in the four states and six cities that are the founding members of the Consortium, an organization that helps government agencies buy products such as uniforms and other apparel made in decent working conditions.  Were it a country, these states and cities would rank number 31 in the world, just behind Tanzania and ahead of Argentina in terms of population.  That’s not a bad beginning for a market for decent work.

Few of the more than 40 million people in Consortium-land would want their tax dollars to undermine working conditions and wages in apparel factories by purchasing sweatshop products.  They spend just north of a dollar per person per year on uniforms and other apparel that their states and local governments buy, and if they have to spend a few cents more to ensure their tax dollars help create decent working conditions and a fair global economy nobody would notice the difference.  So some of these people formed and joined local grassroots campaigns and persuaded each of the founding cities and states to do the right thing.

Improving the Lives of Chinese Sanitation Workers

By Jiajing Bi, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

In March, a female sanitation worker in Yongkang City, a wealthy center for hardware manufacturing in Zhejiang Province, was beaten so severely she was sent to the hospital. The young man who beat her did so simply because he believed that she intended to bring him bad luck by cleaning near his luxury car and leaning her broom against it. This occurred just one month after the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government issued a document entitled, “Opinions Regarding Further Improving the Living and Working Conditions of Sanitation Workers to Advance the Undertaking of Environment Sanitation,” which introduced new work safety and insurance policies

Sanitation workers in China—like their brothers and sisters around the world—have experienced discrimination for decades. The treatment they receive is similar to that of the mortuary worker in the Academy Award-winning Japanese film Okuribito (“Departures”), who is ostracized because of his profession.  People look down upon or even despise street cleaners and janitors and their work. According to a special report in People’s Daily from August 2008, there are several hundred cases of verbal and physical abuse of sanitation workers every year in one of China’s cities alone. In the report, a worker is quoted as saying that he “usually just don’t feel a bit of social respect for [the sanitation] profession.”

Is a world without child labor a dream?

Dingxiaozi Ding, intern, International Labor Rights Forum

I have been conducting research on labor rights issues in soccer ball industry respectively in China, Thailand, India and Pakistan for many months. Time and time again through my research, I have been shocked by the use of child labor, low wages and pathetic working conditions within this industry. Meanwhile I was so disappointed by the fact that these problems were identified 13 years ago with several efforts made by various shareholders.  However  the situation is still largely unchanged or improved for workers producing soccer balls.

However, by no means can my shock and disappointment be compared with the anger when I saw Chad Tragakis’ blog ‘Kids, Soccer Balls and the Unintended Consequences of Good Decisions’. The author echoed Hasnain Kazim on his argument that the use of child labor in the soccer ball industry in Pakistan can be justified by the economic benefits brought by the soccer ball manufacturing sector.  Mr. Tragakis developed this argument further by saying that ‘child labor’ is not plain wrong but necessary from the perspective of development. He goes on to suggest that their work is important to support their families which makes it impossible to eliminate child labor and a world without child labor only exists in dreams.

THESE ARGUMENTS ARE JUST PLAIN WRONG! They miss the key point.

A Government Consortium to End Buying from Sweatshops Launches

By Liana Foxvog, National Organizer, SweatFree Communities

The SweatFree Purchasing Consortium is now official!  Last month the Consortium was legally incorporated and yesterday the Board of Directors held its first meeting, adopting Bylaws.

This is a major milestone for SweatFree Communities and sweatfree activists across the country. The Consortium has been several years in the making. Its creation has involved development of relationships with government procurement officials, research and education, the writing and rewriting of both visionary and legal documents, hours upon hours of meetings, and most importantly the hope, dedication, and involvement of dozens and dozens of people.

Even though the Consortium was just formally launched, it is already well under way with.  To build real power it needs many more members. To bring the campaign to your community, please contact SweatFree Communities.