China has just passed a legislative law that provides improved protections for workers including collective bargaining rights for migrant workers and measures for better job security. There will probably still be problems with enforcement, but I think this is pretty amazing. China has been regarded as the site for super cheap labor for a while now, and it's significant that they're working towards protecting workers despite pleas from lobbyists for multinational corporations who want cheap labor and "flexible" labor conditions. It's really gross how rights for vulnerable people are seen as a barrier to economic success and development. So here's the NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/world/asia/30china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
For some reason this makes me think of Nancy Pelosi's address at the Campus Progress conference last week, when she kept saying that America being "number one" is a priority, and that whatever social changes that are made can't be at the expense of out status as the best in the world. So I guess she must mean number one in purely economic GDP kind of terms, which is silly because we're definitely not number one in health or healthcare or infant mortality or eradicating poverty, and we're especially not number one in ensuring rights for working people. Workers who aren't (or can't be) unionized all over the world and in this country are made increasingly vulnerable as practically every company sees its workers as the most expendable resource. There's been a trend in lowering job security, like with the workers in Princeton dining halls where permanent/year-long employees are being phased out and replaced with expendable workers with fewer benefits and much greater job insecurity.
Anyway, so my point is that its stupid to look only at how much money the country has without paying attention to who has it and at what expense, and it's kind of shameful that China clearly cares more about its people than our government and businesses care about ours. Why isn't being number one in this respect important?
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2 comments:
Yeppo....It's entirely typical for the US and for American politicans in general to define the success of this ridiculous country in only capital terms. It's also sad because it displays the cutthroat capitalistic trend that is a direct result of the corporate lobby in American government (democratic and republican ALIKE), thanks to the buying of politicians, corporate personhood, and the strength of industry lobbyists. It's come to the point where political purposes serve mostly economic interests. Which is obscene.
Though about China, I think its great they are passing the new legislation on labor, but I do want to point out that it seems to be in response to massive global criticism and political pressure re: the Chinese government aiding and abetting companies that exploit cheap labor and those who provide it by neglecting to enact laws that prevent nasty companies like Wal Mart from paying people nothing and pretending like they have a legitimate code of conduct.
The reason I'm just wary of the new legislation is because of the Chinese govt's human rights record and their history of NOT shutting down factories that have been known to violate labor laws (which are already on the books and have been or ages)/pretending to shut down factories then re-opening them. It's funny/sad how much you discover via Wal-Mart research....
But at least they have the friggin law, and are acknowledging the problen, unlike this fascist capital empire we're living under :)
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