Sweatshops

Chinese textile workers' protest attacked by police

Chinese police have repressed a protest by textile workers struggling to recover unpaid wages and other benefits after their factory went bankrupt. On 8 February around two thousand workers from the Tieshu Textile Factory in Suizhou, Hubei province, blocked the local railway for most of the morning. Around 800 armed and regular police from neighbouring towns arrived to disperse the protestors, and blocked the arrival of hundreds more who were heading toward the scene. According to eyewitness reports in the China Labour Bulletin, scores of demonstrators were injured. The police randomly hit...

Mexican women against violence

By Joan Trevor On Saturday 14 February - Valentine's Day - a march was held in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez to remember more than 300 young women murdered there since 1993. The women were often raped before being killed and their mutilated bodies dumped in public places. The murderers - believed to be a gang - have evaded justice, and the authorities shown themselves at first dismissive of the crimes, then incompetent - and perhaps even reluctant - to solve them. There is speculation that many of the murders have been done by rich gangsters with links to the law enforcement agencies...

Clean up your computer!

By Mark Osborn CAFOD (Catholic campaigning organisation) have produced a a useful, detailed, expose of the terrible working conditions, harassment and poverty pay faced by electronics workers, making computer parts, in Mexico, Thailand and China. Thailand is the world's second largest producer of hard disc drives. A Thai worker making these drives, that end up in computers sold by companies like Dell earns around £2.50 per day. They do not receive sick pay or holiday pay (in contravention of Thai law). Sub-contracted workers were reported as looking tired and ill, and if workers become...

International Women's Day: Action against Disney

By Mick Duncan International Women's Day is Monday 8 March and celebrates a strike among New York women garment workers nearly 100 years ago. No Sweat will be targeting Disney stores on Saturday 6 and Monday 8 March. Every year we celebrate International Women's Day in an appropriate fashion. This year we are targeting Disney for using sweatshop labour to produce their goods. Most of the workers exploited by Disney are young women. Have a look at the No Sweat web site to find model leaflets, leaflet and poster art, masks; a cut-out cartoon sewing machine; instructions and hints, pus a picture...

Haiti: the crisis and the workers

By Mark Osborn At the end of March a sweatshop union organiser from the militant Haitian trade union Batay Ouvriye will go on a speaker tour of Britain organised by No Sweat and the Haiti Support Group. Batay Ouvriye describes itself as "an organisation [of] factory unions and committees, workers' associations and militants, struggling for the construction of an independent, combative and democratic union movement, and to organise wage-workers, self-employed workers and the unemployed for the defense of their rights. "The organisation is an alternative to the traditional bureaucratic, corrupt...

Recent workers' struggles in China

News of the class struggle will be easier to follow in English from now on, thanks to a monthly bulletin produced by the China Labour Bulletin. The online bulletin, produced in Hong Kong, is an excellent source of information on workers' struggles inside China, where over 200 million industrial workers produce a huge volume of clothes, trainers, toys and other products sold all over the world. Some recent examples of class struggle are summarised below. In November, around 10,000 workers from the Xiangyang Automobile Bearing Company in Xiangfan City blocked roads and railway lines across the...

No Sweat News in brief

Indonesia: textile workers' victory No Sweat discusses Iraq workers' solidarity Women's TUC fringe meeting No Sweat steering group Play Fair Olympics campaign Indonesia: textile workers' victory A significant breakthrough has been made by workers at PT Kahatex Sweaters in Bandung, Indonesia. 537 workers were illegally locked out in May 2003 for demanding they be paid the minimum wage. The company has agreed to re-employ all of the locked-out workers. Two hundred and ten workers have said they wish to be re-employed and the company has agreed work will restart by 1 March. The remaining 287...

Inside America: Miami students acquitted

by Jim Byagua After three hours of testimony by prosecution witnesses, Judge Lyons dismissed all charges against Miami University Fair Labor Coalition activists Nicolle, Nick, Ian and Jon because of a lack of evidence. The four students were arrested back on 10 October 2003 by the Miami police during a protest in support of a strike by AFSCME Local 209, the union representing nearly 900 service workers at Miami University in Southwest Ohio. The charges against two were that they were "tampering with a salad bar". One was "throwing food and/or drink". The fourth was "dumping food on a table" at...

Haiti: Workers abused at uniform-making factory

By Labour Behind the Label "They lock the gates on us and sometimes put security guards out in front with rifles to prevent us from leaving," said Jacqueline, as she described the method her employer uses to force workers to work over 10 hours a day without compensation. "The supervisors would yell and curse at us to finish our quota. My daily quota is sewing 90 dozen zippers on pants for 80 gourds [$2 US]." Jacqueline works for a Cintas subcontractor, Haitian American Apparel. She estimates that she is just one of 1,500 workers who make uniforms for Cintas, and whose daily reality is working...

Mexican garment workers fight ¡La Lucha Sigue!

By the Puebla Workers' Support Centre (CAT) In clear breach of both Mexican and international law, the Puebla Labour Board has refused to recognise the Tarrant garment workers' independent trade union (SUITTAR). Over the next few weeks they will rule on the reinstatement of 22 illegally sacked workers at the plant. In defiance of the denial of its petition for legal recognition SUITTAR activists gathered on 10 October before the office of Puebla Governor, Melqu"ades Morales Flores, to angrily protest the decision and insist that their illegally fired co-workers be reinstalled as soon as...

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