Workers' Liberty

Since October last year, London No Sweat, has been holding regular pickets of Tesco stores in the East End, exposing the exploitation that lies at the root of Tesco’s bumper profits and focussing particularly on workers’ struggles in Bangladesh.

The Olympic spectacular in August this year is likely to be another step on China’s march towards great power status. For sure the media will marvel at the incredible stadia, the clean streets of the capital and the immensity of the country.

So spare a thought for the workers on Beijing’s Olympic construction sites,

New Zealand union organiser Mike Treen and French union activist Axel Persson spoke on organising, unionising and fighting for the rights of — mostly young — workers in the fast food industry.

Last week a group of cleaners at Stansted airport were told not to come to work the next day as they were no longer required. Most are from Eastern Europe and Africa. All are agency workers.

Temporary and agency workers are in a particularly precarious position. They can be hired and fired almost at will. They have no guaranteed hours or permanent contract of employment. They often work for lower wages and receive less favourable sick pay and other ‘perks’ than the directly-employed colleagues they work alongside. Added to this, scams and abuse such as categorising these workers as “self-employed” contractors in order to avoid holiday pay and other rights, are widespread.

Today’s globalised clothing industry involves transnational networks of production and sales in which manufacturing is subcontracted to producers, usually in developing countries.

You’ve tasted the Big Mac, you’ve probably had some McNuggets in your time but how about getting your chops round a McA-Level? Sceptical? Me too.

Over 100 anti-sweatshop and workers’ rights activists gathered in London on the weekend of 1-2 December for this year’s No Sweat conference. The theme chosen for this year’s conference by the campaign — which works within the anti-capitalist movement to argue for solidarity with workers’ movements at home and abroad — was “Beating Big Brand Exploitation”.

I’m a second year university student working part-time in a service-sector job (a nightclub). Having the job means I never have to choose between buying books or buying lunch.

Although elements of the job are enjoyable and positive (interaction with customers is sometimes very rewarding, and benefits such as free tickets to events held in the club are worth having as a student) the amount of casual and not-so-casual exploitation that takes place is outrageous.

As of 1 October 2007, the national minimum wage for over 21 year olds will go up 17p, to £5.52 an hour. Working an average of 35 hours a week, this would leave you with £9,063.77 take home pay a year. This 3% rise is less than inflation, meaning the minimum wage change is actually a decrease in real terms.

London Underground cleaners in the RMT continue to organise. About three weeks ago, cleaning staff at Morden Underground depot succeeded in fighting their management's imposition of a new 7-day a week roster, which would have allowed them no days off!

Mike Kyriazopolous interviews Jared Phillips, a Unite Fast Food Organiser and Workers Party activist in New Zealand.

MK: How did Unite plan its organising in fast food?

Over the summer anti-sweatshop group No Sweat will be running a campaign highlighting the highly exploitative conditions for workers at Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain, particularly their anti-union record. On Saturday 18 August there will be a national day of action — get in touch with admin@nosweat.org.uk for details of how to get involved. Here, Harriet Parker gives some background.

By Ben Terrall - HaitiAnalysis.com

New legislation in Washington D.C., under the acronym H.O.P.E. – short for “ the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act,” has the goal of promoting the garment industry in Haiti. But the legislation falls noticeably short in protecting labor rights or promoting long-term sustainable economic development that will benefit the poor as well as the rich.

The freebie Metro newspaper today informs us that beloved-of-this-blog Hazel Blears has been caught out being dodgy again. And here is the story in the Manchester Evening News.

The TUC has still not deemed to post on its website the resolutions passed at Women's Conference over a month ago. Instead, we get a decidedly unhelpful "no documents available".

STOP PRESS: THE JJB STRIKERS HAVE SUSPENDED STRIKE ACTION PENDING NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT A NEW OFFER FROM THEIR BOSSES. MORE INFORMATION AS WE HAVE IT.

280 GMB members at the Wigan warehouse which supplies all 430 JJB Sports shops in the UK are striking against a millionaire boss who describes their demand for all workers to receive an equal wage of at least £6.50 an hour as “the communist way — cuckoo land!”

By Sacha Ismail

Bangladesh is convulsed by fierce class struggles, centred around the country’s garment industry. Many tens of thousands of workers have gone on strike, blocked roads, attacked factories and other buildings, demonstrated, fought the police and rioted in the streets. Every day comes news of fresh strikes in a variety of industries — mainly the ready-made garment (RMG) sector, but also mill workers, river transport workers, rail workers, journalists, lecturers and teachers.

On 16 September Iranian riot police attacked a gathering of carpet makers in the northern coastal city of Babolsar. They arrested around 40 and injured a number of others.

Over 500 Thai textile workers defied the military junta’s ban on public protests to demonstrate in a dispute at their factory.

Over 1,000 Chinese workers rioted over poor working conditions at a factory which produces toys for McDonald's, according to the US labour rights group, China Labor Watch (CLW).

According to a China Labour Bulletin report, the incident began on 22 July when workers at the Hengli Factory in Dongguan City protested over meagre wages, the lack of public holidays and poor living conditions. The protest began in the workers' dormitories and evolved into a riot that stretched into Sunday, with more than 1,000 workers joining in.

Brie Phillips and Diane Foglizzo from the US student Living Wage Action Coalition (pictured above with Laura Schwartz of No Sweat) have been on tour with No Sweat. They have been touring UK campuses promoting campaigns for Living Wages for all campus workers.

This item first appeared in
Jewish Socialist.

Sweat-free campus campaigners at Queen Mary College in east London have won a great victory.

The college council has committed itself to making Queen Mary the first “living wage campus” in the UK.

Brie and Diane from the Living Wage Action Coalition are visiting the UK at the end of May and start of June. They will be speaking at various events including the student activist school at Sussex University on Saturday 27 May.

By Laura Schwartz

Recently I attended the United Students Against Sweatshops conference in San Francisco.

A series of US student initiatives that link worker struggles to student solidarity now form the biggest protest coalition on US campuses since the Vietnam war. As Dan Katz argues, this practical, effective movement should inspire UK students and show a way forward to home-grown initiatives like Students Against Sweatshops and People and Planet.

>“McDonald’s is in some ways a toy company, not a food company,” says one retired fast food executive. In fact, in its desperation to sell its unhealthy products to small children, McDonald’s sells (or “gives away” with food) more than 1,500 million toys a year, worldwide.

You can tell that the anti-sweatshop movement is making an impact when the Liberal Democrats try to jump on the bandwagon.

From Labourstart:

A few weeks ago the New Zealand union Unite launched the first-ever strike at Starbucks. Now they've taken on McDonald's, and they are serious about challenging one of the most ruthlessly anti-union corporations on the planet.

By Laura Schwartz, convenor students against sweatshops

Between 8 and 14 February I happily accepted an invitation from United Students Against Sweatshops to attend their winter conference in San Francisco as a representative of Students Against Sweatshops and No Sweat.