"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Global labor unions
The main idea is to create international trade unions that are able to “deal with multinational companies on an equal footing and organize working people in even greater numbers.” What unions are recognizing is that “multinational companies are pushing down wages and conditions for workers ... by playing one national workforce off against another.” But, WHOA, let’s not get too excited here. It seems that in the immediate future it is only “a partnership allowing the unions to retain their existing structures” that is being planned. In the meantime here is what is happening in the countries gaining the outsourcing, the topic of this article. It discusses “Special Economic Zones” (SEZs) in India, which workers call “Special Exploitation Zones.” It says that 1,300 SEZs are planned for. “In a SEZ, the government will give the multinational the land and the company will not have to pay rent. It will also get water and electricity free.” Many of the companies involved use a lot of equipment and don’t hire that many workers. To make things worse, “in a SEZ, the existing labor laws won’t be operational. The owners can fire workers at will. The maximum hours workers can work will not be maintained; they may be forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day.” The land used for the SEZs is also land taken away from peasants [they lose everything] forcing them to go to the cities where their lives become even worse. Eventually, these lands come into the hands of wealthy Indians who use them for real estate development which enables them or other wealthy Indians to do their own outsourcing to still poorer Nepal and Bangladesh, now “economic colonies of India.” Given such huge problems, I’d have to say, come on you union leaders
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