Archive for November, 2008
PRIMARK AGM – Friday 5 December from 10.30am
TUC, Congress Centre, 28 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS
PRIMARK's AGM is the most important opportunity this year to put put pressure on the famous high street brand. This annual shareholder meeting is when important decisions get made regarding PRIMARK's policies and procedures.
It is PRIMARK's shareholders who take home the lion's share of PRIMARK's profits and who have the power to make PRIMARK introduce policies and procedures that will ensure the lives of workers are put ahead PRIMARK's pursuit for profits.
LBL and No Sweat, along with Bangladeshi workers from the National Garment Workers Federation and Tara and Stacy from the BBC reality show Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, will be outside the AGM reminding shareholders that it is their responsibility to hold PRIMARK to account for their failure to do more to protect garment workers rights.
Join us on Friday 5 December from 10.30 onwards to make your voice heard.
PRIMARK AGM – Friday 5 December from 10.30am
TUC, Congress Centre, 28 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS
PRIMARK's AGM is the most important opportunity this year to put put pressure on the famous high street brand. This annual shareholder meeting is when important decisions get made regarding PRIMARK's policies and procedures.
It is PRIMARK's shareholders who take home the lion's share of PRIMARK's profits and who have the power to make PRIMARK introduce policies and procedures that will ensure the lives of workers are put ahead PRIMARK's pursuit for profits.
LBL and No Sweat, along with Bangladeshi workers from the National Garment Workers Federation and Tara and Stacy from the BBC reality show Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, will be outside the AGM reminding shareholders that it is their responsibility to hold PRIMARK to account for their failure to do more to protect garment workers rights.
Join us on Friday 5 December from 10.30 onwards to make your voice heard.
Bjorn Claeson, Executive Director, SweatFree Communities
In a time of economic crisis and shifting paradigm the
sweatfree movement faces an apparent
dilemma. Cash-strapped states and cities appear
to have fewer resources at their disposal to ensure they do not buy products
made in sweatshop conditions, but increasing numbers of public officials seem
morally and perhaps politically inclined to look more closely at the origins of
the products they buy. The dilemma can
be resolved by recognizing that ethical public procurement is not just a moral
imperative, but also a strong economic stimulus measure. An investment in sweatfree purchasing is an
investment in an economy with less sweat.
The habitual reaction to economic downturn ??? to buy cheap ??? will be difficult to break. That is why Wal-Mart, which promotes its ???price leadership,??? appears as a lone ???bright spot??? in a dismal retail climate despite its questionable labor practices. But our public institutions have a greater responsibility than individuals to treat purchasing as a tool of social policy that can advance a more sound economy that reflects citizens??? values and meets the needs of working people. By searching out the lowest price, without regard for the workers who make the product, large institutional buyers accelerate the race-to-the-bottom. Weakening labor standards will only deepen the economic crisis. A stronger economy requires more economic justice. Our public institutions should help to build economic strength by considering more than the price of the products they buy. They should ask about the workers who made the products: Are they paid a decent wage? Do they have reasonable working hours? Are they free to speak up about injustices in the workplace? Ultimately, workers who are better off will create wealth for everyone. Wealth does not ???trickle down;??? it springs up from a foundation of justice.
On November 4, 2008, the prison doors of the trickle down, free-market thinking that has captivated official U.S. economic imagination for decades slid open a crack. On November 5, leading media affirmed that the unfettered market does not necessarily produce social and economic wellbeing, but may breed insecurity and risk, sweatshops and exploitation, global warming and pollution. The New York Times, for example, proclaimed that Mr. Obama won the election because of the ???utter failure of government to protect its people,??? observing that government indeed has an important role in regulating the economy fairly in order to safeguard common goods such as healthcare, education, and the environment.
The barred doors of free-market thinking slid open enough that many who had long been struggling to escape experienced a sense of visceral relief, able, finally, to inhale a breath of fresh air that can fuel anew our social and economic imagination. No longer are we held hostage to a simplistic story which pits us (whites, Christians, freedom-lovers) against them (dark-skinned, Muslims, freedom-haters) and posits a host of binary oppositions in which (our) free-market capitalism is associated with freedom, democracy, light, and progress and (their) government with terror, socialism, darkness, and regression. Instead of struggling in vain with a mental straight jacket ??? ???if you are not for us, you are against us??? ??? we are now free to place ourselves in alternative narratives that may be as complicated as the story of our president-elect, as much Kenyan as Kansan, Christian but with Muslim family background, black and white ??? a story of a ???mutt??? as he referred to himself.
Complication liberates. Government is not a necessary evil! The free market does not solve all problems! ???We??? do not have all the solutions! ???They??? are not always the problem!
In our new narrative the Afghans and Iraqis, the poor and the oppressed, and all people for whom everyday is a life of terror, can be our brothers and sisters rather than distant and threatening others. Ultimately, there is only an ???us;??? no ???us and them.??? Government can be something more than an instrument of war, torture, and imprisonment; it can be re-conceived as a tool for the common good, and for social and economic justice at home and across the globe. The economy no longer has to lie beyond our imagination, a force beyond human influence that only experts trained to use arcane terminology can comprehend. Instead the economy can become a construct that serves the people by measuring both positive and negative influences of corporations and governments on people???s and the planet???s wellbeing.
The sweatfree movement can help to further liberate the social and economic imagination. Even during the darkest years of free-market orthodoxy, the movement articulated a set of alternative economic principles and convinced a host of states and local governments to adopt those principles in their purchasing policies. In imagining a new economy, we can take inspiration from these alternatives.
A new economy based on the principles of sweatfree purchasing could:
Lower the speed of financial transactions. Just as state and local officials must take the time to consider the workers behind the uniform labels in making sweatfree purchasing decisions those who now engage in lightning-fast speculative financial transactions for short-term gain could be required to make longer-term investments that yield broader social and economic benefits. Reckless speculation at unsafe speeds can be penalized. A slower economy can be a more humane economy.
Reintroduce democracy in the economy. Sweatfree purchasing is inspired and guided by grassroots campaigns that advocate for policies that reflect their values and priorities. Cities and states have established citizens??? advisory groups to guide policy implementation. When given the opportunity people want to be engaged as citizens lending their experience and wisdom to help shape an economy that is not just a thing for the experts to discuss and deliberate. A cocoon of obscure terminology surrounds the world of public procurement, but that does not mean that those not schooled in its language cannot impact it. Where lie the opportunities for citizen participation in the larger economic world? In state and local budgeting? In creating fair trade policy? In rooting out corruption in military contracting? In setting green standards for the auto industry? A stronger public voice in the economy would address its core problem: the socialization of cost and risk and the privatization of profit and benefit.
Create transparency. Some states and cities have dug down deep into supply chains to learn where and in what conditions uniforms and other apparel they buy are made. That information is now publicly available on websites despite the fact that part of the uniform industry still considers factory locations to be ???trade secrets??? or ???proprietary information.??? A transparent economy is a healthy one. When companies cannot pollute rivers and skies or use sweatshop labor in secret they will be more likely to innovate in more constructive ways to get an edge on the competition.
Place worker rights higher on the agenda. Cities and states that buy sweatfree look for quality and a good price, but not at the expense of workers??? rights. If the low bidder offers to sell products made in sweatshop conditions or does not say where they are made, it does not get the contract. After decades of seeing CEO-pay skyrocketing and corporations enjoying double digit profits while workers??? salaries stagnate even though they produce more than before, it is now time to put workers??? rights higher on the agenda in other economic decisions as well. How about sweatfree trade, financial, and tax policies?
Now is the time to break old habits of buying cheap no matter the social and economic cost and boldly promote social and economic justice as indispensable to economic recovery. Sweatfree cities and states can help lead the way if we reject kneejerk reaction to crisis, placing price and short-term gain before the long-term wellbeing of workers and communities. Sweatfree cities and states can show that good morals is good economy, that caring for those of us who are worst off is good for all of us. Now that we can more easily talk about government as a positive force we should seize the moment and let it become one.
Liana Foxvog, National Organizer, SweatFree Communities
Fifty people from an array of community organizations in Western Massachusetts
gathered November
20-21 at a workshop organized and led by Class Action and United for a Fair
Economy to discuss the state
of the economy, build skills in bridging the class divide, and strategize on how
to build a sustainable, local economy in the Pioneer Valley and beyond.
Visions for a sustainable, local economy included: a trolley system connecting rural communities, small towns, and cities, living wage ordinances, community reinvestment by businesses, living wage ordinances, a time bank where you can exchange hours you worked for goods and services provided by others, banking with Common Good Bank, worker-owned local businesses, broader application of prevailing wage laws, and more. One theme that was met with nodding heads was that one hour of work doing one type of task should be worth the same as one hour of work doing another type of task, regardless of what the job is. The idea that bankers would not need to hire janitors because the bankers would do the janitorial work received applause. But if janitors weren't hired then what would they do? Well, they would be gaining job training and working in jobs where they have balanced job complexes -- maybe they could be the bankers.
As the group drew up long lists of existing community assets, it became clear that at least many parts of the vision are quite possible and attainable; some are already in process. Already the Pioneer Valley is home to a number of locally-owned small businesses, some with progressively-minded owners. A Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives connects worker-owned businesses with each other. The region hosts many organizations that promote green building, alternative energy production and usage, and dozens of successful Community-Supported Agriculture farms providing produce, dairy, and meat to families around the region.
But to build a local economy that will truly meet the needs of residents, the Valley needs much more of all of this. More worker-owned businesses, more cooperatives, more farms -- and more support for these initiatives by government, people, and businesses not yet using sustainable and cooperative models. In the community mapping exercise we recognized that while many people want to live in the area, it's a hard place to make a living. Jobs are sparse, and well-paid jobs are even fewer. Unemployment is at 4.1% in Hampshire County, 4.8% in Franklin County, and 6.4% in Hampden County. These official unemployment rates do not sufficiently capture the reality. First off, unemployment rates only include people who have actively searched for a job during the past month; people who have given up searching because they haven't had luck aren't counted. People who worked an hour or more in the past week are counted as employed, meaning that the rate does not give us any idea of the level of underemployment; the number of people who worked a few hours at low-paid job who would like another job to help make ends meet remain hidden by the statistic.
One topic the group kept coming back to was money. There are plenty of people who want employment in the area. A natural area of employment would be green jobs: building and operating a more extensive public transit system, weather-proofing and winterizing homes, installing solar panels, developing and running cooperative systems to recycle oil from restaurants for home heating purposes, and so on. But how can we achieve this in a time when every agency in the state is being asked to cut their budget by 10%?
Hope that the Obama administration can bring the changes working people want is tempered by economic worries. In one session, my small group's discussion turned into a brainstorm of demands for new federal economic policies - increasing social spending, a job creation program, living wages, and added regulatory controls on banks and financial markets. Progressive taxation, massive cuts to military spending, substituting New Deal-style 90% taxation on the wealthy for the tax cuts of this decade, would make this all possible without putting the country into more debt. We also experimented with how to describe these economic issues and the needed changes in an accessible way. Steve Schnapp of United For a Fair Economy aptly described the current moment: "We're experiencing the culmination of an intensification of policies that shifted the tax base away from the wealthy ... now there's a larger tax burden on work and less of a tax burden on wealth." It also was clear we need to develop better skills for working together effectively, building alliances across race and class lines throughout the entire Pioneer Valley.
While it's still too early to tell what will come of the workshop, some exciting ideas emerged in the visioning, which I pass along with the hope of sparking similar activities in other communities:
- Organize an ongoing cross-class group to discuss how to build a local, sustainable economy together while confronting classism (Class Action has resources for how to do this).
- Host meet-ups to connect organizers working on diverse endeavors for informal consulting, idea-sharing, and community-building.
- Work with community development corporations, neighborhood associations, and town committees to hold meetings of neighbors to conduct basic education about taxes and the economy, share energy-saving tips, and educate about how to affordably obtain solar panels and other energy saving and generating resources.
By Eva Seidelman, ILRF Program Assistant
As large investment banks and finance corporations in the US receive billions of dollars in bailout money, workers around the world are getting murdered while their employment situations are becoming increasingly precarious.
The International Trade Union Federation (ITUC) issued its 2008 survey of trade union rights violations around the world. The survey found that a worldwide total of 91 trade unionists were murdered for defending workers' rights, with Colombia, where 39 lost their lives, by far the worst offender yet
again. It also noted a disturbing upsurge in trade union violence in Guatemala with four unionists (a liberal estimate) murdered and a worsening climate of threats and harassment.
The report shows the trend of national and multinational employers, often facilitated by legislative provisions, to replace full-time and permanent jobs with precarious jobs, by forcing workers into temporary, casual and part-time employment situations, reducing their incomes, removing job security and making it harder for them to plan for the futures. Many companies have moved in this direction by replacing regular workers with "contract labor", thus avoiding duties and responsibilities which they would otherwise have to meet.
"Global patterns such as casualisation and contracting-out are emerging, which pose a major threat to working men and women right across the globe. As the global economic situation worsens, this threat can be expected to spread wider and deeper, and governments need to act responsibly to ensure secure, decent jobs at a time when working people, and the revitalization of the world economy, most need it," said General Secretary of the ITUC, Guy Ryder.
Even with a democratic administration in Congress and Barack Obama as president, the international labor movement will continue to face an uphill battle. Corporations continue to take the low road when cutting costs buy replacing regular workers with temporary or contract workers. They use this tactic to bust unions in addition to resorting to violence to scare workers out of unionizing. Companies will likely use the excuse of the international recession to further erode labor rights and reduce regular, decently paid jobs with social benefits. The jobs are the key to building new wealth and a middle class around the world.
Here's an idea: since the free-market model has clearly failed us, why don't companies try something new. Take the high road to building sustainable economies by increasing the numbers of good, stable jobs. Workers with stable jobs are more likely to pay for their kids' education. Kids who are educated now are our only hope for sustainability in the future. Governments around the world should realize that they need to start building self-sufficient economies dependent on their own citizens, not foreign investors who will cut and run with the fluctuations of the market. Time and time again, governments weaken their labor law enforcement or legislation tp favor of corporate interests. Then these multinational corporations create unstable jobs, close their factories or destroy local economies at their whim. Busting unions by killing union leaders and creating precarious jobs will not lead to sustainable economies in the long run.
A ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeals (OCA) handed down on November 17, 2008 will open the door for Ontario’s farm workers to exercise their newly found constitutional right to bargain collectively. The Court held that the province’s Agricultural Employees Protection Act (AEPA) did not go far enough to protect farm workers’ collective bargaining rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and was therefore unconstitutional. Ontario was given 12 months to change its legislation to conform to the decision.
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) has released findings from its investigation into allegations of freedom of association violations surrounding Russell Athletics’ planned closure of its Jerzees de Honduras plant. Among the findings were "that anti-union animus was a significant factor in the company’s decision to close the plant," and that threats, harassment, and interference with collective representation were used at the plant to prevent workers from exercising their right to freedom of association.
