Working Life

It seems so simple—post offices are everywhere, often literally on Main Streets in towns all across the country. Everyone knows where the post office is. So, why not turn post offices into hubs of financial transactions for people, from pay check cashing, which could be a first step, and then on to remittances of money […]

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In the sea of millions of migrant workers who end up slaves or in forced labor, a pilot project has empowered Nepalese women working in Jordan’s garment industry to make a better deal. I spoke to the International Labor Organization’s Phillip Fishman about how the project works—and whether it can be scaled up. I, then, […]

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Today, 152 million children—children—are in forced labor around the world, along with 40 million people are simply slaves. Don’t turn your head away! Because we need to know about this—and understand the movement afoot to end this moral stain on the planet. After participating in a United Nations summit, I speak to two leading global […]

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In the list of serious “first world problems”–or maybe “first world stupidities”–you can list the hysteria around Ebola in the U.S. i.e., the non-existent Ebola crisis in this country. And, of course, as soon as the media found some other thing to focus on, no one cares anymore that thousands of people–black people–have died and continue to die from Ebola. But, the real point to make is that Ebola isn’t just a disease–it’s a result of relentless global class warfare and corruption.

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Sorry, I don’t share the optimism or excitement in the headlines about the new job figures–partly because I don’t believe this lasts. It’s funny how the elites wants to always demand that we think about how the world has become “global” when it means demanding wage cuts and acceptance of shitty trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership. But, when it comes to trumpeting the go-go U.S. “recovery”, the facts of the world are put to the side.

Especially when it comes to talking about ROBBERY.

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Typically, it doesn’t happen with a crash. Nope, more like a slow slide–until it’s too late to avoid a really bad economic picture that hurts millions of people. And at least someone is warning of the slide.

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Today, I’ve been attending this conference, “Employment and Decent Work for Inclusive and Sustainable Development”. A little nugget and perhaps an obvious revelation came midway through the conference.

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The vastness of global poverty is almost unfathomable–but, it’s gotten a bit better, according to the good people at the International Labour Organization, which just published its 2014 World of Work Report that focuses on “Developing With Jobs”. Even more astounding is the scale of the number of people who are in what is called “vulnerable employment”, which is a fancy way of saying you just can’t make ends meet.

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Sometimes you can get numbed by numbers. Other times numbers make my eyes get wide. This is an example of the latter.

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The ghastly industrial killing field in the garment factory in Bangladesh has now claimed over 1,100 lives. Hard to even fathom. But, there is a sliver of hope that out of this massacre of workers will come a little improvement.

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