In the News

Workers-rights advocates push state for no-sweat guarantee

WLSU Wisconsin Public Radio
03/25/2009

(STATEWIDE) The Doyle Administration says it may be getting ready to sign a promise not to buy state uniforms from sweatshops.

Labor groups are urging Governor Doyle to sign an executive order saying Wisconsin will join the Sweat-Free Purchasing Consortium. That means the state would stop using tax dollars to buy products from manufacturers where workers suffer human rights abuses.

Conditions Worsen For Women Workers

IPS
03/24/2009

 

BIYAGAMA, Mar 24 (IPS) - Ramani, 26, sits inside her small, dimly-lit boarding house room, cutting vegetables, in this industrial town outside Colombo. She plans to return to her rural village in May to get married.

"Most girls generally work for five years in garment factories and return to their villages to get married,’’ she says.

Thousands of young women, employed in garment factories spread across Sri Lanka, and concentrated in Free Trade Zones (FTZ) in towns like Biyagama, now face an uncertain future due to lowered demand for their products...

Children sue Ala. company in Colombian mine deaths

Associated Press
03/20/2009

By JAY REEVES

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The children of three slain Colombian union leaders filed a lawsuit Friday reviving claims that the men's U.S.-based employer was responsible for their killings outside a coal mine eight years ago.

A similar lawsuit filed by the men's union and widows ended with a verdict for mine operator Drummond Co. Inc. in 2007. But the plaintiffs, who want the company pay for their fathers' deaths, now have access to a key witness who couldn't testify in the first trial because he was in prison, their attorneys say.

Cambodia’s Garment Exports Fall as Demand Drops in U.S., Europe

Bloomberg
03/18/2009

Cambodia’s garment exports are declining as a global recession crimps demand in the U.S. and Europe, cutting into an industry that supports a 10th of the Southeast Asian country’s population.

In January, garment exports plunged 25 percent from a year earlier to $185 million, said Mean Sophea, who heads the Commerce Ministry’s Trade Preferences System Department. Over the past decade, they grew at an average pace of 28 percent per year, according to the World Bank... 

Sweating It Out

Crain's New York Business Insider
03/16/2009

Excerpt from article:

A labor and clergy coalition released a report Wednesday that alleges severe violations at eight factories that supply products to the state of New York. Abuses including mandatory pregnancy tests, forced unpaid overtime and verbal harassment were uncovered at factories in countries ranging from China to Honduras to the United States. The Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State is calling on the state to establish a sweatshop-free code of conduct and to disclose all factories that contract with New York suppliers...

Indonesia Policy: Avoiding Past Mistakes

World Politics Review
03/11/2009

By Edmund McWilliams

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Jakarta underscores the importance that the Obama administration appears to attach to Asia and to the U.S. relationship with Indonesia. Indeed, a broad-based, mutually beneficial partnership between the United States and Indonesia can and should be one of the foundations of America's 21st century Asia-Pacific strategy.

China won't revise labor contract law amid financial crisis: lawmaker

Xinhua
03/09/2009

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China will not revise the Labor Contract Law to compromise workers' rights as suggested by some people to help enterprises cope with the global financial turmoil, a legislator said here Monday.

"The labor contract law has nothing to do with the financial crisis and won't be revised for it," said Xin Chunying, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislative body...

Prada: The real price of luxury?

Clean Clothes Campaign
03/09/2009

A worker from a Turkish factory that supplies Prada and other luxury brands is touring Europe this week to share her story of union repression and exploitation. Emine Arslan was a valued worker in DESA’s Sefakoy factory for eight years until she started talking to other workers about joining a union.

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