I don’t have much to add on the extremely disappointing and inadequate health care bill that passed the Senate yesterday–it’s been said by others–so I turned my attention to a couple of international developments.
Every so often, when I discuss trade, here or in debates elsewhere, people say: well, we live in a global economy and that’s just the way it is and the global economy brings people out of poverty who would never have been able to do so without the "wonderful" benefits of so-called "free trade". My point is always: no one is against trade but there have to be rules in place that make sure trade is not based on exploitation and the search for the lowest wage possible–which is precisely the driving force behind trade today. We know what the problem is–and the solution is also obvious–and here is one step forward in that regard:
The Asia Floor Wage (AFW) Campaign, launched today, is calling upon companies sourcing garment production in Asia to implement an Asia Floor Wage.
The ground-breaking AFW benchmark, developed by a growing Asian-based alliance of labour rights organisations, is a concrete calculation for a minimum living wage, which they believe companies sourcing in the region should implement. The CCC IS is a member of the AFW International Steering Committee.
Currently the poverty wages garment workers earn do not cover basic needs and fall far short of a living wage. The AFW, calculated using the World Bank’s Purchasing Power Parity, puts forth a wage ($475 PPP/month) that would allow workers to purchase the same set of goods and services across key garment-producing countries in Asia.
The idea is simple: create a floor for wages. Here is more about the campaign.
And my friends at the National Labor Committee have been working hard, as usual, on behalf of workers around the world, this time in Bangladesh:
In Bangladesh, 30,000 shipbreaking workers are dismantling some of the largest decommissioned tanker ships in the world—20 stories high, 650 to over 1,000 feet long, 95 to 164 feet wide, which have been run up on the beach in the Bay of Bengal, not far from the city of Chittagong. In July, the National Labor Committee counted 112 tanker ships stretching across nearly four miles of beaches.
The shipbreakers do some of the most dangerous jobs in the world, toiling 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages of just 22 to 32 cents an hour, handling and breathing in dangerous toxic waste with no safeguards whatsoever and under conditions that violate every local and international labor law. Injuries happen every day—some are paralyzed for life—and a worker dies every three or four weeks. No one helps them. The workers say a dog means more to the business owner than a human being.
There is something the NLC wants you to do here:
What the G20 should do—a common sense approach that can immediately save lives and restore respect for fundamental human and worker rights:
1. The G20 leaders should empower the International Labor Organization to work in partnership with Bangladesh’s Ministry of Labor and with local nongovernmental human and labor rights organizations—including providing sufficient funding when necessary—to bring the Ministry of Labor up to par so that it can effectively enforce Bangladesh’s labor laws. (Up to this point, both the Bangladesh Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization have been completely ineffective.)
2. Child Labor: Child workers 10, 11, 12 and 13 years of age employed in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards should be returned to school where they belong. It would cost less than $750 a year to do this—including a stipend to replace their wages and to cover all school costs. Child and teenage workers 14, 15, 16 and 17 years old should be relocated out of the shipbreaking yards and into less dangerous jobs in accordance with ILO convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor.
3. Establish the rule of law in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards: Bangladesh’s labor laws are modest and clear:
A legal eight-hour day, six days a week, for a regular 48-hour workweek.
All overtime must be voluntary and paid at a 100 percent premium.
Workers must receive one day off each week.
Paid sick days, national holidays and vacations must be respected.
Workers must be provided appointment cards, proving they are permanent, full-time workers at a particular shipyard.
Workers have the right to organize independent unions and to bargain collectively.
The workers have two further dreams—to earn 60 cents an hour and to have health insurance for work-related injuries, just as Bangladesh’s government workers have.
4. Implementing basic safety provisions: It would cost almost nothing to provide workers with basic safety trainings. Also, showers and clean water should be made available in the shipyards so workers can wash in case they are exposed to toxins and at the end of every shift.
For less than $350, workers could be outfitted with hardhats, welders’ gloves, welding vests and protective visors, safety belts, steel toe boots and respiratory masks and clean filters if they are working around asbestos, lead or other toxic dust.
5. The ten countries—many G20 members—and ten shipping companies that dominate global merchant cargo trade must guarantee that all toxic waste will be removed before ships are sent to Bangladesh—or India, Pakistan, China or Turkey—for scrapping.
