Blog

Radiohead Takes on Sweatshops

October 5, 2008

I think the video does a good job of showing some of the abuses that occur in the production of goods consumed around the world.  It reminds me of the documentary about Wal-Mart: "The High Cost of Low Prices."  A lot of the work that ILRF does along with the other organizations behind this blog seeks to show U.S. consumers and policymakers how our purchasing practices and lack of labor law enforcement impacts workers around the world. 

The Latest Election Rhetoric on Sweatshops: No News is Bad News

October 3, 2008

All of this
searching made me start to think. Perhaps, the reason there is so little
information about their stances on sweatshops is because we as a movement have
not be very focused on politics and have instead been focusing much more on corporate
activism. Obviously, there are exceptions and there is a lot of work going on
in procurement by cities and states by Sweat-free Communities and on trade
policies by most groups in who regularly write on this blog. But have we done
enough to force our government (and other governments and international bodies)
to deal with the sweatshop issue? Are activists actively engaging their elected
officials on these issues?

“Crime of Passion” or Assassination?

September 29, 2008

One
of the most outrageous details in the report is the Colombian government’s use
of a “random violence theory.” In their discussion of violence against union
members in Colombia,
government officials often distort the true motives of murderers. They claim
that violence against unionists is “random” instead of “targeted,” and that the
Colombian trade union movement “has taken advantage of high homicide rates to
inflate numbers and gain political mileage.”

Bush Continues to Falsely Claim Free Trade Agreements Bring "Prosperity" to the Americas

September 25, 2008
  • NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced
         imports of US corn and other agricultural products.
  • NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by underpaid workers in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.

"Don’t Enslave Me": Why Some Workers in the Global South Prefer Working Underground

September 24, 2008

Fidel, a relatively new employee on the subway told me that
he had lost several jobs after reporting injustices he had witnessed in the
workplace. After growing tired of the need to remain silent to keep a job, he
began working on the subway so that he could be his own boss. He narrated the
story of a friend who works from 6 AM to 6 PM and has a two-hour commute (many
people live in Buenos Aires
sprawling suburban area but work in the city limits). The man’s only child is
asleep when he leaves for work at 4 in the morning and again when he gets back
at 8 at night. This story is a common one, and it shows what has driven many
into the informal economy, which is more volatile but less cruel than its
counterpart.

American Apparel: My Ongoing Dilemma

September 23, 2008

The biggest
problem I have as a women’s rights activist, especially one that focuses on
women’s rights at work is American Apparel’s owner, Dov Charney. This week Mr.
Charney was spoofed on Saturday Night Live, exposing this infamous business
owner to a larger audience. Those of us in the feminist and labor rights
movement have long been familiar with Dov Charney and his problems with the women
who work at his company. Most of the words I would use to describe Mr. Charney
are unprintable in this family blog. Mr. Charney has been sued five times for
sexual harassment. And reading the details of the environment at the workplace

Bailing out the bosses

September 22, 2008

One of the most interesting parts of the debate going on about the bailout is the Democrat's proposal to make the bailout include conditions on limiting executive pay packages.  Well, as you can imagine, that is not sitting well with the "corporate aristocracy" which as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) estimates, already benefits from a $20 billion a year subsidy in the form of tax loopholes.  In this year's annual "Executive Excess" report, IPS says that S&P 500 CEOs' pay packages were about 344 times the pay Bag_of_money_bw

Pages

Search form