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China Report KYE.Qxp
China’s Youth Meet Microsoft Acknowledgements: Report: Charles Kernaghan Photography: Anonymous Chinese workers Research Jonathann Giammarco Editing: Barbara Briggs Report design:Kenneth Carlisle Cover design Aaron Hudson Additional research was carried out by National Labor Committee interns: Margaret Martone Cassie Rusnak Clara Stuligross Elana Szymkowiak National Labor Committee 5 Gateway Center, 6th Floor Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Tel: 412-562-2406 www.nlcnet.org nlc @nlcnet.org China’s Youth Meet Microsoft Workers are paid 65 cents an hour, which falls to a take-home wage of 52 cents after deductions for factory food. China’s Youth Meet Microsoft Table of Contents Preface by an anonymous Chinese labor rights activist and scholar . .1 Executive Summary . .3 Introduction by Charles Kernaghan Young, Exhausted & Disponsible: Teenagers Producing for Microsoft . .4 Company Profile: KYE Systems Corp . .6 A Day in the Life of a young Microsoft worker . .7 Microsoft Workers’ Shift . .9 Military-like Discipline . .10 KYE Recruits up to 1,000 Teenaged “Work Study” Students . .14 Company Dorms . .16 Factory Cafeteria Food . .17 China’s Factory Workers Trapped with no Exit . .18 State and Corporate Factory Audits a Complete Failure . .19 Wages—below subsistence level . .21 Hours . .23 Is there a Union at the KYE factory? . .25 The Six S’s . .26 Postscript . .27 China’s Youth Meet Microsoft China’s Youth Meet Microsoft PREFACE by Anonymous Chinese labor rights activist and scholar “The idea that ‘without sweatshops workers would starve to death’ is a lie that corporate bosses use to cover their guilt.” China does not have unions in the real sense of the word. -
Populist Just Transitions Judson Charles Abraham Dissertation
Populist Just Transitions Judson Charles Abraham Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought Scott G. Nelson, Chair Shannon E. Bell Nicholas Copeland Timothy W. Luke Besnik Pula December 19, 2019 Blacksburg VA Keywords: labor unions, just transition, climate change, populism, internationalism, Antonio Gramsci, Tony Mazzocchi Copyright: Judson Abraham 2020 Populist Just Transitions Judson Charles Abraham ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that the just transition policy framework may not vivify labor internationalism or erode support for right-wing populists if just transitions are not part of left- wing populist projects. Labor internationalism, which involves labor unions cooperating across borders to pursue common goals, is increasingly important as unions strive to work with their foreign counterparts to influence the international community’s urgent efforts to address climate change. Right-wing populism is a growing threat to organized labor and climate protection efforts. Some labor activists hope that advocacy for the just transition policy framework, a set of guidelines for compensating workers in polluting industries who are laid-off as a result of environmental protections, will unite labor organizations from around the world and improve their approaches to international solidarity. Progressives hope that just transition policies will discourage voters from supporting right-wing populist candidates, who are often climate skeptics, out of fear of the job losses that accompany environmentalist reforms. However, I question the assumption that just transition policies, in and of themselves, can serve as solutions to the challenges posed by right-wing populism or overcome divisions within the global labor movement. -
2019 September D2 Newsletter -Finalver
SEPTEMEBER 2019 • VOLUME 9, ISSUE 9, PAGE 1 MICHAEL H. BOLTON, DIRECTOR DISTRICT 2 CONTACT INFORMATION A Message from Michael Bolton longer afford to provide health care. USW District 2 Office 1244A Midway Road Something has to be done and it has to happen Menasha, WI 54952 If you’ve watched any of the (920) 722-7630 soon. I urge each of you to examine the health care three Democratic Presidential Northern WI & MI Sub-District Office plans of each candidate this election. Our current 1244A Midway Road debates, you’ve heard a large Menasha, WI 54952 system is broken and can no longer sustain the (920) 722-7630 portion of the discussions were status quo. The working class is already being Southern WI Sub-District Office centered on health care, whether 1126 South 70th Street pressured by rising costs of education, increases in Suite N509A it was Senator Bernie Sanders' West Allis, WI 53214 food and housing, as well as transportation and (414) 475-4560 Medicare for All program or Joe energy. Congress must act to stop the economic Northern MI Sub-District Office Biden's buy in to a public option 503 North Euclid Avenue squeeze on the working class. We need health care Suite #10 - Euclid Plaza Medicare. Each candidate recognized that our Bay City, MI 48706 reform now! (989) 667-0660 employer-based health care system is broken. Southern MI Sub-District Office Now, new results from a Kaiser Family Fountain Another major media topic is the labor dispute 20600 Eureka Road, Suite 300 Taylor, MI 48180 poll indicate that the health care issue is going to between the UAW and General Motors. -
Global Village Or Global Pillage?
Darrell G. Moen, Ph.D. Promoting Social Justice, Human Rights, and Peace Global Village or Global Pillage? Narrated by Edward Asner (25 minutes: 1999) Transcribed by Darrell G. Moen The Race to the Bottom Narrator: The global economy: for those with wealth and power, it's meant big benefits. But what does the "global economy" mean for the rest of us? Are we destined to be its victims? Or can we shape its future - and our own? "Globalization." "The new world economy." Trendy terms. Whether we like it or not, the global economy now affects us: as consumers, as workers, as citizens, and as members of the human family. Janet Pratt used to work for the Westinghouse plant in Union City, Indiana. She found out how directly she could be affected by the global economy when the plant was closed and she lost her job. Her employer opened a new plant in Juarez, Mexico, and asked Janet to train the workers there. Janet Pratt (former Westinghouse employee) : At first I thought, "Are you crazy? Do you think I'm going to go down there and help you out [after you took my job away]?" I wanted to find out where my job was; where it had went. So that's why I decided to go. What I found there was a completely different world. You get into Juarez and [see] nothing but rundown shacks. And they were hard-working people. They were working, doing the same thing I had done up here [in Indiana]. But they were doing it for 85 cents an hour. -
Safety First: NYCOSH’S 30-Year Campaign Against Workplace Injury and Death
INTERVIEW REGIONAL LABOR REVIEW, Fall 2009 Safety First: NYCOSH’s 30-Year Campaign Against Workplace Injury and Death by Vernon Mogensen The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) recently celebrated its thirtieth anniversary as an organization committed to educating and training workers and lobbying on their behalf for better standards. Arguably the more successful and visible COSH groups to come out of the workers’ safety and health movement of the 1960s, it has grown from a small informal group of activists meeting over brown bag lunches in the 1970s into a broadly based organization of workers, medical professionals, academics, and over 200 union affiliates. NYCOSH provides technical assistance to unions, individuals, and the community on a wide range of issues including but not limited to the fallout from toxic contaminants during the 9/11 attack, construction hazards and crane safety, office workers safety hazards, teenage workers safety issues, and safety problems facing immigrant workers. It was one of the first COSH groups to take up the important issue of repetitive strain injuries and ergonomics. NYCOSH has been a staunch advocate for workers safety and health to strengthen the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the New York State Public Employees Safety and Health law, and workers compensation. Joel Shufro became its executive director in 1980, just before the Carter administration was left office. A After earning a Ph.D. in colonial history, he turned labor organizer. Since then, he has guided NYCOSH through the thicket of anti-regulatory polices of the Reagan and the two Bush administrations, as well as during the more worker-friendly Clinton years. -
Direct Threat 1,3,4 LIMITED DEFINITION of “DIRECT Tony Mazzocchi 1,2,3 THREAT” UNDER EEOC REGULATIONS Ecological Medicine 4,5,6 by Keith H
New England College of Occupational and Volume 2 Issue 6 Environmental Medicine Fall 2002 NECOEM Reporter SUPREME COURT UNANIMOUSLY REJECTS INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Direct Threat 1,3,4 LIMITED DEFINITION OF “DIRECT Tony Mazzocchi 1,2,3 THREAT” UNDER EEOC REGULATIONS Ecological Medicine 4,5,6 By Keith H. McCown Ethics 5 State Reports 7 A unanimous the right to stay on the United States Supreme job despite the threat to Web links 8 Court recently ruled in his health. Chevron U.S.A. v. Echazabal that an em- The ADA pro- Special points of interest: ployer can rely upon hibits workplace dis- NECOEM/MAAOHN medical opinion to bar an crimination against peo- Annual Conference 2002: employee from a particu- ple with disabilities, and lar job that would be requires reasonable ac- Old Problems, New highly likely to damage his commodations rather Problems and the Latest health. The Supreme than exclusions from op- Science Court reversed a federal portunity. However, the December 5 and 6 appeals court, which had ADA has a common where the individual’s dis- said that the Americans sense exception that al- ability “pose[s] a direct Marriott’s Renaissance Hotel, With Disabilities Act be- lows an employer to bar threat to the health or Bedford, MA stowed the employee with an employee from a job (Continued on page 3) Register Now! OBITUARY Featuring: Tony Mazzocchi, 76; • Injury Management, The Spine and Post Surgical Care Workplace Safety Advocate, Political Activist • Latest Scientific Reviews Presented by Faculty from the Harvard School of Public Health, -
Corporation Fonds
The Corporation fonds Compiled by Cobi Falconer (2005) and Tracey Krause (2005, 2006) University of British Columbia Archives Table of Contents Fonds Description o Title / Dates of Creation / Physical Description o Administrative History o Scope and Content o Notes Series Descriptions o Research o Correspondence o Pre-Production o Production . Transcriptions o Post-Production o Audio/Video tapes o Photographs File List Catalogue entry (UBC Library catalogue) Fonds Description The Corporation fonds. - 1994-2004. 2.03 m of textual material. 904 video cassette tapes. 10 audio cassette tapes. 12 photographs. Administrative History The Corporation, a film released in 2004, is a ground breaking movie documentary about the identity, economic, sociological, and environmental impact of the dominant and controversial institution of corporations. Based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan, the film portrays corporations as a legal person and how this status has contributed to their rise in dominance, power, and unprecedented wealth in Western society. The Corporation exposes the exploitation of corporations on democracy, the planet, the health of individuals which is carried out through case studies, anecdotes, and interviews. The documentary includes 40 interviews of CEOs, critics, whistle blowers, corporate spies, economists, and historians to further illuminate the "true" character of corporations. The Corporation was the conception of co-creator, Vancouver based, Mark Achbar; and co-creator, associate producer, and writer Joel Bakan. The film, coordinated by Achbar and Jennifer Abbott and edited by Abbott has currently received 26 international awards, and was awarded the winner of the 2004 Sundance Audience Award and Best Documentary at the 2005 Genie Awards. -
Charles Kernaghan Director, National Labor Committee
Charles Kernaghan Director, National Labor Committee HISTORY > Triangle Shirtwaste Fire If you go back to the Triangle Shirtwaste fire in 1911, that was an incredible shock to the country when 146 women were trapped, many of them leapt to their death, blood ran in the streets. But the interesting thing is, after the Triangle Shirtwaste fire on March 25, 1911, 100,000 people marched in the funeral procession. 400,000 people lined the streets. There was outrage. And the motto was, who is going to protect the working girl? Who is going to protect the working woman? We’ve lost that. And, in fact, sweatshops have come back. Sweatshops were wiped out of the United States in 1938. They are back now, with a vengeance. 65% of all apparel operations in New York City are sweatshops. 50,000 workers. 4,500 factories out of 7,000. And we’re talking about workers getting a dollar or two an hour. So it’s back and back with a vengeance because of the global economy. We’re talking about people working 100 hours a week. LABOUR > Worker Rights, Yeah Right Technically, the definition of a sweatshop is violation of wage and hour laws. But that doesn’t put the human face on it. So when you’re talking about sweatshops in a place like Bangladesh, for example, you’re talking about young women, 16 to 25 years of age, locked in factories behind barbed wire with armed guards. You’re talking about people working from 8:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night, 7 days a week, 30 days a month, for wages of about 8 to 18 cents an hour. -
Sandoval 2005 Contemporary Anti-Sweatshop Movement
10.1177/0730888405278990WORKArmbruster-Sandoval AND OCCUPATIONS / ANTI-SWEATSHOP / November 2005 MOVEMENT & SOCIAL JUSTICE Workers of the World Unite? The Contemporary Anti-Sweatshop Movement and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Americas RALPH ARMBRUSTER-SANDOVAL University of California, Santa Barbara The contemporary anti-sweatshop movement emerged more than 10 years ago. During that time period, numerous campaigns have challenged sweatshop labor practices (particularly in the garment industry) throughout the Americas. This article examines four such campaigns that pri- marily involved Central American garment workers and U.S.-based nongovernment organiza- tions. The results of these case studies were relatively mixed. Gains (better wages and working conditions) were usually not broadened or sustained over time. What factors explain these dispa- rate outcomes? Following and expanding on theoretical concepts and models embedded within the globalization and transnational social movement literatures, the author explores that ques- tion, describing each campaign’s dynamics and comparatively analyzing all four. The author concludes with some short-term, medium-term, and long-term proposals for addressing the vari- ous obstacles that the anti-sweatshop movement currently faces. Keywords: sweatshop; garment workers; Central America; cross-border labor; maquiladora orkers of the world unite” remains a potent and powerful rallying “Wcry, especially when one considers the globalization of the apparel industry and the miserable wages and working conditions that the world’s garment workers currently face (Ross, 2004). Transnational (or cross- border) labor solidarity could potentially mitigate the possibility and reality of capital mobility and thereby restrain the seemingly intractable, never- ending race to the bottom, but this is no simple task. -
By the Dept. of Labor on Workers
Issue #138 Summer/Fall 2008 Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health IN THE FINAL DAYS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION… THE NAMING A “SNEAK ATTACK” BY OF THE DEAD THE DEPT. OF LABOR ON Reflections on Workers Memorial Day WORKERS’ PROTECTIONS by Paul Mercurio FROM EXPOSURE TO TOXINS USW Local 10-86 he Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) record on worker safety and health under the Bush Administration has been disgraceful. During Tthe past 7½ years the Department of Labor adopted only one new rule to limit exposure to a chemical (hexavalent chromium) and that was because of a court order. It has stalled on taking any action on proposed rules for limiting exposure to silica, combustible dust, beryllium and diacetyl, all of which have caused preventable worker illnesses, injuries, and death. But a new proposal that was secretly developed ne by one their names are by DOL political appointees in the policy office, Ospoken into a microphone standing beside an empty casket that was illegally withheld from public notice, symbolizing another worker killed and would make it much more difficult to regulate on the job. They are read by mourn- workers’ exposure to chemicals and toxins, has ers carrying “strike” placards around their necks. now become the Department of Labor’s top priority for “fast track” passage. John C. Broussard/Age 31 Died March 15, 2007 The existence of this proposed “secret rule” first came to light in an arti- Diamond Furniture/ cle posted on the blog “The Pump Handle” by Celeste Monforton who is with the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Philadelphia Washington University School of Public Health and formerly worked for Head wedged between OSHA and MSHA. -
Strategic Public Relations, Sweatshops, and the Making of a Global Movement by B.J
The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy Working Paper Series Strategic Public Relations, Sweatshops, and the Making of a Global Movement By B.J. Bullert Shorenstein Fellow, Fall 1999 University of Washington #2000-14 Copyright Ó 2000, President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved When an estimated 40,0001 marched in Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization’s meeting, months of organizing by environmental groups, trade unions, human rights organizations and others, came to fruition. Organized publics in the form of trade unions, human rights groups and political elites succeeded in linking labor, environmental concerns and human rights to the WTO. The citizens who took to the street succeeded in drawing the attention of the reading and viewing public through the media to what they contend is the human and environmental costs of the "free trade" in the global economy. Although many reporters, especially television newsmen, were keen to capture the dramatic visuals of breaking glass, Darth Vader cops, and a youthful protestor running off with a Starbucks espresso machine, the overall impact of the protest shifted the media frame on the globalization debate in the press initially by expanding the coverage of genetic engineering and labor conditions in the developing economies.2 The environmental, human rights, labor rights and sweatshop issues culminating in the protests against WTO were years in the making, and strategic public relations professionals working with grass-roots organizations and NGOs were integral in shaping them. They publicized a vision of the global economy that countered one based on profits, market-share and high returns on financial investments for stockholders. -
Appreciating Eula Bingham: Poignant Memories from the Occupational Health Community
Appreciating Eula Bingham: Poignant Memories from the Occupational Health Community compiled by Chip Hughes, NIEHS Worker Training Program Eulogy for Eula Bingham With great sadness, the Collegium Ramazzini announces the death of Professor Eula Bingham, long-time Fellow and Past President of the Collegium Ramazzini, a globally recognized champion for the health and safety of working people. Eula Bingham was a true giant of occupational health. Throughout the 90 years of her life, she insisted tirelessly that workers had the absolute right to be safe on the job. Her thoughtful and generous wisdom shaped the entire field of occupational safety and health. Her bold and courageous actions prevented countless illnesses and injuries in workers around the world. Dr. Bingham began her scientific career at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine in 1961 with pioneering research on chemical carcinogenesis. She studied polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in coke ovens. She published a major paper on bladder cancer in chemical workers that she had researched in her own city of Cincinnati. These studies led Dr. Bingham to the realization that American workers are exposed daily in their work to known and suspect chemical carcinogens often under poorly controlled conditions that pose grave dangers to their health. This recognition spurred her to a lifetime of public service on behalf of workers. Beginning in the early 1970s, Dr. Bingham recognized that the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the then new legislation that had passed in 1970 and created NIOSH and OSHA, opened up powerful new opportunities to protect workers against carcinogens and other toxic chemicals.