The world’s greatest games are about to begin in London. But outside the sporting spectacle this summer, few will notice where the real cheating is going on: in Asian factories that churn out plush mascots and other Olympiad gear, corporations have freely exploited lax labor regulations. As the Olympics approach, activists are racing to push the brands behind the games to play by the rules of fair trade and human rights.

Trying to avoid an instant replay of London’s age of imperialism, the Play Fair 2012 campaign aims for accountability and transparency in the corporations scoring massive profits from cheap labor in the global south.

The campaign got a boost recently when organizers of the London Games agreed to take measures to uphold labor standards in the supply chain for Olympic paraphernalia. The agreement came in response to pressure from unions and other activist groups, who published a scathing report on the industry that churns out piles of fluffy “Wenlock and Mandeville” mascots, badges, keychains and other Olympic swag. The report, which investigated two Chinese factories producing London-2012 gear, depicts a global sweatshop on steroids:

as the demand for consumer merchandise mounts in the build up to the Olympics, workers must work excessively long hours of overtime, for very little pay, in often dangerous and exhausting working environments, with employers showing little regard for internationally recognised labour standards or national laws. Read the rest of this entry →

Anti-Foxconn protest in Hong Kong (iworld.com.my)

Cross-posted from In These Times.

Apple’s trademark is the intuitive elegance of its designs. Yet when it comes corporate and labor practices, Apple’s track record looks like a morass of obfuscation and murky public-relations smokscreens. So activists seeking a more user-friendly Apple on the human rights front should welcome the company’s new “Supplier Responsibility” report.

But the results of 229 documented audits display the troubling gap between its slick modern ethos and grim working conditions in its supply chain. Reuters reports:

The audit found a number of violations, among them breaches in pay, benefits and environmental practices in plants in China, which figured prominently throughout the 500-page report Apple issued. Other violations found in the audit included dumping wastewater onto a neighboring farm, using machines without safeguards, testing workers for pregnancy and falsifying pay records.

The “Supplier responsibility progress report” also found that “67 facilities had docked worker pay as a disciplinary measure.” The company states it is continually working to deal with violations of overtime and child labor.

The report’s admission of several cases of underage workers at some component suppliers bolsters the anecdotal evidence presented dramatically in “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” in which performer Mike Daisey recalls encountering underage workers at an Apple supplier facility in Shenzhen.

Apple has come under fire over its connection to Foxconn, a Taiwan-based manufacturer that employs tens of thousands in  fortress-like facilities–a crucial part of the supply chain for iPhones and other high-profile products. These workers are typically young migrants from more rural areas, who are willing to brave long hours and paltry wages in mechanical, hyper-efficient assembly lines.

But something cracked in 2010, and a series of harrowing suicides–workers flinging themselves from buildings–got consumers around the world talking about whether their gadget obsession was complicit in pushing workers to the brink. Read the rest of this entry →

Wukan protests (Image via Chinahush.com)

Cross-posted from In These Times.

China is no longer a sleeping giant. The past few months have seen riots, strikes, and peasant clashes with police. If you lay out all these incidents on a map, you get more than a random data cloud; you see a slow seismic shift in a society of contrasts, where boundaries of class and power are being constantly redrawn.

The most high-profile uprising of recent weeks is the revolt in the Guangdong village of Wukan. Peasants began protesting to defend their land rights, accusing officials of handing over land to developers and bilking farmers out of millions of dollars worth of real estate.

By December, as with many land-rights struggles in the Global South, direct action was apparently the only leverage villagers had to push back against the local government. The death of a leading protester in police custody catalyzed their outrage, and after driving out local officials, the activists launched an ad-hoc self-governing occupation. Read the rest of this entry →

If you believe the hype about living in the “Pacific Century,” then the new millennium is bound to be a pretty rowdy one.

A few days ago about 1,000 workers in the heart of China’s manufacturing belt walked off the job at the Taiwan-owned Jingmo Electronics Corporation, saying they were tired of being cheated by overtime pay. Around the same time in the Guangdong boomtown known as Dongguan, thousands of shoe factory workers protested over overtime pay and marched with their grievances to a local government office.

This may seem like a reprise of the powerful 2010 strike wave that rippled through big-name manufacturing plants, including Toyota and Honda. Last year, workers’ newfound militancy yielded some significant gains—mainly in the form of pay hikes and other concessions. But whether they’ll be able to wrest a fairer paycheck from the management this time around hinges not so much on workers’ will, as on the global economic house of cards that’s getting rocked by countless factors that the labor force can’t control. Though concessions could be coming down the pipeline for some workers, in the backdrop is an alarming slowdown in China’s exports, which drive the country’s development and stuff consumers in rich countries with an endless stream of cheap goods.

November brought news of a a sharp drop in exports to Europe, coinciding with a burgeoning financial crisis in the Eurozone, as well as premonitions that China’s housing market might soon start to go pop.

According to the watchdog organization China Labour Bulletin, the state has worked with the companies to squelch protests, and even management staff is feeling the pain:

Photographs posted online showed large numbers of police on the street and bloodied workers who claimed to have been beaten by the police. Several other workers had reportedly been detained. Read the rest of this entry →

National Union of Mineworkers protest (libcom.org)

Cross-posted from In These Times
 

As thousands take to the streets to protest global corporate domination, the power struggles just below the earth’s surface remain outside the media spotlight. But over the past few weeks, turmoil in the mining industry has also spoken to the divide between the corporate elite and the impoverished multitudes–a faultline running through communities mired in poverty but rich in resources.

Papua’s gold battleground

In Papua, Indonesia, the American gold and copper giant Freeport McMoRan
had to shut down a facility on Monday after protesting workers set up roadblocks. The standoff at Grasberg followed a recent deadly clash between protesters and police—the culmination of an earlier strike that turned out thousands of workers demanding major wage increases. Read the rest of this entry →