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<div dir="ltr"><ol><li><b><font size="3">Truthdiggers of the Week: Poverty Researchers </font></b></li><li><b><font size="3">David Sirota on Education and the Elite </font></b></li><li><h2 class="ReadMsgSubject"><font size="3">AFL-CIO Conference Honors Dr. King's Legacy</font></h2></li><li><b><font size="3"><a href="http://act.alternet.org/go/14869?akid=8120.16102.35iU4X&t=24" target="_blank" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; ">Wisconsin Rising: Grassroots Documentary Film Follows the People's Movement in Madison from Revolt to Recalls</a> </font></b></li><li><h3><font size="3"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/nyregion/in-state-of-the-city-speech-bloomberg-focuses-on-schools.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; ">Mayor Takes On Teachers' Union in School Plans</a> </font></h3></li><li><b><font size="3">Garment Worker Center is looking to hire an Organizing Coordinator - L.A.</font></b></li><li><b><font size="3">Moyers & Co.: How Washington and Big Business Colluded to Make the Rich Richer </font></b></li><li><b><font size="3">Bill Moyers: Lessons on Democracy From Woody Guthrie (Video) </font></b></li><li><h2 class="ReadMsgSubject"><font size="3">migration - a product of free market reforms </font></h2></li><li><h2 class="ReadMsgSubject"><font size="3">Two on Foxconn in China </font></h2></li></ol><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><span style="FLOAT: left" class="ecximgborder"><a href="http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=LphLwJxziALzkiG9HdfRWaQga5MZwwao" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="" src="http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/tdiggerpovertyresearchers_160.jpg" width="160" height="110"></a></span>
<strong>Truthdiggers of the Week: Poverty Researchers</strong><br>"<a href="http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=g/9lk4Vi/h4eTxi%2BKnGKM6Qga5MZwwao" target="_blank">Truthdiggers of the Week: Indiana University Poverty
Researchers</a>" -- Here’s a sobering dose of reality: Poverty in America has
risen to the 27% mark in the last half-decade, and perhaps worse, the prospects
for our nation’s poorest won’t necessarily get better as the economy picks up.
It’s not news many want to hear, but we’re glad a group of researchers at
Indiana University were gutsy enough to release it. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><strong>Indiana University Study: Millions of Americans to Be Driven Into
Poverty</strong><br>"<a href="http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ibQwKLYQE/bKI4UnRea406Qga5MZwwao" target="_blank">At Risk: America’s Poor During and After the Great Recession</a>"
-- This study by Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs
examines the impact of the Great Recession and its aftermath on poverty in
America. <br><br><br><br><br><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><span style="FLOAT: left" class="ecximgborder"><a href="http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2soijFhfMZmj6FPTL70Wn6Qga5MZwwao" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="" src="http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/6085668928_ba05ab426f-160.jpg" width="160" height="110"></a></span>
<strong>David Sirota on Education and the Elite</strong><br>"<a href="http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6HNKwlFMnsGc6J0HqEAEKKQga5MZwwao" target="_blank">Education Reformers Send Their Kids to Private School</a>" --
There really are “Two Americas,” as the saying goes—and that’s no accident.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in education—a realm in which this elite
physically separates itself from us mere serfs. <br><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr>
<td><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=qDU3I5dLM3VlxNy40gyf9oOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/banner_afl-cio_now_blog_626.jpg" width="626" height="71"></a></td></tr>
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<span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><b>Jan. 13,
2012</b></span></span><br>
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<td style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=R7b3ZvAg0JS0R9ZOQiikGoOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><img title="Texans greet Gov. Walker" border="0" alt="Texans greet Gov. Walker" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/protest-sign250.jpg"></a><br><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=yZ9cuIDy2HhucdY4VygyfoOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank">When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) traveled to Austin yesterday
for a right-wing roundup of Texas legislators, he was greeted by more than 125
people protesting his anti-worker
agenda</a>.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
<span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">More than
550 labor and civil rights activists and leaders are in Detroit this weekend to
honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the AFL-CIO’s annual Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference. The Jan.
12-16 observance serves as an opportunity to recommit to working toward King’s
cornerstone goals of economic and social justice.</span></span><br>
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<td height="24" valign="bottom"><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=KSQTWOYaXBNm64nIGdyTE4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Read More" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/read_more.gif"></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br>
<span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Got
comments? Post them at </span></span><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=7QqYvJKJivVo4da36PPdFYOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"></a><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=KO4y5D2qcELFVjvSuhRTKYOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><b>blog.aflcio.org</b></span></a><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">.</span></span><br>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=QNnNWyi7VR/%2Bd42Vak7CW4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>Texas
Protesters Greet Wisconsin’s Walker</strong></font></a></font></p>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=ypRwkuT2UuPXCQ2SwbEwD4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>Climate Change Battle Plan Must Include Workers, Communities,
Investors, Enviros</strong></font></a></font></p>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=1YQWM5ZjeXCWa%2B5IsDcHPYOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>In
Bastrop, Texas, a Union Member Steps Up </strong></font></a></font></p>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=gkt3qdFx7CZqKxJyAn/wM4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>N.H.
Workers Prepare for Attack of Zombie Bills</strong></font></a></font></p>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=DcaNOvcLb1nPsonVocNQG4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>White
House: Insource Jobs, Decrease Inequality</strong></font></a></font></p>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=KtGEqIMk2qBDweKaD%2BIpm4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>Hostess Bankruptcy Filing Hits 5,000 BCTGM
Members</strong></font></a></font></p>
<p align="left"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13px" color="navy" face="Arial"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/blog_arrow-blt.gif" width="16" height="12"> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=J/BqcL1jSxDeBIndTYiDU4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><font color="navy" face="Arial"><strong>Two
Years After Quake, Haitians Have Few Jobs or a Living
Wage</strong></font></a></font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=MgRXnKGYe/omElQxfIsSioOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><strong>Read more important
news</strong></span></a><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"> of the day on the
issues working families care about. </span></span></p>
<br>
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<nobr><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><strong>Follow the
AFL-CIO:</strong></span></span><strong><br></strong><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=3ZitWQ5nUVIWp4go/R8HLYOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><img title="Facebook" border="0" alt="Facebook" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/images/icon_24x24_facebook.jpg"></a> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=4d5Agv%2BTVzP70f6KmXRQK4Oac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><img title="Twitter" border="0" alt="Twitter" src="https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/images/icon_24x24_twitter.jpg"></a> <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=30I8Q7m5cwipxyQLervhjoOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><img title="Google+" border="0" alt="Google+" src="http://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4001/c/18/images/icon_24x24_googleplus.jpg"></a>
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<p align="center"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px"><em><nobr>Take the next step. Become a mobile
activist</nobr><br><nobr>by joining the AFL-CIO Rapid Action Text
Team.</nobr><br><nobr>Text <strong>NEWS</strong> to <strong>AFLCIO
(235246)</strong> to receive action alerts and more.</nobr><br>(Message and data
rates may
apply.)<br></em></span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p align="center"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 13px">To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our
website at <a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=yRhBM3w/eQKcWGwPYNCseoOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><b>www.aflcio.org</b></a>.</span></span></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: right"><a href="http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=yPhFWbPSCCvFdzwbNwuL/YOac/dKXxU4" target="_blank"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10px"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Click here to </span></span></a></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><table style="WIDTH: 415px" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr>
<td valign="top"><a href="http://act.alternet.org/go/14869?akid=8120.16102.35iU4X&t=23" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://images.alternet.org/images/managed/storyimages_1326402360_mayfield.jpg_640x853_95x68" width="112" height="81"></a></td>
<td><span style="COLOR: white">-</span></td>
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<p style="FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 16px" class="ecxheadline3"><a href="http://act.alternet.org/go/14869?akid=8120.16102.35iU4X&t=24" target="_blank">Wisconsin Rising: Grassroots Documentary Film Follows the People's
Movement in Madison from Revolt to Recalls</a></p>
<p style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666; FONT-SIZE: 12px">Sam
Mayfield is finishing a documentary on the fight for union rights in Wisconsin
this past year, and she tells AlterNet her story. <a style="letter-spacing: 0.1em; font-size: 9px; font-weight: bold; " class="ecxreadmore" href="http://act.alternet.org/go/14869?akid=8120.16102.35iU4X&t=25" target="_blank"><strong>READ MORE</strong></a> </p>
<p style="FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; COLOR: #4d4d4d; FONT-SIZE: 11px">By
Sarah Jaffe / AlterNet</p><p style="FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; COLOR: #4d4d4d; FONT-SIZE: 11px"><br></p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><h3 style="font-size: 14px; "><a style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/nyregion/in-state-of-the-city-speech-bloomberg-focuses-on-schools.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2" target="_blank">Mayor Takes On Teachers' Union in School Plans</a></h3>
<h6 style="FONT: 10px Arial,sans-serif; COLOR: #999">By DAVID W. CHEN and ANNA
M. PHILLIPS </h6>
<p style="font-size: 12px; ">In his State of the City address, the
mayor hit a nerve by proposing a merit-pay system for teachers and not shying
away from other controversial education topics.</p><p style="font-size: 12px; "><br></p></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div>Subject: Garment Worker Center is looking to hire an Organizing
Coordinator<br><br>
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<h1 style="FONT-SIZE: 24px"><a style="COLOR: #444444; TEXT-DECORATION: none" title="Garment Worker Center: [[campaign_name" href="http://garmentworkercenter.tikkl.com/?invid=f8af1d6d497f819cff54091dd6a6815ff041f3df" target="_blank">Garment Worker Center</a></h1>
<p style="FONT-STYLE: oblique"></p></td>
<td style="LINE-HEIGHT: 15px" valign="bottom" align="right">1250 S. Los Angeles St,
#213<br>Los Angeles, CA 90015<br>United States.<br><br>(213)
748-5866<br></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<h2 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; COLOR: #777777; FONT-SIZE: 18px; PADDING-TOP: 0px"></h2><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap; FONT-SIZE: medium"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 19px; FONT-FAMILY: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, clean, sans-serif; WHITE-SPACE: normal; COLOR: #4d4d4d; FONT-SIZE: 14px">Please
forward widely to your contacts in the social justice community in LA and across
the country - We are on the search for a great match for
GWC!</span></span></span><br><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap; FONT-SIZE: medium">**********************************************************************************************</span></span><br><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium">To our community supporters and broader social justice
family, </span></span></span><br><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap; FONT-SIZE: medium"><br></span></span><br><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium">GWC is seeking a passionate individual who is outraged
by the conditions of the industry. An individual who understands that building
an organization like this will have the power to transform the lives of tens of
thousands of people and potentially change the landscape of LA if
successful. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', serif; WHITE-SPACE: normal; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium">We are seeking an individual who is looking to this
location as a long-term commitment and fulfillment of their passions.
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap; FONT-SIZE: medium"><br></span></span><br><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', serif; WHITE-SPACE: normal; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium">GWC will continue to be an organization principally
led by a volunteer staff. We continue to have a strong group of volunteers (both
garment worker and non-garment worker) that keep rolling out GWC’s regular
activities and events with a broader layer of volunteer garment worker member
support. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap; FONT-SIZE: medium"><br></span></span><br><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman', serif; WHITE-SPACE: normal; FONT-SIZE: 16px"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium">We believe that with YOUR continuing support and your
assistance in publicizing our search for our Organizing Coordinator for our GWC
family, this model and transition will continue to move forward and gain
strength. We’re looking for folks committed to immigrant rights and low-wage
worker issues who are self-motivated, detail oriented and are interested in
working in an organization with a commitment to work towards participatory,
democratic, and nonhierarchical models of resistance.
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap; FONT-SIZE: medium"><br></span></span><br><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre-wrap"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: medium">For more details about this position, please see the
job description posted at this link </span></span></span><span class="ecxmacro"><a href="http://garmentworkercenter.tikkl.com/campaigns/orgcoord?invid=f8af1d6d497f819cff54091dd6a6815ff041f3df" target="_blank">Garment Worker Center is looking to hire an Organizing
Coordinator</a></span><br></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<td style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BACKGROUND: #222222; PADDING-TOP: 10px" valign="center">You are receiving this email because of your prior association
with Garment Worker Center or their affiliates. If you do not wish to receive
further communications from Garment Worker Center, please <a href="http://www.tikkl.com/invitations/f8af1d6d497f819cff54091dd6a6815ff041f3df/unsubscribe" target="_blank">click here</a> to be removed instantly. <br>Garment Worker Center
1250 S. Los Angeles St, #213, Los Angeles, CA 90015, United States.
<br>Campaigns Powered by <a href="http://www.tikkl.com/" target="_blank">Tikkl</a>. <br></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Moyers & Co.: How Washington and Big Business Colluded to Make
the Rich Richer</strong><br>Moyers & Co., Programming Announcement:
"This weekend Bill Moyers returns to television with Moyers & Company. In
his first show, Bill explores how Washington made the rich richer at the expense
of the middle class. On Friday, the premiere episode of Moyers & Company,
Bill's guests - Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, authors of Winner-Take-All
Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the
Middle Class, argue that America's vast inequality is no accident, but in fact
has been politically engineered." <br><a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SYmH1HbCSkJIdNQhHya8C08ffW3zpwYO" target="_blank"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br></div><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Bill Moyers: Lessons on Democracy From Woody Guthrie
(Video)</strong><br>Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: "With a
center being built in Tulsa devoted to the work of Woody Guthrie, Bill looks
back at the singer-songwriter's life and work, finding many points of irony and
relevance given the current state of our economy and democracy. Is this land
truly made for you and me? In this visual and musical journey, Bill asks the
question, and puts forth a sobering answer." <br><a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YKq%2BoRe8E8CnomTPLpC8KU8ffW3zpwYO" target="_blank"><font color="#cc0000">Watch the Video</font></a> <br><br></div><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><div><font color="#000000">Migration: A Product of Free Market Reforms<br>By David
Bacon<br>Americas Program website, Posted on:
12/01/2012<br>http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6038<br><br><br>Editor's Note:
This is the first installment of a three-part series on migrant rights by
journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. This article is taken from the
report "Displaced, Unequal and Criminalized - Fighting for the Rights of
Migrants in the United States" that examines the origins of the current
migratory labor phenomenon, the mechanisms that maintain it, and proposals for a
more equitable system. The Americas Program is proud to publish this series in
collaboration with the author.<br><br><br>A political alliance is developing
between countries with a labor export policy and the corporations who use that
labor in the global north. Many countries sending migrants to the developed
world depend on remittances to finance social services and keep the lid on
social discontent over poverty and joblessness, while continuing to make huge
debt payments. Corporations using that displaced labor share a growing interest
with those countries' governments in regulating the system that supplies
it.<br><br>Increasingly, the mechanisms for regulating that flow of people are
contract labor programs-called "guest worker" or "temporary worker" programs in
the U.S., or "managed migration" in the UK and much of the EU. With or without
these programs, migration to the U.S. and other industrial countries is a fact
of life. Despite often using rhetoric that demonizes immigrants, the U.S.
Congress is not debating the means for ending migration. Nothing can, short of a
radical reordering of the world's economy.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><img src=""></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca, Mexico -- Zacarias
Salazar plows a cornfield with an ox.</i><br><br>Nor are the current waves of
immigration raids and deportations in the U.S. intended to halt it. In an
economy in which immigrant labor plays a critical part, the price of stopping
migration would be economic crisis. The intent of immigration policy is managing
the flow of people, determining their status here in the U.S., in the interest
of those who put that labor to work.<br><br>Migrants are human beings first
however, and their desire for community is as strong as the need to labor. The
use of neoliberal reforms and economic treaties to displace communities, to
produce a global army of available and vulnerable workers, has a brutal impact.
Existing and proposed free trade agreements between the U.S. and Mexico, Canada,
Central America, Peru, Colombia, Panama, South Korea, and Jordan not only do not
stop the economic transformations that uproot families and throw them into the
migrant stream-they push that whole process forward.<br><br>On a world scale,
the migratory flow caused by displacement is still generally self-initiated. In
other words, while people may be driven by forces beyond their control, they
move at their own will and discretion, trying to find survival and economic
opportunity, and to reunite their families and create new communities in the
countries they now call home. But the idea of managing the flow of migration is
growing.<br><br>It is the contention of this paper that these global economic
forces are driving the development of U.S. immigration policy. Increasingly, the
political fault lines that divide the U.S. immigrant rights movement are
determined by decisions to either support this general trend in policy, and its
political representatives in Washington DC, or to oppose it and create a social
movement for equality and rights based in the communities of migrants
themselves.<br><br>The development of a labor supply and labor management system
to govern the flow of migrants, that is, of people, requires increasingly
ferocious enforcement. With the criminalization of work for undocumented
migrants a quarter century ago, along with the resurrection of a contract labor
program for migrants, in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the
parameters were set for the debates over immigration policy that continue to the
present. Today immigration raids and enforcement actions, harsh and racist
legislation, and the hysteria that comes with all this, are sweeping our
country. Today's migrants have become needed low-wage labor and criminals at the
same time.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>This paper will outline first the global economic
forces driving displacement and migration, and their impact on communities. It
will then outline the basic structure and purpose of U.S. immigration policy,
and the basic proposals for changing it. It will examine the division between
mainstream, Washington DC-based supporters of corporate immigration reform and
community- and labor-based groups who call for an alternative, and finally it
will outline their proposals for an alternative based on human and labor
rights.<br><br>We begin with the examination of one particular stream of
migrants, of indigenous people from Oaxaca, both because their experience is
similar to others, but also because organizations in the communities involved
have articulated a sophisticated analysis of the system in which they
move.<br><br><br>Where the Flow of People Begins<br><br>Rufino Domínguez, the
former coordinator of the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations, who now
heads the Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, estimates there are about
500,000 indigenous people from Oaxaca living in the U.S., 300,000 in California
alone.<br><br>According to Rick Mines, author of the 2010 Indigenous Farm Worker
Study, "the total population of California's indigenous Mexican farm workers is
about 120,000 Š a total of 165,000 indigenous farm workers and family members in
California." Counting the many indigenous people living and working in urban
areas, the total is considerably higher, he says, easily meeting Domínguez'
estimate.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><img src=""></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>Monterrey, Mexico -- La Alianza barrio, a community
of displaced people, who work in maquiladoras.</i></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>The study counted 54,000 people who had emigrated
from 350 Oaxacan towns, or about 150 per town. Given the size of many small
communities, this supports the widespread assertion of many indigenous Oaxacans
that some towns have become depopulated, or are communities of the very old and
very young, where most working-age people have left to work in the
north.<br><br>"In the early 1990s there were about 35,000 indigenous farm
workers in California," Mines says, "while in the 2004 to 2008 period there were
about four times as many, or 120,000 indigenous Mexican farm workers." In
addition, indigenous people made up 7% of Mexican migrants in 1991-3, the years
just before the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2006-8
they made up 29% - four times more.<br><br>California has a farm labor force of
about 700,000 workers, so the day is not far off when indigenous Oaxacan
migrants may make up a majority. They are truly the workforce that has been
produced by NAFTA and the neoliberal changes in the global economy. Further,
"the U.S. food system has long been dependent on the influx of an ever-changing,
newly-arrived group of workers that sets the wages and working conditions at the
entry level in the farm labor market," Mines says. The rock-bottom wages paid to
this most recent wave of migrants - Oaxaca's indigenous people - sets the wage
floor for all the other workers in California farm labor, keeping the labor cost
of California growers low, and their profits high.<br><br>Economic crises
provoked by the North American Free Trade Agreement and other economic reforms
are now uprooting and displacing these Mexicans in the country's most remote
areas, where people still speak languages that were old when Columbus arrived
from Spain. While farm workers 20 and 30 years ago came from parts of central
Mexico with a larger Spanish presence, migrants today come increasingly from
indigenous communities. "There are no jobs, and NAFTA forced the price of corn
so low that it's not economically possible to plant a crop anymore," Dominguez
says. "We come to the U.S. to work because we can't get a price for our product
at home. There's no alternative."<br><br>As he points out, U.S. trade and
immigration policy are linked together. They are part of a single system, not
separate and independent policies. The negotiation of the North American Free
Trade Agreement was in fact an important step in the development of this
relationship.<br><br>Since NAFTA's passage in 1993, the U.S. Congress has
debated and passed several new trade agreements - with Peru, Jordan, Chile, and
the Central American Free Trade Agreement. At the same time it has debated
immigration policy as though those trade agreements bore no relationship to the
waves of displaced people migrating to the U.S., looking for work. Meanwhile, a
rising tide of anti-immigrant hysteria has increasingly demonized those
migrants, leading to measures to deny them jobs, rights, or any pretense of
equality with people living in the communities around them. To resolve any of
these dilemmas, from adopting rational and humane immigration policies to
reducing the fear and hostility towards migrants, the starting point must be an
examination of the way U.S. policies have both produced migration, and
criminalized migrants.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br><br>The Immigration Reform and Control Act and
NAFTA<br><br>Trade negotiations and immigration policy were formally joined
together when Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in
1986. Immigrant rights activists campaigned against the law because it contained
employer sanctions, prohibiting employers for the first time on a federal level
from hiring undocumented workers. Those advocates said the proposal amounted to
criminalizing work for the undocumented. IRCA's liberal defenders pointed to its
amnesty provision as a gain that justified sanctions, and the bill eventually
did enable over 4 million people living in the U.S. without immigration
documents to gain permanent residence. Showing the broad bipartisan consensus
for the bill's approach to immigration in Washington DC, the bill was signed
into law by Ronald Reagan, a Republican and the country's most conservative
president up to that time.<br><br>Few noted one other provision of the law. IRCA
set up a Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative
Economic Development to study the causes of immigration to the U.S. The
commission was inactive until 1988, but began holding hearings when the U.S. and
Canada signed a bilateral free trade agreement. After Mexican President Carlos
Salinas de Gortari made it plain he favored a similar agreement with Mexico, the
commission made a report to President George Bush Sr. and to Congress in 1990.
It found, unsurprisingly, that the main motivation for coming to the U.S. was
economic. To slow or halt this flow, it recommended "promoting greater economic
integration between the migrant sending countries and the United States through
free trade" and that "U. S. economic policy should promote a system of open
trade." It concluded that "the United States should expedite the development of
a U.S.-Mexico free trade area and encourage its incorporation with Canada into a
North American free trade area," while warning that "it takes many years - even
generations - for sustained growth to achieve the desired effect."</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><img src=""></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>Postville, Iowa - Maria Rosala Mejia Marroquin, a
Guatemalan immigrant, was arrested in an immigration raid at the Agriprocessors
meatpacking plant in Postville. She was released to care for her child, but had
to wear an ankle bracelet to monitor her movements. She could not work or
travel, and was eventually deported.</i><br><br>The negotiations that led to
NAFTA started within months of the report. As Congress debated the treaty,
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari toured the United States, telling
audiences unhappy at high levels of immigration that passing NAFTA would reduce
it by providing employment for Mexicans in Mexico. Back home Salinas and other
treaty proponents made the same argument. NAFTA, they claimed, would set Mexico
on a course to become a first-world nation. "We did become part of the first
world," says Juan Manuel Sandoval, coordinator of the Permanent Seminario on
Chicano and Border Studies at Mexico City's National Institute of Anthropology
and History. "The back yard."<br><br>NAFTA, however, did not lead to rising
incomes and employment, and therefore, it did not decrease the flow of migrants
to the U.S. Instead, it became an important source of pressure on Mexicans,
particularly Oaxacans, to migrate. The treaty forced yellow corn grown by
Mexican farmers without subsidies to compete in Mexico's own market with corn
from huge U.S. producers, subsidized by the U.S. farm bill. Agricultural exports
to Mexico more than doubled during the NAFTA years, from $4.6 to $9.8 billion
annually - $2.5 billion in 2006 in corn alone. In January and February of 2008,
huge demonstrations in Mexico sought to block the implementation of the
agreement's final chapter, which lowered the tariff barriers on white corn and
beans.<br><br>As a result of a growing crisis in agricultural production, by the
1980s Mexico had already become a corn importer. Corn imports rose from
2,014,000 to 10,330,000 tons from 1992 to 2008. According to Alejandro Ramírez,
general director of the Confederation of Mexican Pork Producers, Mexico imported
30,000 tons of pork in 1995, the year NAFTA took effect. By 2010 pork imports,
almost all from the U.S., had grown over 25 times, to 811, 000 tons. As a
result, pork prices received by Mexican producers dropped 56%.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>Imports had a dramatic effect on Mexican jobs. "We
lost 4000 pig farms," Alejandro Ramírez estimates. "On Mexican farms, each 100
animals produce 5 jobs, so we lost 20,000 farm jobs directly from imports.
Counting the 5 indirect jobs dependent on each direct job, we lost over 120,000
jobs in total. This produces migration to the U.S. or to Mexican cities - a big
problem for our country." Once Mexican meat and corn producers were driven from
the market by imports, the Mexican economy was left vulnerable to price changes
dictated by U.S. agribusiness or U.S. policy. "When the U.S. modified its corn
policy to encourage ethanol production," he charges, "corn prices jumped 100% in
one year."<br><br>NAFTA then prohibited price supports, without which hundreds
of thousands of small farmers found it impossible to sell corn or other farm
products for what it cost to produce them. The CONASUPO system, in which the
Mexican government bought corn at subsidized prices, turned it into tortillas
and sold them in state-franchised grocery stores at subsidized low prices, was
abolished.<br><br>Mexico couldn't protect its own agriculture from the
fluctuations of the world market. A global coffee glut in the 1990s plunged
prices below the cost of production. A less entrapped government might have
bought the crops of Veracruz farmers to keep them afloat, or provided subsidies
for other crops. But once free market structures were in place prohibiting
government intervention to help them, those farmers paid the price. Veracruz
campesinos joined the stream of workers headed north. There they became an
important part of the workforce in the Smithfield pork processing plant in North
Carolina, as well as in other industries.<br><br>U.S. companies were allowed to
own land and factories, eventually anywhere in Mexico, without Mexican partners.
U.S.-based Union Pacific, in partnership with the Larrea family, became the
owner of the country's main north-south rail line, and immediately discontinued
virtually all passenger service, as railroad corporations had done in the US.
Mexican rail employment dropped from over 90,000 to 36,000. Facing
privatization, railroad workers mounted a wildcat strike to try to save their
jobs, but they lost and their union became a shadow of its former presence in
Mexican politics.<br><br>Slashing wages in privatized enterprises and gutting
union agreements only increased the wage differential between the U.S. and
Mexico. According to Garrett Brown of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Network,
the average Mexican wage was 23% of the U.S. manufacturing wage in 1975. By 2002
it was less than an eighth, according to Mexican economist, and former Senator
Rosa Albina Garabito. Brown says that since NAFTA went into effect, real Mexican
wages dropped by 22%, while worker productivity increased 45%.<br><br>Low wages
are the magnet used to attract US and other foreign investors. In mid-June,
2006, Ford Corporation, already one of Mexico's largest employers, announced it
would invest $9 billion more in building new factories. Meanwhile, Ford said it
was closing at least 14 US plants, eliminating the jobs of tens of thousands of
U.S. workers. Both moves were part of the company's strategic plan to stem
losses by cutting labor costs drastically and moving production. When General
Motors was bailed out by the U.S. government in the current recession, it closed
a dozen U.S. plants and laid off tens of thousands of workers. Its plans for
building new plants in Mexico went forward without any hindrance.<br><br>In
NAFTA's first year, 1994, one million Mexicans lost their jobs, by the
government's count, when the peso was devalued. To avert the sell off of
short-term bonds and a flood of capital to the north. U.S. Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin engineered a $20 billion loan to Mexico, which was paid to
bondholders, mostly US banks. In return, U.S. and British banks gained control
of the country's financial system. Mexico had to pledge its oil revenue to pay
off foreign debt, making the country's primary source of income unavailable for
social needs.<br><br>As the Mexican economy, especially the border maquiladora
industry, became increasingly tied to the U.S. market, Mexican workers lost jobs
when the market for what those factories produced shrank during U.S. recessions.
In 2000-2001 400,000 jobs were lost on the U.S./Mexico border, and in the
current recession, thousands more have been eliminated.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br><br>Displacement - A Product of Free Market
Reforms<br><br>All of these policies produced displaced people, who could no
longer make a living or survive as they'd done before. The rosy predictions of
NAFTA's boosters that it would raise income and slow migration proved false. The
World Bank, in a 2005 study made for the Mexican government, found that the
extreme rural poverty rate of 35% in 1992-4, prior to NAFTA, jumped to 55% in
1996-8, after NAFTA took effect. This could be explained, the report said,
"mainly by the 1995 economic crisis, the sluggish performance of agriculture,
stagnant rural wages, and falling real agricultural prices."<br><br>By 2010 53
million Mexicans were living in poverty, according to the Monterrey Institute of
Technology - half the country's population. About 20% live in extreme poverty,
almost all in rural areas. The growth of poverty, in turn, fueled migration. In
1990 4.5 million Mexican-born people lived in the U.S. A decade later, that
population more than doubled to 9.75 million, and in 2008 it peaked at 12.67
million. About 11% of all Mexicans now live in the U.S. About 5.7 million were
able to get some kind of visa, but another 7 million couldn't, and came
nevertheless.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><img src=""></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico -- A boy jumps over a
polluted canal on his way to cross the border.</i></font><br></div>
<div><font color="#000000">People were migrating from Mexico to the U.S. long
before NAFTA was negotiated. Juan Manuel Sandoval emphasizes that "Mexican labor
has always been linked to the different stages of U.S. capitalist development
since the 19th century - in times of prosperity, by the incorporation of big
numbers of workers in agricultural, manufacturing, service and other sectors,
and in periods of economic crisis, by the deportation of Mexican laborers back
to Mexico in huge numbers." The current wave of deportations - one million
people in the last two years - bears him out.</font><br></div>
<div><font color="#000000">From 1982 through the NAFTA era, successive economic
reforms produced more migrants. The displacement of people had already grown so
large by 1986 that the commission established by IRCA was charged with
recommending measures to halt or slow it.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>Its report urged that "migrant-sending countries
should encourage technological modernization by strengthening and assuring
intellectual property protection and by removing existing impediments to
investment" and recommended that "the United States should condition bilateral
aid to sending countries on their taking the necessary steps toward structural
adjustment. Similarly, U.S. support for non-project lending by the international
financial institutions should be based on the implementation of satisfactory
adjustment programs." The IRCA commission report even acknowledged the potential
for harm by noting "efforts should be made to ease transitional costs in human
suffering."<br><br>The North American Free Trade Agreement, however, was not
intended to relieve human suffering. In 1994, the year the treaty took effect,
U.S. speculators began selling off Mexican government bonds. According to Jeff
Faux, founding director of the Economic Policy Institute, "the peso crash of
December, 1994, was directly connected to NAFTA, which had created a speculative
bubble for Mexican assets that then collapsed when the speculators cashed
in."<br><br>"It is the financial crashes and the economic disasters that drive
people to work for dollars in the U.S., to replace life savings, or just to earn
enough to keep their family at home together," says Harvard historian John
Womack. "The debt-induced crash in the 1980s, before NAFTA, drove people
northŠThe financial crash and the Rubin-induced reform of NAFTA, New York's
financial expropriation of Mexican finances between 1995 and 2000, drove the
economically wrecked, dispossessed and impoverished north again."<br><br>The
U.S. immigration debate has no vocabulary that describes what happens to
migrants before they cross borders - the factors that force them into motion. In
the U.S. political debate, Veracruz's uprooted coffee pickers or unemployed
workers from Mexico City are called immigrants, because that debate doesn't
recognize their existence before they leave Mexico. It would be more accurate to
call them migrants, and the process migration, since that takes into account
both people's communities of origin and those where they travel to find
work.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>Displacement itself becomes an unmentionable word
in the Washington discourse. Not one immigration proposal in Congress in the
quarter century since IRCA was passed tried to come to grips with the policies
that uprooted miners, teachers, tree planters and farmers, in spite of the fact
that Congress members voted for these policies. In fact, while debating bills to
criminalize undocumented migrants and set up huge guest worker programs, four
new trade agreements were introduced, each of which would cause more
displacement and more migration.<br><br><br><i>David Bacon is a writer and
photojournalist based in Oakland and Berkeley, California. He has been a
reporter and documentary photographer for 18 years, shooting for many national
publications. He has exhibited his work nationally, and in Mexico, the UK and
Germany. Bacon covers issues of labor, immigration and international politics
and is an associate editor at Pacific News Service and a regular contributor to
the Americas Program.</i></font><br></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><i>The report "Displaced, Unequal and Criminalized -
Fighting for the Rights of Migrants in the United States" was prepared for the
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.</i></font><br></div>
<hr>
<div><font color="#000000">For more articles and images, see
http://dbacon.igc.org</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates
Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of
2007-2008</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration
to the US</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR
Press, 2006)</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the
U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html</font></div><pre>--
</pre>
<div>__________________________________<br><br>David Bacon, Photographs and
Stories<br>http://dbacon.igc.org<br><br></div></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre>Two on Foxconn in China<br> <br>Apple Opens Partners' Doors to Labor Group, Lists<br>Suppliers<br> <br>By Stanley James and Adam Satariano - Jan 13, 2012<br> <br><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-13/apple-opens-suppliers-doors-to-labor-group-after-foxconn-worker-suicides.html" target="_blank">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-13/apple-opens-suppliers-doors-to-labor-group-after-foxconn-worker-suicides.html</a><br> <br>Apple Inc. (APPL) agreed to let outside monitors into<br>factories of partners, such as Foxconn Technology Group<br>(2317), and listed suppliers for the first time to<br>counter criticism about conditions of workers making<br>its gadgets.<br> <br>The iPhone maker becomes the first technology company<br>to join the Fair Labor Association. The<br>Washington-based FLA was set up in 1999 to monitor<br>workplace environments globally in an initiative by<br>former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and its<br>participants include Nike Inc. (NKE) and Nestle SA.<br>(NESN) Apple also released its annual suppliers' audit<br>yesterday.<br> <br>Apple's affiliation with the FLA highlights the risk to<br>multinational companies' brands due to difficulties in<br>policing suppliers as they outsource manufacturing to<br>cut costs. Nike became a founding member of the<br>association after reports of low pay, abuses and poor<br>conditions at sportswear factories in Asia sparked<br>boycotts and protests in the 1990s.<br> <br>"Most big corporations have their 'Nike moment' at some<br>stage -- when they realize the difficulties of<br>maintaining their standards, particularly in an<br>increasingly global environment," FLA President Auret<br>van Heerden said. "The problem with the supply chain is<br>that it's a moving target."<br> <br>The move by Cupertino, California-based Apple will<br>intensify scrutiny of its suppliers, including<br>Seoul-based Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and<br>Inchon, South Korea-based Hynix Semiconductor Inc.<br>(000660) The FLA makes unannounced checks on about 5<br>percent of its members' supply chains each year,<br>according to Van Heerden. Underage Labor<br> <br>Apple released a list of 156 companies that represent<br>97 percent of procurement costs, along with its annual<br>report on factories where the iPhone, iPad and other<br>products are made.<br> <br>In the course of the 229 audits, Apple said it<br>discovered several violations, including instances of<br>underage labor at five facilities. Apple said it<br>required the suppliers to support the young workers to<br>return to school and to improve their management<br>systems to add age-verification procedures. Apple also<br>said it found instances of involuntary labor and<br>stopped working with one of suppliers involved.<br> <br>Apple also discovered at least 90 factories with<br>records showing workers were exceeding its maximum of<br>60 hours a week and at least one day of rest per seven<br>days of work. The company found violations of<br>anti-discrimination rules for workers who were pregnant<br>or had hepatitis B. Apple said it made the suppliers<br>end the discriminatory screenings.<br> <br>Van Heerden, of the FLA, said growing scrutiny of<br>global companies by investors and consumers means they<br>are more likely to insist suppliers introduce best<br>practices in countries where governments are unable or<br>unwilling to do so.<br> <br>"If you're a 16-year-old girl in a developing country,<br>your best chance of enjoying proper rights is if you<br>get to work at a multinational," he said. "The power of<br>their contract is more powerful than the power of law."<br>Foxconn Scrutiny<br> <br>Apple's biggest supplier, Taiwan's Foxconn, has been a<br>subject of scrutiny after at least 12 workers have<br>committed suicide at its plants in China. Three died<br>last year and more than 70 were hurt in blasts at two<br>iPad facilities, one of which was also owned by<br>Foxconn. In response to pressure from Apple and the<br>media, Foxconn more than doubled wages in 2010 for some<br>workers in China and employed counselors.<br> <br>Apple will now subject itself and its suppliers to the<br>FLA's membership criteria, including submitting to<br>audits and enforcing a code of conduct based on<br>standards approved by the United Nations' International<br>Labor Organization.<br> <br>Taipei-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (2317),<br>Foxconn's flagship listed unit, gets 22 percent of its<br>revenue from Apple, data compiled by Bloomberg show.<br>Pegatron Corp. (4938) earns 16 percent of sales from<br>the U.S. company. Hong Kong Demonstrations<br> <br>Efforts to improve conditions have failed to appease<br>some activists and labor groups. Demonstrators at the<br>September opening of Apple's flagship store in Hong<br>Kong called on the company to protect workers' rights.<br>China Labor Watch last month said the explosion at<br>Foxconn's plant in May and another on Dec. 17 at a<br>factory owned by Taipei-based Pegatron were caused by<br>ignition of aluminum dust produced by polishing iPad<br>cases.<br> <br>Independent monitoring isn't the panacea to problems in<br>China's factories, said Geoffrey Crothall,<br>communications director of workers-rights group China<br>Labour Bulletin.<br> <br>"The problem isn't whether or not they do audits, but<br>whether workers are treated in a reasonable manner," he<br>said. "What the workers need is an effective voice in<br>the workplace." Brand Value<br> <br>Apple is more vulnerable than most to damage to its<br>reputation, according to an annual ranking compiled by<br>Interbrand. The brand was valued at $33.5 billion last<br>year, the eighth-highest in the world and up from 17th<br>place in 2010, according to the index.<br> <br>The company's affiliation to the FLA marks a further<br>broadening of oversight for the agency. The association<br>was formed in 1999, primarily by the apparel industry,<br>after Clinton challenged companies and pressure groups<br>to address rising complaints about standards at<br>factories operating overseas, according to its website.<br> <br>Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike, the world's largest<br>sportswear maker, was a founding member. Adidas Group<br>(ADS), Hennes & Mauritz AB and Juicy Couture owner Liz<br>Claiborne Inc. (LIZ) are among 33 participating<br>companies.<br> <br>Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta AG, the world's<br>largest maker of agricultural chemicals, sought the<br>FLA's help in 2004 to address concerns over child labor<br>and working conditions on Indian cottonseed farms.<br>Nestle, based in Vevey, Switzerland, in November<br>commissioned the agency to assess the use of child<br>labor and conditions at West African producers of cocoa<br>used in its products such as KitKat and Quality Street<br>candies.<br> <br>Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said this week that a protest on<br>Jan. 4 by 150 workers at a Foxconn factory in southern<br>China wasn't related to working conditions and the<br>majority of employees who took part had returned to<br>work. Some had threatened to jump from the roof of a<br>factory building, the Daily Telegraph reported, citing<br>an unidentified person said to have participated in the<br>action.<br> <br>Forty-five of the 150 workers, who were protesting<br>against a plan to transfer them to another business<br>unit, resigned, according to a Foxconn statement.<br> <br>To contact the reporters on this story: Stanley James<br>in Hong Kong at sjames8@bloomberg.net; Adam Satariano<br>in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net<br> <br> <br> <br>Foxconn Resolves a Dispute With Some Workers in China <br> <br>By DAVID BARBOZA<br> <br>January 12, 2012<br> <br><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/technology/foxconn-resolves-pay-dispute-with-workers.html" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/technology/foxconn-resolves-pay-dispute-with-workers.html</a><br> <br>SHANGHAI -- Foxconn Technology, a major supplier to<br>several electronics giants, said on Thursday that it<br>had resolved a pay dispute with scores of workers at<br>one of its factories in central China after a large<br>protest that involved threats from some workers to<br>commit suicide.<br> <br>The company, the largest contract electronics<br>manufacturer in the world, whose clients include Apple,<br>Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, said the dispute last<br>week had been resolved successfully and peacefully but<br>that 45 workers had resigned.<br> <br>In a statement released on Thursday, Foxconn said most<br>of the protesting workers had agreed to return to work<br>after negotiations with the company and local<br>government officials. Details of the agreement were not<br>released, but one of the workers said they had been<br>promised additional compensation.<br> <br>Foxconn said the protest had involved about 150 of the<br>32,000 employees at its campus in the city of Wuhan. It<br>was the latest incident in a long-running series of<br>labor troubles at the company, which supplies popular<br>goods like the Apple iPhone, the Amazon Kindle and the<br>Microsoft Xbox.<br> <br>In 2010, there was a wave of suicides by distraught<br>workers at several of Foxconn's Chinese sites. The<br>company, which is controlled by Hon Hai Hai Precision<br>Industry of Taiwan, has been accused of forcing workers<br>to endure long hours and harsh working conditions for<br>little pay.<br> <br>Under pressure from Apple and other major brands,<br>Foxconn has pledged to improve working conditions in<br>China, and the company has hired psychiatrists to<br>counsel workers.<br> <br>The company has also begun a huge program to invest in<br>robots and to move some of its production to the<br>central and western parts of China, where labor is less<br>costly and more abundant. The company says the new<br>locations also allow migrant workers to live closer to<br>their hometowns.<br> <br>But while working conditions at Foxconn and other<br>exporters in China may be slowly improving, the demands<br>of workers seem to be rising more rapidly.<br> <br>There has been a rash of strikes and labor protests<br>across the country in recent months, partly in response<br>to inflation and a greater awareness of the labor laws.<br>The strikes, which sometimes involve thousands of<br>workers, often include demands for higher pay,<br>insurance and better working conditions.<br> <br>In Wuhan, some of the workers who protested said they<br>were angry about being forced to move from Foxconn's<br>biggest campus, in the southern Chinese city of<br>Shenzhen, to Wuhan.<br> <br>One worker who participated in the Wuhan protest said<br>by telephone that employees shifted to Wuhan had been<br>promised about $450 a month in salary, including<br>overtime pay, but that they had been given about a<br>third less than that and that working conditions in<br>Wuhan were much more difficult.<br> <br>The worker, who asked not to be identified for fear of<br>being punished by Foxconn, said more than 100 workers<br>had decided to protest on the roof of a three-story<br>building on the campus. The protest lasted more than<br>eight hours.<br> <br>Several threatened to commit suicide if their demands<br>were not met, he said. "That day was very cold," he<br>said. "Some women could not stand the freezing<br>temperatures and fainted."<br> <br>In a statement released on Thursday, Foxconn said: "The<br>welfare of our employees is our top priority, and we<br>are committed to ensuring that all employees are<br>treated fairly and that their rights are fully<br>protected."<br> <br>Gu Huini contributed research.<br></pre><pre><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font size="2">Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U. S. 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