|
|
| |
|
Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
| ||
|
Despite a decade of promises that U.S. corporate monitoring efforts would improve factory conditions and respect for worker rights in China, the outcome has been a dismal failure, according to New York Times reporter David Barboza ("Reform Stalls in Chinese Factories; To Supply the West Workers Endure Lost Fingers and Low Pay," January 5, 2008). Young workers in China producing goods for export to the U.S. are still stripped of their rights, forced to work grueling shifts, often under dangerous conditions for just pennies an hour, without benefits, while being housed in primitive company dorms. The extremely weak to non-existent record of labor law enforcement in China combined with the ban on independent unions leaves the workers in a trap with no exit. The system is broken and may even be getting worse with a recent escalation in repression against labor activists in China. How desperate the situation is can be summed up in the article's last line: "There is little that any Western company can do about those issues [labor rights violations], no matter how seriously they take corporate social responsibility--other than leaving China." Brutal exploitation and starvation wages will continue in China--and elsewhere--until Congress has the backbone to stand up for the middle class and working people and pass the "Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act" which for the first time will hold corporations legally accountable to respect all local labor laws in the countries where they produce and to adhere to UN/ILO internationally recognized worker rights standards--no child labor, no forced labor, and freedom of association and the right to organize independent unions. To all the agents of change out there: Our trade system is broken. The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act is a first step in the right direction to prohibit goods made by children or under brutal sweatshop conditions from entering or being sold in the U.S. You can read the NLC report, "A Wal-Mart Christmas, Brought to you by a Sweatshop in China, which is one of the main focuses of the New York Times article. You can also access the report via the NLC's website: www.nlcnet.org |