Blog: September 2008

“Crime of Passion” or Assassination?

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

  • 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

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

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

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

Free Trade Brought to You by the US Chamber of Commerce

The speakers at this rally grieved that they couldn’t have a reasonable
conversation with those opposed to FTAs because each side of the issue
has its own set of “facts.” I also find this contradiction of “facts”
troubling. Those in favor of FTAs point to the fact that, since NAFTA,
there has been a net creation of jobs in the US. Those opposed to NAFTA
however, point out that most of these jobs are of poorer quality than
the ones that were lost, consisting of low-paid positions like
cashiers, and janitors.

Hot Girls Make Great Clothes

If you operate in an industry littered with accusations and actual accounts of the women workers who make your products being exploited financially and sexually, why in the world would you make such ads?

I don’t have a clue where Ecko jeans are made, but I highly doubt that the skimpily clad women featured in these videos actually make the jeans. I’ve spent months talking with women garment workers around the world and I’m utterly insulted by these ads. In Bangladesh, Arifa, a single mother, works hard so she doesn’t have to ship another son off to Saudi Arabia to work. In Cambodia Nari and Ai support 6 and 7 family members a piece on their paychecks. In China Zhu Chun tries to earn enough so her son can go to college.

Attacking organizers at the RNC

Most of you have heard the clip from Governor Sarah Palin's speech where she said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities."  But Palin wasPalin2web
joined in the organizer-bashing by former New York City Mayer Rudy Giuliani who said, "On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy

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