Welcome to the ninth edition of GNN’s exclusive Labor News Roundup. Though labor-related news is neglected in both the mainstream and “alternative” news services, important labor stories are breaking all over the world every day. This roundup is but a small sampling. For more international labor news, check out LibCom and LabourStart.
Victoria’s Trade Secrets: Slave labor conditions are the ugly secret behind those lacy garments: A new report from the National Labor Committee found: “D.K. Garments is a subcontract factory with 150 foreign guest workers (135 from Bangladesh and 15 from Sri Lanka), which has been producing Victoria’s Secret garments for the last year. None of the workers have been provided their necessary residency permits, without which they cannot venture outside the industrial park without fear of being stopped by the police and perhaps imprisoned for lack of proper documents. The Victoria’s Secret workers toil 14 to 15 hours a day, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., seven days a week, receiving on average one day off every three or four months. All overtime is mandatory, and workers are routinely at the factory 98 to 105 hours a week while toiling 89 to 96 hours. Treatment is very rough, as managers and supervisors scream at the foreign guest workers to move faster to complete their high production goals. Workers who fall behind on their production goals, or who make even a minor error, can be slapped and beaten. Despite being forced to work five or more overtime hours a day, the workers are routinely shortchanged on their legal overtime pay, being cheated of up to $18.48 each week in wages due them. While this might not seem like a great deal of money, to these poor workers it is the equivalent of losing three regular days’ wages each week. Workers are allowed just 3.3 minutes to sew each $14 Victoria’s Secret women’s bikini, for which they are paid four cents. The workers’ wages amount to less than 3/10ths of one percent of the $14 retail price of the Victoria’s Secret bikini.” (The Huffington Post, 11/27/07)
Rail Labor Activists Build Solidarity Caucus: Rail Labor activists from across North America are coming together to form a new cross-craft inter-union caucus that includes all rail workers in North America. Membership is open to union members from all the various unions (once known as the “brotherhoods”) in this new organization. In addition, special efforts will be made to include Canadian and Mexican workers as well. To build this broad based unity and solidarity, the activists have launched Railroad Workers United (RWU). “We want everyone to understand that we are not creating another rail union to compete with those already in existence”, explains Jon Flanders, member of Machinists #1145 in Selkirk, NY. “Instead, we are creating an industry-wide caucus where we can all come together to help each other build the solidarity, support, democracy and strength that is missing in our individual craft unions. Who knows what the potentials and possibilities could be for such an organization of all rail labor.” (IWW.org, 12/08/07)
Building a New Global Movement – The Gap and Black Friday: With Black Friday come and gone and the Christmas shopping season in full effect, Daniel Gross, an organizer with the IWW Starbucks Workers Union and the founding director of Brandworkers International, writes: “The workers recounted threats and beatings from management to keep their nimble fingers moving. Hours were long and the wages painfully low when they were paid at all. Who were these workers? Children in India, some as young as ten years old, working in slave-like conditions that shame us all. And what was the intended destination of the kid-made clothing: Gap stores across the United States and Europe just in time for the Christmas shopping bonanza now well on its way after Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the largest shopping day of the year.” (Counterpunch, 11/24/07)
Interview with Hashemiyya Muhsin Hussein (Iraq – GFIW): “Defying the anti-union legislation inherited from the old regime, which prohibits unions in public services, fighting to improve the poor wage and health and safety conditions… many are the challenges facing Hashemiyya M. Hussein, president of the Electricity Workers’ Union of Basra. Also a member of the Executive of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers of Basra and the ICEM Women’s Committee for the Middle East and North Africa, Hashemiyya embodies the very active trade unionism in this southern region of Iraq, where insecurity is nonetheless rife.” (International Trade Union Confederation, 11/28/07)
Afghans: US Airstrikes Kill 14 Workers: Life for migrant workers in occupied Afghanistan is one of day to day dangers, ranging from local warlords to U.S. airstrikes. Amir Shah reports for The Associated Press, “US-led coalition troops killed 14 road construction workers in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan after receiving faulty intelligence, Afghan officials said Wednesday.” (TruthOut, 11/28/7)
Ukrainian Miners Blame the Boss for Multiple Deaths: “Don’t be a miner in the Ukraine. That’s the best advice I can give right now,” writes Oread Daily. “President Victor Yushchenko ordered the suspension of operations at the Zasyadko coal-mine in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine after a third, and fatal, explosion in the mine on Sunday. His political rival, Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich, has also issued a public call for suspending mine operations. Miners say the mine’s chairman and apparent proprietor, Yefim Zvagilsky, is to blame for unsafe working conditions at the mine, and for imposing steep shift production quotas that led to the suppression of methane detection and shut-off systems.” (Oread Daily / Infoshop News, 12/04/07)
UK: Migrant workers win Northampton strike: Following a strike action, Eastern European workers have won full payment of wages they were owed and being denied. “This success was followed closely by an attempt to catalyse some workplace organisation amongst Eastern European workers in Northampton, with a meeting held at which one of the successful Glenn Management strikers spoke of his experiences. For further details contact Northampton Trades Council through their website." (LibCom.org, 11/29/07)
Russian Labor Raises Its Voice: Though this mainstream media article contains some incorrect information, such as the claim that “strikes have been rare” in post-communist Russia, Jason Bush writes for Business Week: “In recent months, an increasingly vocal and self-confident Russian labor movement has emerged.” A walkout & strike action at a Ford plant near St. Petersburg, which has been ongoing since November 20th, is just the latest is a newly energized wave of labor mobilizations being undertaken by workers. (Business Week, 11/29/07)
Strikes and Struggles in Russia: “The economy of Putin’s Russia is based on monopolies. They are almost everywhere. All of them are connected with some state bureaucrat or another, or with friends of friends of friends of Mister Putin. (Naturally these monopolies pay big money to the bureaucrats). This third world economy has only one aim – to provide prosperity for the gangsters in a pyramid of nouveau riches and state functionaries. The top among them is Mister Putin whose untold wealth equals about 40 billion US dollars.” (Infoshop News, 12/10/07)
Iran: bus drivers issue solidarity statement: The Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Vahed) Union, issued a statement of solidarity with the French transport workers. In the statement, issued on November 23, 2007, workers say “[we] have learned that the French government along with their capitalist allies has pummeled your retirements rights that had been gained over many years of struggle.” (LibCom.org, 11/28/07)
American Transnationals Keep Undermining Trade Union Growth: Writing in Political Affairs, the Socialist Voice says, “A recent large-scale survey by the University of Limerick, which examined the patterns of trade union recognition among transnational corporations in Ireland, points to a growing trend of union avoidance among already unionized companies, which are establishing new sites on a non-union basis. A notable finding is that about half the unionized American transnationals did not continue to recognize a union at all when they opened a new site over the past five years. It would appear that the trend is most marked among American transnationals, as more than 80 per cent of Irish and British transnational corporations engage with trade unions, while remaining European transnationals also score highly, with 72 per cent. The survey, which examined 162 unionized transnationals, found that 61 of these established a new site (or sites) over the previous five years. Looking at the incidence of union recognition among these, they found that 41 per cent recognized a union in each of those new sites. A quarter of these unionized companies did not now recognize unions at new sites. Furthermore, 34 per cent either recognized unions only at some or most new sites, which by default means that they do not recognize unions at some or most of their sites. Again, unionized American transnationals were far less likely to recognize a union at new sites. Indeed, about half the unionized American transnationals did not recognize unions at all at new sites; none recognized unions at all its new sites; 30 per cent recognized unions at most new sites; and 10 per cent recognized unions at some new sites.” (Political Affairs, 11/26/07)
Steelworkers Vow Action to Boost Refinery Safety: U.S. steelworkers, like most workers, are sick and tired of being exposed to dangerous working conditions that pose a serious threat to their safety and very lives. Erwin Seba for Reuters reports that “Top United Steelworkers union leaders vowed on Thursday that they would make refinery safety an issue in election campaigns and contract talks if US refiners don’t join an effort to remove the risk of another deadly explosion.” (Reuters UK, 11/29/07)
Unions Disclose Long List of Anti-Worker NLRB Cases: Mark Gruenberg reports for Press Associates, “The recent AFL-CIO-led protests against the National Labor Relations Board highlighted dozens of rulings that undermine the rights of people on the job.” On November 15th, a protest of more than one thousand people marched to the headquarters of the NLRB in Washington, DC, as thousands more simultaneously converged on NLRB offices in 25 American cities, in actions “based on a catalog of heavily anti-worker rulings the labor federation says pervert both the agency’s mission and the intent of U.S. labor law.” (Workday Minnesota, 11/25/07)
Worker Status Checks’ Errors Called ‘Severe’: A new report has found that the E-Verify system “often wrongly flags foreign-born hires as illegal.” Theo Milonopoulos, The Los Angeles Times: “Possible discrimination against foreign-born employees remains a concern for an electronic verification system that ultimately catches a tiny fraction of workers in the United States illegally, immigration officials were told Tuesday.” (The Los Angeles Times, 11/28/07)
After the Deluge: Labor and Community Seek to Rebuild and Renew: “The moods of post-Katrina New Orleans are many and oft-changing: Anger. Despair. Defiance . And, yes, optimism. Shawn Smith has experienced this dizzying array of mood shifts. Right now, standing outside the Ironworkers Union Training Facility in New Orleans , he feels blessed. You see, Shawn Smith is about to become a union man. Smith and 12 fellow city residents are minutes away from graduating the Gulf Coast Construction Career Center ’s Pre-Apprenticeship Program. And he cannot hide his excitement.” (New Orleans Labor Media, 11/05/07)
Court rules employee worked to death: After logging over 106 hours of overtime in one month, a worker at a Toyota plant in Japan died from overwork, a judge in November. Reuters reports: “The employee, who was working at a Toyota factory in central Japan, died of irregular heartbeat in February 2002 after passing out in the factory around 4 a.m. Overworking is a serious issue in Japan, where an average worker uses less than 50 percent of paid holidays, according to government data.” (Yahoo! News, 11/30/07)
Florida Farm Workers Face Near-Slavery Conditions: On Comment Is Free, Bernard Crick writes: “Last month the Anti-Slavery Society gave its annual award to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida. The platform told us to rhyme Immokalee with broccoli. But tomatoes, not broccoli, were the issue. The coalition was founded in 1993 by a group of farmworkers, mainly Mexican, some from Guatemala or Haiti, to combat sub-poverty wages, forced labor and intimidatory beatings. As the campaign hotted up, there were fatal shootings by gang-masters and kneecappings, especially after a general strike by over 3,000 workers. And alongside low wages and brute force, ruinous prices in company stores and crazy rents for foul bunkhouses. In 2001 the coalition began a Campaign of Fair Food, targeting the major fast-food corporations whose vast buying power kept the laborers’ piecerate prices so inhumanely low. A four-year national consumer boycott of Taco Bell proved effective enough to bring its parent company, the vast Yum! Brands, to the table. Payments were increased and went straight to the workers. But the growers fought back, lobbying in the name of a no-holds-barred free-market capitalism and threatening coalition members and organizers. It got very nasty. Happily they overdid it. Congress began to take an interest and the FBI went over the heads of corrupt or idle local law officers to prosecute traffickers and growers.” (AlterNet, 12/05/07)
Poland: Second Congress of the Union of Syndicalists: On Dec. 8-9 the second congress of ZSP was held in Wroclaw. The first Congress, held in March 2007, was the founding Congress in Gliwice at which the general ideas of association were discussed. Other recent ideas for actions, for example in support of repressed unionists in Indian and activists in the Clean Clothes campaign, did not get on the agenda of the Congress. (Infoshop News, 12/11/07)
UK IWW fight against blood service centralisation plans: “National Blood Service bosses in England and Wales plan to axe over 600 jobs and put patients lives across the National Health Service at threat. The campaign, from workers in the National Blood Service and the IWW has become increasingly active, and the IWW is growing in the service. Now the IWW is launching a new phase of the campaign, to counter the employer offensive. The IWW is fighting the closure of 10 blood processing centres across England. This is the largest campaign yet attempted by the IWW in the UK (BIROC), and has led to large scale regional mobilisations, and the distribution of 55,000 leaflets and 5000 targeted workplace bulletins.” (IWW.org, 12/08/07)
This week’s Labor History Spotlights:
A Short History of IWW organizing in Ann Arbor, 1981-1989: We present the following account both as an example of how IWW militants built shop-floor, direct action-based union locals, and because the Ann Arbor-Detroit General Membership Branch played a key role in returning the IWW to its roots as a revolutionary union after decades of effective isolation from the shop floor. There are important lessons to learn from these fellow workers’ successes and failures, and perhaps most importantly from their determination to continue building a revolutionary union even though their numbers were much smaller than their dreams. (Libertarian Labor Review #14)
The Forgotten International: The international anarcho-syndicalist movement between the two World Wars: It is rather ironic that the history of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers’ Association (IWA-AIT) was written and published in Russia, where historically anarcho-syndicalism failed to make serious ground. But be it as it may, the most detailed and voluminous history of the AIT was recently produced in Russian by Vadim Damier, a historian and anarchist activist since the late 1980s. (Anarkismo, 12/03/07)
Noam Chomsky – The Relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism: Part 1 (Part 2 here)
Audio file of the week:
Collectives, Federations and Revolutionary Struggle: This talk by members of the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC), covers anarchist organising – emphasising federation structures made up of collectives or regional branches. They look at collectives based on tactical and theoretical unity, as well as personal trust and camaraderie, as a way to sustain struggles at the local level and put forward a clear anti-authoritarian, class-based analysis as a starting point. They also explore federating within cities and by regions as a way to broaden resistance to the present system and begin to create revolutionary alternatives. (Audio File #1 | Audio File #2)
Solidarity promotions of the week:
LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
This roundup was compiled by GNN contributor and blogger Nathan Coe. Nathan is a guerrilla journalist and activist residing in the mountains of Southwest Colorado, where he is a senior in college working on his Major in Humanities. He can be contacted at free_world_alliance(at)yahoo.com or via his blog at ShiftShapers.gnn.tv.