Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story

Gildan profit soars

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Gildan Activewear is a vertically-integrated marketer and manufacturer of premium quality branded basic apparel. The Company manufactures premium quality basic T-shirts, sport shirts and sweatshirts for sale in the wholesale imprinted sportswear market. The Company sells its products as blanks, which are ultimately decorated by screenprinters with designs and logos for sale to consumers. Gildan has announced plans to sell its products into the mass-market retail channel, in addition to the screenprint market. In conjunction with this strategy, Gildan is expanding its product-line to include underwear and athletic socks.

Gildan is North America's largest T-Shirt manufacturer, and it is Canadian.
After closing its yarn spining plant in Quebec and outsourcing the work offshore, Gildan exports its T-Shirt manufaturing to the Caribbean/Central American Free Trade Zones.

Moneysense.ca | Oct 1, 2004

Real Assets Investment Management Inc., an ethics-based investor, said Thursday it has sold its shares of Gildan Activewear over the T-shirt company's treatment of workers at a Honduras factory.

This year they agreed to re-hire fired union workers in their new factory operations in the Houndouras leading the Canadian Anti-Sweat Shop Activist group Maquila Solidarity Network to suspend their campaign against Gildan.

Gildan then launched a massive new advertising and promotional camapaign for its products helping it push up its sceond, third and fourth quarter profits. Coincidence I think NOT. No word on what happened to the workers in Quebec who lost their jobs at Gildan. No compensation just the unemployment centre for them.

And while the Anti-Sweat Shop campaigners have been satisfied with their sop from Gildan, the Anti-War movement has not. They have focused on Gildan's sweat shop operations taking advantage of the current Canadian/UN occupation of Haiti in the name of Empire.

Building an Antiwar Movement in Canada

The single biggest impediment to getting people mobilized around war and occupation issues is the widespread perception that Canada’s hands are clean in the world; that unseemly regime changes are things carried out by George W. Bush and that at worst we are benevolent bystanders or well-meaning peacekeepers coming in after the fact.

Perhaps one under-utilized way to get around this pervasive myth is to highlight the blatant war profiteering of massive Canadian corporations. While the sordid operations of the likes of Exxon and Halliburton are internationally known, equally rapacious war companies based north of the 49th parallel are getting away with scant attention. The two that stand out are Gildan Activewear and SNC-Lavalin.

Gildan Activewear is a massive garment manufacturer, controlling 40% of the North American t-shirt market. Following the coup against Aristide, and the de facto government’s decision to overturn minimum wage increases brought in by the Lavalas Party government, Gildan announced that it would be moving some operations from Honduras to Haiti. The company is currently engaged in a massive publicity campaign, with ads on hundreds of bus shelters in Vancouver proclaiming the sweatshop label ‘A part of your life’. It has been speculated that they are building their public profile with an eye to winning the Vancouver 2010 Olympics clothing contract. The cases of Gildan and SNC are not unique in terms of Canadian corporations, but only two of the most blatant examples that belie the quaint notion of a harmless, innocent big business community, and the related myth of a political policy pursuing lofty, disinterested ‘humanitarian’ objectives.

Again Liberal trade policies are a direct cause of the offshoring of Quebecs clothing industry and Gildans success. And with Gildan they are further compounded by the companies involvement with the Canadian Occupation of Haiti. Welcome to the world of global capitalism.

This is a report from Haiti about Gildan detailing the union busting anti worker situation currently occuring in the offshore garment industry in that country. I have to ask MSN why it has been sucked in by Gildan and halted its information and pressure campaign for the rights of Gildan workers? Simply because the company has ameliorated the conditions of some of its workers at the expense of others? This seems to be the case.

"Excerpts from Batay Ouvriye News Bulletin No. 2, originally published in Creole circa September/October 2005

At the GILDAN factory in Tabarre, five workers were fired without reason. But on closer scrutiny, we note that these are the workers who played a role in fighting for the factory to pay transportation to and from the factory (which is actually stipulated in the Labor Code!). At first, Richard Coles, a close Aristide ally, was the main production responsible for Gildan in the country. But Coles lost the contract and Apaid is the one who came to play this role. Presently, several bourgeois in the assembly industry are producing for Gildan. All use the module production to exploit the workers, as described above, with repressive control embedded in the production structure itself… Gildan, however, is the most sadistic exploiter of the module production systems. That’s why struggle at Gildan is a concentration amongst others that has great importance presently.

Jack Abramoff Sweat Shop Lobbyist

My my not satisfied with being a mover and shaker for the right wing fundamentalist lobby in the Republican party and the Bush regime. Jack Abramoff tries his hand at interntational trade lobbying. Abramoff promoted a Tawainese sweat shop company to the PTB with the Bush administration and the Republican House and Senate.

And why shouldn't he, the Bush adminstration loves outsourcing and sweat shops. After all it's their policy of outsourcing and sweat labour of Latin American underground workforce that the Bush administration relies on for rebuilding post Katrina America.

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Mystery firm linked to US lobbyist scandal

Abramoff recorded Rose Garden's address as a luxury flat in Tai Hang, above Causeway Bay, and its business as international trade. Over the next year and a half, the records show, Rose Garden paid Greenberg Traurig US$1.4 million (HK$10.92 million) for putting its case to the Senate, House of Representatives and US Department of Labor.

Hong Kong's Companies Registry has no record of Rose Garden Holdings; nor does the telephone directory. The apartment listed by Abramoff as Rose Garden's premises has been owned since 1992 by Luen Thai Shipping and Trading, according to the Land Registry.

Luen Thai Holdings and its controlling shareholders, the Tan family, were leading beneficiaries of Abramoff's Washington lobbying.

Luen Thai Holdings, which held a HK$669.4 million initial public stock offering in 2004, was built on the business of sewing together clothing for top US brand-names such as Liz Claiborne, with the assistance of young women from China and other Asian countries on the US-controlled Pacific island of Saipan.

The foundations of the company's profitable niche are loopholes in US law that allow free migration to the island, set its minimum wage below mainland US levels and allow clothing sewn there to carry the "Made in USA" label and be exempt from quotas and tariffs.

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Kielburger Wins Nobel

Congratulations to Craig Kielburger the founder of Free the Children who mobilized a grassroots movement amongst Canadian youth to fight against Child labour and Sweatshops. That movement grew into an international campaign that is growing every day.

Children's advocate Kielburger wins global honour

Craig Kielburger, who began his fight for the rights of children as a 12-year-old boy outraged by the death of an activist who opposed child labour in Pakistan, has won the "Children's Nobel Prize. Swedish authorities announced on Tuesday that the 23-year-old, who lives in Thornhill, Ont., had been awarded the 2006 World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child.

See My Boycott Nike site for more on child labour and Sweat shops.

Also:

Where Are Your Clothes Made

Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story

Haiti Quebec's Shame

Canada's Dirty Secret: Haiti

Jack Abramoff Sweat Shop Lobbyist

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
child-labour, child-exploitation, sweatshops, Kielburger, Free-The-Chilren, Canada

Is Haiti a Canadian Colony

Foreign Affairs is getting short shrift this election being focused mainly on what Tweedledee Martin and Tweedledum Harper said about the Iraq war. We at least know the NDP opposed it from the begining. Thats a given. So lets move on to something more important and less well discussed.

A subject so touchy with the Liberal government that it got a Martin heckler arrested and jailed in Halifax. The heckler was author and film maker, Yves Engler, a member of the Canada Haiti Action Network who has documented UN and Canadian abuses of civilians in Haiti.

It's the Ugly Canadian news story that is buried in the back pages of the Canadian Press. Now why might that be? After all we went into Haiti at the request of the UN and Americans to help those poor people under the horrible democratically elected government of Aristide. Or did we?

Ecuador's New Canadian Ambassador Helped Plan Haiti Coup

Christian Lapointe helped co-ordinate and attended the meeting, as did future (and present) Ambassador to Haiti Claude Boucher, who is known to be close to elements within the elite Group of 184 political opposition to Lavalas and is virulently anti-Aristide.

Documents obtained via Canada's Access to Information Act reveal that Lapointe was in on key high-level deliberations that may have involved the topic of Haiti's regime change. Lapointe himself may have censored the portions of these documents that could prove the international community's plans to overthrow the government of Jean Bertrand Aristide more than one year before the regime change took place. According to an officer within the Department of Foreign Affairs Access to Information and Privacy division, Lapointe was the final person through which the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti documents had to pass prior to being released. Another officer referred to approximately 1,000 pages pertaining to the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti meeting. Only 67 pages were released.

Montreal has a huge and influential Haitian community, largest probably in North America. The Canadian government announced its first woman of colour as GG and she too is Haitian. What did this signal to Haitians in Canada and in Haiti?

Gildan the worlds number two T shirt manufacturer is located in Montreal but offshores its production to the caribbean. Recently found to be using sweat shops in these regions, it was given a clean bill of health by Anti Sweat Shop campaigns.
Except that it has now reduced production in those plants and expanded its operations in Haiti with no anti-sweat shop vigilance.

The Canadian Corporate/State Nexus In Haiti by Anthony Fenton

Haiti's de facto government will soon announce the appointment of Robert Tippenhauer as its new ambassador to Canada. Previously, Tippenhauer was the President of the first-ever Haitian-Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He says he will be arriving in Canada shortly after the early June visit to Haiti of Quebec Premier Jean Charest. Should the Canadian government accept Tippenhauer's credentials, it will mark Canada's clearest official alignment with Haiti's right-wing elites.

Of the many reconstruction projects that are being created, Tippenhauer feels that "considering the active role that Canada is playing with their lead role in the transition, Canadian firms should have a first look at these projects." On Canada's leadership role, Tippenhauer made the point that Canada had "one the most active ambassadors here." Tippenhauer further lauded Canada's "constant interest in Haiti," stating "the mere presence of these officials is good for us."

Some of the incentives offered to companies like SNC, and Gildan Activewear, who Tippenhauer estimates employ 5,000 people between their independent factory (which is next to Tippenhauer's Dollar Rent-a-Car) and Andy Apaid's factories; Apaid has been Gildan's primary subcontractor in Haiti for many years, according to a Gildan spokesperson.

Is Haiti Canada's new colony, and in reality are we her Imperial master. Turning a blind eye to Canadian war crimes in Haiti.Were we really invited into Haiti as part of a coalition or did we actually mastermind the whole thing. Inquirying minds want to know, and the evidence is piling up that Haiti is a Canadian Colony. That the Liberal Government was off the hook in Iraq because we had our own little coup de dat to run in Haiti.

Canada in Haiti: Considering the 3-D Approach. November 3-4 2005
Waterloo, Ontario The second half of the conference title – “Considering the 3-D Approach” – is a direct reference to the Canadian government’s 2005 International Policy Statement (IPS), which advocates a three-pronged strategy to Canadian involvement in Canada in Haiti: that blends Canada’s diplomatic, defence and development presence in order to form a coordinated engagement

A Tip o' the Blog to Greg Farrants who has been doing exemplar work around Solidarity with Haiti both in Redmonton and across Canada.

And a tip o' the blog to Lazylafargue.

There is currently circulating a letter to condemn the political detentions in Haiti, and the detention of AI "Prisoner of Conscience" Father Jean-Juste in particular. It is addressed to Jack Layton, of the NDP you can forward your own copy to Jack . While the original focus of this letter was to get Haiti mentioned in last weeks debates there are still two more debate coming up.

Haiti: The Liberals' Untold Scandal

For the people of Haiti, all of this has meant a return to conditions reminiscent of the years of military dictatorship. Haitian Police routinely conduct deadly raids within the poorest neighborhoods, shooting scores of civilians and Aristide sympathizers. According to the Catholic Peace and Justice Commission, over 700 political prisoners fill Haiti’s jails, including catholic priest Father Gerard Jean-Juste, deemed a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International. Jean-Juste was barred from running in Haiti’s upcoming Presidential elections due to his imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew has referred to reports of such abuses as “propaganda,” while Paul Martin has publicly stated that “there are no political prisoners in Haiti.”

Unlike the Gomery Inquiry, the Liberal scandal in Haiti has cost perhaps thousands of lives. Why, then, has it been left completely off of the political radar of these elections?

A Week's Rioting Has Decimated 100 Years of South African-Indians' Efforts

However, Indians – who have borne considerable losses in the violence and have needed to guard their own neighbourhoods – are not describing the offensive by Zuma's supporters entirely as a racist one.

Umesh Morar’s Royal Tobacconist shop, after it was gutted by a mob of arsonists in South Africas KwaZulu Natal. Photo: Umesh Morar


Suvojit Bagchi


This is part one of a two-part series on the recent violence in South Africa. Part two will shed light on why South Africa is resting on a powder keg.

Kolkata: Vanessa Narotam’s voice choked several times during an hour-long telephone conversation from riot-ravaged Durban, an eastern coastal province of South Africa.

“We have to start again from scratch,” she said.

The 46-year-old Vanessa and her family own one of the top wholesale and retail food, drinks and beverages brand in South Africa, the Panjivan Group of Companies. Three of Panjivan’s four sprawling stores have been flattened since a violent protest engulfed two of South Africa’s nine provinces – north-central Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal (KZN) on the Indian Ocean, a little over 8000 kilometres from the coast of India.

“I am now watching on television one of our shops being looted and razed to the ground,” said Vanessa. The immediate trigger of the violence was to first prevent and then to ensure the release of former South African president Jacob Zuma after his imprisonment earlier in July.


The court gave Zuma a 15-month jail term for defying an instruction earlier in February to table evidence at an inquiry into corruption during his nine years in power until 2018, reported Reuters. Right before Zuma handed himself over, his supporters led by Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association, formerly the armed group of the African National Congress (ANC), threatened that the “country will be torn apart”, if Zuma is sent to prison.

Former President Jacob Zuma in May 24, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Rogan Ward

Gauteng and KZN were indeed torn apart and nearly 80 are killed officially till Thursday, July 15. Unofficially, the toll stands at 120 and the medium-sized business groups are at the epicentre of the violence. Panjivan’s, with a turnover of over two billion Rand (more than Rs 1,000 crore plus), is one of the worst hit.

“Over the weekend we heard the rumour that our shop at Isipingo, south of Durban in KZN, could be attacked. My husband was confident that the police would be able to handle it. Around early evening on Sunday (July 11) we got a call…” paused Vanessa to confirm the time from her husband, who requested that his first name be withheld.

“At 7 pm, as we were told about the assembly of the people near the Isipingo shop, my husband rushed.” By the time Vanessa’s husband reached the shop, a mob took control of the 5,000 square meter campus of the first ever shop the family has owned, a typical cash-and-carry food and liquor store.

“Everything was taken, not just the consumables and the cash but the air conditioners, the furniture, the cameras, the truck batteries and the tyres. The looting went on till the next morning,” she said.

The police and the security guards watched. They could do very little as they were barred from using live ammunition on the day. It was no more a pro-Zuma protest, said Vanessa but, “absolute criminal action.”

“Once the loot was over, the shop next to us owned by my husband’s uncle was ransacked and set on fire. We called the Fire Department repeatedly, but unfortunately, no help came.” As the water sprinklers kicked in, the fire stopped, but petrol bombs were lobbed. “It was absolute devastation,” said Vanessa.

Panjivan’s Isipingo store before and after (right) it was gutted. Photo: Narotams

As the Isipingo shop was torched, the Narotams came to know that a mob had entered the Panjivan’s Swelani shop in Phoenix, about 25 kilometres northwest of Durban, and the other one at KZN’s capital Pietermaritzburg – where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of a train – was looted. Their vehicles stolen or burnt. The Port Shepstone shop, south of Durban, is unharmed for now.

Vanessa used the word “devastation” a dozen times to explain how an enterprise built over 100 years was decimated in about 100 hours.

Narotam Jeena (Mothiram Amtha), who migrated from Surat to KwaZulu Natal in 1890s. His family runs Panjivan’s. Photo: Narotam family

In many ways, their family’s story is the narrative of Indians in KZN, who left the shores of India in thousands, across provinces of what was then a British colony in the middle of the 19th century as indentured labourers, merchants or professionals, to work in another British colony.

A few years later, in 1894, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress. At that time, a young trader from Gujarat’s Surat reached Pietermaritzburg station from East London. Mothiram Amtha, the trader, whose name was changed to ‘Narotam Jeena’ by South African immigration worked on the railways and as a vegetable seller in his early years. He started many shops and so did his sons and nephews till the chain was founded in “a tin shack”, by his grandson Panjivan Chota Narotam.

Panjivan Chota Narotam, who started Panjivan’s in 1950 from “a tin shack.” Photo: Narotam family

The chain-store, founded in 1950, gets its name from Panjivan, Vanessa’s husband’s grandfather.

“It took five generations over 120 years. They poured their blood, sweat and tears into a business that would service and sustain the very communities that turned on them,” said Vanessa.

An executive of high profit liquor trade indicated that out of 21 medium-sized independent liquor businesses at play in the region – outside the league of big national brands – “nearly all” were Indian owned ones.

Brutal as it may be, the Narotams’ story is not unique. Mobs have been on a rampage in pockets despite army deployment on Monday, July 12, after at least 120 hours of arson.

While deployment was ordered on Monday, the first time personnel could be seen on the ground in KwaZulu Natal was Friday, July 16, say residents. Salma Patel, a news editor with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and an executive producer with SABC Radio, said, “The situation is calming down with army in the streets. It is acting as a good deterrent to violence and the positive news is that the civil society is coming together and has made appeals to calm things down. Patrolling, also, is multi-racial in nature.”

The lawlessness of the days between Monday and Friday compelled Indians to set up their own vigilante forces carrying assault rifles, said Umesh Morar, a 56-year-old tobacconist of north Durban. Morar’s three Durban-based tobacco and knick-knack shops were looted earlier in the week. He indicated that their trust is shaken.

“We were not attacked last night [July 14] after two nights of rioting but we are still guarding our streets as we do not know if it is the lull before the next storm. We are feeling deeply vulnerable,” said Morar.

Trust shaken as Indians form vigilante forces

Insecurity has shaken the relationship between the Indian-origin South Africans and the black Africans developed over a century when Natal Indian Congress was formed. Indians who had participated unanimously in the anti-Apartheid struggle find the strength of their ties depleting.

“KZN is a Zulu province. They are mobilising and, do not forget, they are top class fighters. Zuma is Zulu and most of the province’s officials are from the same ethnic group. So, in case of violence, can we trust the officials to rein in Zuma’s Zulu supporters?” asks Morar. There are about 1.5 million Indians in South Africa – a mere 2.5% of the population – with about a million residing in KZN.

Morar said Indians are spread all over KZN and are being targeted everywhere. The situation is worse in Phoenix where Indians are a majority but are surrounded by blacks. “In Durban, we are now trying to protect the areas which have not been targeted yet,” Morar said.

Umesh Morar’s Royal Tobacconist before being gutted. 

At the top of this page is the shop after destruction. Photo: Umesh Morar

The Indians have formed vigilante forces of their own with many carrying “assault rifles” and setting up roadblocks at the entrances and exits of their enclaves. “The ones with rifles are at the front of the vigilante groups, while the boys carrying cricket bats and hockey sticks are behind them. We do not have an alternative as we are yet to see any army vehicles. The police has asked for bullets from us,” said Morar on Thursday, July 15.

These private vigilante forces are not letting anyone enter their respective neighbourhoods.

“It is like you are in Noida and not allowing a neighbour from Mayur Vihar in east Delhi to enter your area out of deep fear,” said Morar.

A Johannesburg-based journalist said that some of the members of South African-Indian street fighting forces “are dollar millionaires with business establishments across Africa and India.”

A business woman, Riaa Algoo, who was featured in Forbes magazine, was in a state of panic hours after the army had hit the streets of Durban.

“Call me any time,” she messaged. “we are always awake as we need to guard our homes and families.” In separate messages, Algoo – with businesses in India – noted that the community has “hardly any businesses left” in South Africa.

Also read: What Jacob Zuma’s Sentencing Means for South Africa

“It is all burnt down. The bread factories, dairies, farms are destroyed too. We will now run out of food. The Army and police are not protecting us, we need the United Nations,” noted Algoo.


As panic escalates with every passing hour, with every text and voice message, and with each post on Twitter, where both black Africans and Indians are posting footage of a week’s madness with intermittent and chilling threats to each other.

A photograph taken from a car in Durban on Friday. Photo: By arrangement

Privately circulated videos of graphic violence reminds one of past African massacres when minorities were attacked indiscriminately. The streets of KZN are filled with hundreds of thousands of people carrying mainly food, electronic goods and daily consumables looted from supermarkets. “A reasonably well organised province has been gutted overnight,” said Vanessa Narotam.

“The warehouses, the Makros – supermarkets – malls, buildings all razed.”

The damage is colossal for the poorest provinces of an African country with about 60 million people; over 10 billion rand (Rs 5,000 crore plus) worth of goods and property was damaged, the Provincial Government of KwaZulu Natal has estimated. In a social media statement the local government noted 200 incidents of looting and 26 deaths, a figure disputed by Indians.

About ‘353,000 tonnes of sugarcane’– one of the main foreign currency earners – was ‘lost to arson,’ the government statement said. The statement also noted that about 200 shopping malls are damaged. Many of these mega-malls housed shops of mainly South African-Indians.

The fear is further exacerbated with repeated calls to remove Indians from important positions by a 40-year-old African National Congress renegade Julius Sello Malema.

“South Africa is run by an Indian cabal,” he says often, “controlling all financial institutions.” The former ANC Youth League president has stepped up his campaign against president Ramphosa, favoured by the west. Malema has all the hallmarks of a populist young leader – a bit like Kapil Mishra of North East Delhi – and Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) party has about 6.5% votes and two dozen seats in the national parliament. Yet Indians – who are deeply entrenched in South Africa’s society, business and politics – are not describing the offensive entirely as a racist one.

“It is about politics, finally,” said Morar.

The Economist newspaper used a separate set of words to express similar thoughts. The violence was incited with a “narrow aim” to have Zuma released but the “broader goal is to make the country ungovernable so as to undermine his (Zuma’s) successor, Cyril Ramaphosa,” the newspaper noted.

Morar is not a British newspaper editor defending Ramphosa but a businessman who lost three 50 square metre shops on prime real estate of Durban. Yet he and his community are stopping short of branding this week’s violence as an exclusively racial attack.


The question is why.

Suvojit Bagchi is a senior journalist who has previously worked with BBC and The Hindu.

Small businesses worldwide fight for survival amid pandemic

In the mid-19th century, the German economist Karl Marx and other Marxist theorists used the term "petite bourgeoisie" to identify the socio-economic stratum of the bourgeoisie that comprised small-scale capitalists such as shop-keepers and workers who manage the production, distribution and/or exchange of commodities ... Petite bourgeoisie - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Petite_bourgeoisie

Hour after hour in the dark, Chander Shekhar’s mind raced ahead to morning.

More than three months had dragged by since the coronavirus forced Shekhar to shut down his business — a narrow, second-floor shop racked with vibrantly colored saris, on a block in New York’s Jackson Heights neighborhood once thronged with South Asian immigrant shoppers. Today, finally, he and other merchants were allowed to reopen their doors.

But they were returning to an area where COVID-19 had killed hundreds, leaving sidewalks desolate and storefronts to gather dust. Now fears were fading. But no one knew what lay ahead on this late-June Monday as owners raised the gates at jewelry stores, tandoori restaurants and bridal shops clustered near Roosevelt Avenue’s elevated train line. Overnight, the stress had woken Shekhar nine times.

“You cannot tell everybody it’s safe to come and buy from us. This is an invisible enemy that nobody can see,” said Shekhar, a father of two anxious about the shop’s $6,000 monthly rent. “This is my baby,” he said, of the store, Shopno Fashion. “I have worked hard for this for more than 20 years, then I got my shop. It’s not easy to leave it.”





Amid the deaths of friends and customers, Shekhar is reluctant to complain. And he knows he is not alone. As economies around the world reopen, legions of small businesses that help define and sustain neighborhoods are struggling. The stakes for their survival are high: The U.N. estimates that businesses with fewer than 250 workers account for two-thirds of employment worldwide.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — Small businesses around the world are fighting for survival amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Whether they make it will affect not just local economies but the fabric of communities. Associated Press journalists tell their stories in the series “Small Business Struggles.”

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In New Orleans, the owner of a gallery and lounge that launched just before the pandemic hit reopened it as a takeout eatery, with himself as the lone employee. In Tokyo, a florist grabbed a lifeline from shut-in customers who bought blossoms to keep their spirits up. In Minneapolis, a dentist who refitted his office to protect patients from infection is starting over after it was destroyed in riots.

All acknowledge that reopening is just the beginning. But it is a critical milestone, nonetheless, a testament to their grit, creativity and no small amount of desperation. It’s about finding whatever works, because for now, there is no such thing as business as usual.

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Stephanie Skoglund touches up paint on a giant chalk board where guests can leave messages for the bride and groom at The Vault, the wedding and event center she owns in Tenino, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Over the years, Stephanie Skoglund invested countless hours of sweat equity renovating what was once Tenino, Washington’s general store -- replacing the floors, wiring chandeliers, adding a kitchen. Everything to upgrade the old sandstone building in this long-ago frontier town for use as a wedding hall.

With this year’s wedding season approaching, 40 celebrations were already on the calendar at The Vault and its sister facility. Then the coronavirus shut them down.

“We’re basically wiped out,” Skoglund said.

Skoglund turned off the electric circuits and water lines at both venues. She sold a dance floor for $1,000 and a large party tent for $2,600, to help cover her family’s bills. Her husband works for her business, so his income is gone, too.

Skoglund was approved for $3,200 of the nearly $25,000 she sought from the federal Payroll Protection Program before learning even that wouldn’t be coming. Then Washington state halted her unemployment payments as it scrambled to sort out hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims.

Reopening, if you can call it that, has proved just as tough.

Stephanie Skoglund poses for a photo with her husband, Rick, in the main entrance to The Vault, the wedding and event center she owns in Tenino, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

In June, Skoglund started getting calls from people looking to rent tables, chairs and tents for outdoor events, her only revenue so far. She’ll host her first wedding in late July, one of three events that remain on the calendar. The hall can seat 299, so with 80 guests expected social distancing rules should not be an issue.

Of 20 couples who had booked weddings through October, eight rescheduled for next year and a dozen canceled. Skoglund wrote letters to say she hopes to refund them eventually; it wouldn’t feel right to keep deposits, regardless of language in the contracts.

Once events restart, Skoglund’s older children, aged 16 to 25, will pitch in as her staff. She’s hoping business solidifies by October. But she and her husband have talked about selling their home and businesses and starting over, if it doesn’t.

“I have to start thinking about how to save what I do have and not put myself in a financial position where I lose it,” she said. “Just making that decision: what’s my next step? That’s what keeps me up at night.”

--By Gene Johnson in Tenino, Washington

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After Beirut went into lockdown in March, Walid Ataya returned to his bakery, pizzeria and wine room each morning, perching on a stool at the sidewalk bar to maintain an outpost of commerce and consider his next moves.

Before the pandemic, Lebanon faced an economic crisis rooted in years of government mismanagement and corruption that had sparked nationwide protests. Ataya, who fled when Israel invaded in the mid-1980s, had no intention of leaving again.

“Over here in Lebanon, we can deal with crises,” said Ataya, whose Bread Republic presides over a busy intersection fronting the swanky Furn al-Hayek neighborhood. “We have been through wars and turmoil. ... So the pandemic came and for us it is just another crisis to overcome.”

Bakeries were exempted from closure, so Ataya’s expanded beyond bread to sell fresh pasta. He also kept up a limited flower business, only delivering orders and selling bouquets at the bakery.

Ataya kept on 10 of his 40 employees, sending others home at half-pay. Eventually, he let 10 go, recalling the rest at full wages. He negotiated a rent reduction and cut ties with some suppliers when an 85 percent drop in the nation’s currency left many accepting only dollars.

Walid Ataya, right, speaks with one of his employees at his Bread Republic shop on June 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

When rules were eased in May, he reopened the wine bar and pizzeria, albeit at 30 percent of capacity. At first, no one sat indoors and staff circulated among the tables, spraying disinfectant. Police still fined Ataya for overcrowding at his outdoor tables. He is contesting it in court.

Finally, in early June, restrictions were reduced enough for Ataya to reopen his restaurant across the street from the bakery and pizzeria. Protests had resumed and he had his hands full dealing with government paperwork. Then masked men broke into his office and carried out a safe holding thousands of dollars.

In recent days, though, customers filled the tables outside his businesses.

“We are in the stage of surviving day to day now,” Ataya said. “You cannot sit and do nothing. You have to take your chances.”

--By Sarah El Deeb in Beirut

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Shinichiro Hirano walks through his Sun Flower Shop in Tokyo on June 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Shinichiro Hirano walks through his Sun Flower Shop in Tokyo on June 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)


When Japanese officials asked people to stay home in March, Shinichiro Hirano cut the hours at Sun Flower Shop, but stayed open.

The blossom-filled store, in a central Tokyo neighborhood bordered by the Sumida River, quickly lost its business making arrangements for restaurant openings and job promotions. Tourists disappeared. The area, adjacent to the Athletes Village built for the Tokyo Olympics, had been expecting a boom, only to see it fizzle when the games were postponed.

Hirano placed colored tape on the floor to encourage social distancing. As pandemic fears soared, he found an audience.

“People were working from home and wanted to cheer themselves up,” said Hirano, who estimates 100 customers a day came to the shop. “Some people said they can forget the coronavirus when they come in our store. Flowers can give energy to people.”

Shinichiro Hirano arranges flowers at his Sun Flower Shop in Tokyo on June 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

On June 19, Hirano pulled the tape from the shop’s floor, while leaving warning signs up. Officially, the emergency was over, but the challenges continue.

One of the first bouquets he sold in the days afterward was to a customer marking the closing of a nearby restaurant. As other businesses reopen, some have ordered flowers to celebrate. Still, total sales have dropped by up to 20 percent.

Hirano, though, is consistent, returning to the store each day, bowing to customers, donning his favorite New York Yankees cap. Flowers are what he loves, he said.

“As long as you have a store, you have to keep it open,” he said. “I never for a moment thought of closing it.”

--By Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo

___

The velvet chairs in DJ Johnson’s new NOLA Art Bar were filled with customers sipping cocktails on a mid-March evening when the announcement came: the city had ordered all bars to close. Johnson, who had moved home to New Orleans and invested his savings, turned up the lights, asked everyone to leave and boarded the door.

Six weeks later, though, he adapted to rules that allowed food service businesses to stay open for takeout. His bar hadn’t done food. But he started making New Orleans staples like boiled shrimp and oysters, taking orders at a table set up in the gallery’s door on St. Claude Avenue. The first day he made $35.

DJ Johnson poses for a portrait on June 25, 2020, inside his new NOLA Art Bar in New Orleans, which opened just before the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Patrons relax over cocktails in the velvet chairs of DJ Johnson’s NOLA Art Bar in New Orleans on June 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

By late June, he was still not making enough to cover his costs. But he tapped income from rental units he owns to cover bills and to show residents of the Marigny neighborhood that he was there to stay.

“The more I can get the word out, the better it will be for me when things are able to reopen, post-COVID,” he said. “So just weather the storm. Stay open. Let as many people as possible see that you’re open.”

On June 13, Johnson started seating diners inside the gallery at half capacity. A week later, he restarted construction on a bookstore and coffee shop next door. He’s still trying to figure out how to respond to a recent decision by Louisiana’s governor to close bars for on-site service, after coronavirus cases spiked. But he’s determined to keep going, even if it means going back to selling to passersby at his gallery’s door. For motivation, he thinks back to biographies of people like Nelson Mandela, as models for overcoming adversity.

“It’s discouraging. But the only thing that kept me going is, there is no quit,” he said. “You go until you can’t go anymore.”

--By Rebecca Santana in New Orleans

___

Shao Lin Tia, left, and her husband, Christophe Tia, look out from the window of their second Thai restaurant on Rue Daguerre in Paris on May 2, 2020, as they wait for takeout customers. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

For the first few weeks, the hush that settled over Paris as restrictions known as “The Confinement” took hold, provided Shao Lin Tia with some much-prized rest.

Up until then, Tia had been working feverishly at Ginza, the pan-Asian restaurant she and her husband run, filling in for a chef who had left a few months earlier. That came not long after the couple opened a Thai restaurant next door on Rue Daguerre, a street near the city’s famed catacombs that hosts a classic Paris market district of cheese shops, florists and cafes.

With both restaurants closed, the Tias had unexpected time to spend with their three children. The family worked their way through the restaurants’ food stocks to limit household spending. And the couple took the government at its word that commercial rents would be frozen and stopped payments.

France exempted small businesses in the restaurant, tourism, sports and culture sectors from social security contributions and reimbursed employers about 84% of net salaries. But with no money coming in and expenses looming, the time off began to weigh on the couple’s peace of mind.

“The government doesn’t give anything for free,” Tia said.

Finally, in late April, the rules relaxed enough for the Tias to set up a takeout window. But with Parisians limited to a single outing a day, each requiring a timestamped authorization form, Daguerre emptied early, limiting the dinner trade to just two hours.

In recent weeks, Tia has added a few outdoor tables. But sales remain 30 percent lower than at this time last year, despite unusually beautiful weather. Many neighborhood residents left the city for second homes when the lockdown began and likely will not return until September.

Tia worries that as the government stops covering salaries in coming months, a wave of layoffs could increase pressure on businesses like hers.

“We’ll never catch up, never in our lives,” she said. “And the hardest is yet to come.”

--By Lori Hinnant in Paris

 Petty Bourgeoisie and Middle Class. The lower middle class or the petty (petite) bourgeoisie (the bourgeoisie was sometimes called the middle class in this era), constitutes "the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant" (Giddens and Held, p. 24). The characteristic of this class is that it does own some property, but not sufficient to have all work done by employees or workers. Members of this class must also work in order to survive, so they have a dual existence – as (small scale) property owners and as workers. Because of this dual role, members of this class have divided interests, usually wishing to preserve private property and property rights, but with interests often opposed to those of the capitalist class. This class is split internally as well, being geographically, industrially, and politically dispersed, so that it is difficult for it to act as a class. Marx expected that this class would disappear as capitalism developed, with members moving into the bourgeoisie or into the working class, depending on whether or not they were successful. Many in this class have done this, but at the same time, this class seems to keep recreating itself in different forms.
Marx considers the petite bourgeoisie to be politically conservative or reactionary, preferring to return to an older order. This class has been considered by some Marxists to have been the base of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. At other times, when it is acting in opposition to the interests of large capital, it may have a more radical or reformist bent to it (anti-monopoly).
Note on the Middle Class. The issue of the middle class or classes appears to be a major issue within Marxian theory, one often addressed by later Marxists. Many Marxists attempt to show that the middle class is declining, and polarization of society into two classes is a strong tendency within capitalism. Marx's view was that the successful members of the middle class would become members of the bourgeoisie, while the unsuccessful would be forced into the proletariat. In the last few years, many have argued that in North America, and perhaps on a world scale, there is an increasing gap between rich and poor and there is a declining middle.
While there have been tendencies in this direction, especially among the farmers and peasantry, there has been no clear long run trend toward decline of the middle class. At the same time as there has been polarization of classes, there have been new middle groupings created. Some of these are small business people, shopkeepers, and small producers while others are professional and managerial personnel, and some intellectual personnel. Well paid working class members and independent trades people might consider themselves to be members of the middle class. Some segments of this grouping have expanded in number in recent years. While it is not clear that these groups hold together and constitute a class in any Marxian sense of being combined in opposition to other classes, they do form a middle grouping. Since Marx's prediction has not come true, sociologists and other writers have devoted much attention to explaining this middle grouping – what is its basis, what are the causes of its stability or growth, how it fits into the class structure, and what are the effects of its existence on proletariat and bourgeoisie.
http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/s28f99.htm

Santa's Sweatshop

Of course while Ms. Claus gets exploited so do the elves,after all they represent a classic icon for child labour don't they. Santa's Sweatshop.
Producing all those sweatshop toys for girls and boys, in the developed world. But you can now shop sweatfree.

Thai toy shop fire kills six. 15/01/2005. ABC News Online

American Apparel's decision to sell out is another example of an ethical brand going multinational.

At the American Apparel store on New York's Fifth Avenue this week, there was a Christmas shopping buzz as customers rifled through brightly coloured racks of t-shirts, underpants and bras. Helpful little cards advised on suitable presents: a pair of baby rib briefs, for example, for your "favourite boy".
The boss of the underwear chain is getting a rather more substantial Christmas gift. Dov Charney, who founded American Apparel in 1997, will receive $200m in shares under a $383m takeover announced yesterday by a financial buyer, Endeavour Acquisition Corporation.
Although eye-watering, Charney's windfall is hardly unusual in present business climate of daily multi-billion pound private equity buyouts. But this is no ordinary takeover.
Ever since its inception, American Apparel has trumpeted its small-scale values. All the manufacturing is done in a factory in downtown Los Angeles where production line staff typically earn between $12 and $18 an hour - not a fortune, but well above the industry average and a good deal more than the people who stitch Gap underpants together in Indonesia.
American Apparel trumpets its vertically integrated, sweatshop-free business model at every opportunity. Charney, who sports a handlebar moustache and once appeared bare-bottomed in an advertisement, has a strong sense of counter-intuitive cool and likes to upset Californian politicians by campaigning for free immigration.
Yesterday's deal, however, is intended to transform American Apparel into a global player. The new owner, Endeavour, intends to open 800 stores, half of which will be outside America, to add to the existing chain of 145.
American Apparel appears to be joining a long list of once ideological "ethical" names which have succumbed to the multinational shilling. Body Shop's founder Anita Roddick found a takeover by L'Oreal impossible to resist - just as Pret a Manger opted for a partial sale to McDonalds, the organic chocolate maker Green & Black's was gobbled by Cadbury Schweppes, and ice-cream king Ben & Jerry's was bought by Unilever

The War of the Christmas Trees

The National Christmas Tree Association's Web site claims that real tree sales outnumber sales for artificial trees 32.8 million to 9.3 million. But artificial trees are used year after year, and studies commissioned by the artificial tree industry show that 57 percent of all Americans actually own fake trees.

Further, the NCTA claims that plastic trees are made in Chinese sweatshops, harbor cancer-causing and poisonous chemicals, and can go up in flames at the strike of a match.

Real trees, it says, are renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. Nurseries proudly tell customers that one evergreen tree produces enough daily oxygen for 18 people.

Sweat-free carols at Melbourne fashion retailer
by pc Tuesday December 19, 2006 at 07:06 PM

As in previous years, the FairWear anti-sweatshop campaign took its Christmas sweat-free carols to town, visiting this year fashion retailer Rich, one of far too many who have so far refused to sign up to the Homeworkers Code of Practice ...

click to enlarge

After a quick rehearsal in the Mall, the 'choir' made its way into the up-market shopping mall that has replaced the old Post Office in Melbourne's landmark GPO building and lined up in front of the fashion display for a rendering of modified version of three well-known carols - Jingle Bells (Sweatshop workers all deserve/their Christmas bonus pay - HEY!), God Rest Ye Weary Laborers (O tidings of justice and rights/ human rights, O tidings of justice and rights!), and the classic Twelve Days of Sweat Shopping (On the eleventh day of shopping, my true love bought for me,/ tax breaks for sweatshops, workers without unions, sexual/harassment, cancer-causing fumes, twelve-hour days,/six cents an hour,/RAM-PANT COR-PORATE GREED!/pre-sweated pants, slave labour shoes, toys made by kids,/all gifts made in sweatshops right here).
The performance was then repeated on the steps outside, much to the fascination of the crowds waiting to view the Myer windows...
After the performance, members of the 'choir' handed out useful wallet-sized cards listing companies certified to use the NoSweatshop label on their Australian Made clothing. Visit the website for details:

http://www.fairwear.org.au

Anti-Sweatshop Christmas Carols

Away in a Sweatshop
to the tune of Away in a Manger

Away in a sweatshop where no one can see
The immigrant seamstresses work constantly.
Conditions are awful, the pay is absurd
The boss he will fire them if they say a word.
Away in a fact'ry, an ocean away
Young girls making shoes for a dollar a day.
But please don't complain about worker exploitation
Cause this factory's in a Most Favored Nation.
Away in the Congress, the Senators fat
Count up their PAC dollars, pass NAFTA and GATT.
They couldn't care less about workers in need
These corporate whores traded their conscience for greed!

Slaving in a Sweatshop Wonderland
to the tune of Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Door bell rings, are you listening?
On your brow, sweat is glistening.
You're working tonight; it just isn't right,
Slaving in a sweatshop wonderland.
Gone away are the good jobs
Here today are the sweatshops
They want you to sew
Seven days in a row
Slaving in a sweatshop wonderland.
In Toronto, Woolworth has used sweatshops
And they've paid the lowest rates in town.
Ask about a union, they'll say no ma'am.
Homeworkers do the job for the poorest pay around.
Later on, they'll conspire
How to raise prices higher
The plans that they've made
Won't make us better paid
Slaving in a sweatshop wonderland.
Door bell rings, are you listening?
On your brow, sweat is glistening.
You're working tonight; it just isn't right,


And this little missive from the Right makes the point too..


Will the Feds Bust Santa Claus?
by George Getz

When Santa Claus comes to town this week, he'd better watch out -- because the federal government may be making a list of his crimes (and checking it twice), the Libertarian Party warned today.

"Hark the federal agents sing, Santa is guilty of nearly everything," said Libertarian Party press secretary George Getz. "The feds know when Santa's been bad or good -- and he's been bad, for goodness sakes."

Does Santa belong in the slammer? Instead of stuffing stockings, should he be making license plates?

Yes, said Getz, if he's held to the same standards as a typical American. For example:

* Every December 25, the illegal immigrant known as Santa Claus crosses the border into the United States without a passport. He carries concealed contraband, which he sneaks into the country in order to avoid inspection by the U.S. Customs Service. And just what's in all those brightly colored packages tied up with ribbons, anyway? The Drug Czar and Homeland Security want to know.

* Look at how this international fugitive gets around: Santa flies in a custom-built sleigh that hasn't been approved by the FAA. He never files a flight plan. He has no pilot's license. In the dark of night, he rides the skies with just a tiny bioluminescent red light to guide him -- a clear violation of traffic safety regulations.

* Pulling Santa's sleigh: Eight tiny reindeer, a federally protected species being put to hard labor. None of these reindeer have their required shots, and Santa's never bothered to get these genetically- engineered animals registered and licensed. It's no wonder: He keeps them penned outside his workplace in a clear violation of zoning laws.

* But Crooked Claus the Conniving Capitalist harms more than just animals -- he's hurting hard-working American laborers, too. Isn't Santa's Workshop really Santa's Sweatshop, where his non-union employees don't make minimum wage and get no holiday pay? Add the fact that OSHA has never inspected the place, and you have a Third-World elf-exploitation operation that only Kathy Lee Gifford could love.

* No wonder Santa is able to maintain his monopoly over the toy distribution industry: He's cornered the Christmas gift market. Santa dares to give away his products for free in a sinister attempt to crush all competition -- just like Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Antitrust Lawsuit Memo to the feds: Is Santa Claus the Bill Gates of Christmas?

The bottom line, said Getz: "It might be tough sledding for Jolly St. Nick this Christmas if the government decides to prosecute him.

"We're just surprised it hasn't already happened. After all, Santa Claus is everything that politicians aren't: He's popular, reliable, and gives us something for nothing every December 25th -- instead of taking our money every April 15th."
See

Sweatshop

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High Tech Capitalism Crashes

I always like to remind folks of the boistorous boom minded pro capitalist ideology espoused by the high tech futurist guru's at Wired magazine. Of course they said this just before their own boom busted.

The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980 - 2020 By Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden
We're facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom, and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that?

Today we see that the exuberient predictions of high tech capitalisms endless growth are slapped down by a dose of good old capitalist reality.Capitalism is crisis prone, anyone got a problem with that?

From The Times
December 20, 2008
Electronic Arts cuts 1,000 jobs as sales of games stall

In this case EA has bought up successful Canadian companies and is now closing them. Thanks to NAFTA and intellectual property rights, we all suffer the same fate when America crashes. And when in doubt lie about your intentions. Which has always been EA's modus operendi.

EA cuts jobs, moves Black Box studio
Earlier today (December 19), the Georgia Straight reported that Electronic Arts has announced that it is vacating a facility in downtown Vancouver. The news comes a week after the video-game developer and publisher revealed it was not going ahead with plans to open a new studio in the city’s Yaletown district. During its period of fastest growth, EA was often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then producing drastically changed games of their franchises. For example, Origin-produced Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott and these two are considered by manyas not up to the standard of the rest of the series.

And of course it's all about the bottom line, lining the bosses pockets. After all capitalism is not about production for use value, or even exchange value, its about making a profit for the boss, at any cost. Whether it is high tech or not.

EA Sacrifices Workforce For Income
Videogame maker is trimming staff and secondary titles to bolster profitability.
John Riccitiello is aiming to boost his bottom line at the expense of the top and at the expense of a good chunk of the staff of the company he leads, Electronic Arts. Mr. Riccitiello, age 48, has served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of EA since April 2007. Prior to re-joining EA, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner at Elevation Partners, a private equity fund.

High tech nerds, and high tech pundits and promoters who ignored the reality that high tech capitalism was still just plain old capitalism, thought they were different from the high tech wage slaves working in silicon virtual factories. They learned that under high tech capitalism they too wer wage slaves, the factories were offices with cappacino bars, beds, basketball courts etc. But a sweat shop is a sweat shop regardless if it is air conditioned or not.

In 2004, Electronic Arts was criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours—up to 100 hours per week— and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behaviour (at 6:30 p.m.)". The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for "unpaid overtime".The class was awarded $15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by programmers was settled for $14.9 million

Again nerds and factory workers get sold out by private equity, hedge funds, and the rest of the ponzi crew. 25 year boom my ass. Once again these predicitons of how capitalism has developed a 'new economy; that will boom and not bust are the dreams of those who sold us tulips and the south sea bubble.


SEE
Super Bubble Burst
Monopoly Capitalism in Cyberspace

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Carnival Of Socialism #4

Comrades;

Welcome to the Carnival of Socialism #4.

We seem to be well on a roll here with four full carnivals of wholesome socialism for the masses. And some interesting arguments as well.

For a blogsphere that appears at times to be full of self righteous right wingers, this is your chance to fling open the window's of your mind.

Take yourself by the hair and turn your self inside out to look at the world with fresh eyes.

Thanks to the insights provided by the following fine folks and their contributions.

Andrew Barttlet posted at the Sharpener, a collective blog of political discussion, the following; Work ethics: efficiency.

He says; "In the age of Homo economicus, of atomised economic units standing in the stead of thinking, civilised men and women, to be an efficient worker from the position and interests of the worker means to maximise the wages received while minimising the amount of labour input. As, in most employing organisations, wages are fixed according to rank, and as promotion hierarchies narrow as one rises through the ranks, the surest way that the majority of workers can maximise individual efficiency is to contribute as little labour as possible while remaining in employment. In other words, to skive and to slack."


The Red Baron tackles the current hot topic of Immigration, Migration and Amnesty from his outpost in the UK. Most folks in North America don't realize that this has been a major issue in Europe and the UK as long as it has in the USA.
A topic I have blogged on as well.

He challenges the contractions of the liberal/social democratic argument for letting some folks stay but restricting others from entering their countries.

"No-one doubts the need for immigration controls, but it would be immoral to deport those already here that our economy depends on" -Jack Dromey Deputy General Secretary T&GWU

The second point of order to Mr Drobey's comment is the economic premise that were there to be an amnesty (which is not going to happen but it is a point of debate) that the illegal workers currently employed within these borders would continue to be as much an asset to our economy as they currently are. This, I'm afraid is romantic idealism. The very reason illegal workers are employed here, just as there are so many Mexicans and other illegal aliens in the US is that these workers are not subject to the same legal protection offered to legitimate employees. They are not subject to the minimum wage standards nor national insurance or pension provision. This is clearly not the choice of the workers but that of the employers who can circumvent a great deal of red tape and save themselves a great deal of money both in the payment of paltry wages and the avoidance of insurance payments for every worker. Furthermore they are able to exploit worker productivity as workers can be sacked easily or threatened with being reported to the authorities if they do not tow the line.

Is there a connection between the current Imperialist agenda in Iraq and Genetically Modified foods (GMO's)? Red Aspire thinks so. In Two beads on a string RA compares the War in Iraq with the continuing efforts to impose GMO, the new Green Revolution, on the developing countries of the world. RA points out; "Aid agencies and NGOs across the globe have been reacting with horror to the
news that new legislation in Iraq was carefully put in place last year by the
United States that will effectively bring the whole of the country’s
agricultural sector under the control of trans-national corporations. This
spells disaster for the Iraqi government and the country’s farmers, paving the
way for companies like Monsanto and Syngenta to control the entire food chain
from planted seed to packaged food products."

Louis Proyect The Unrepentant Marxist takes issue with liberals and right wingers over the issue of Sweat Shop labour in the era of Imperialism. He correctly points out that American defenders of capitalism from the liberal and right wing, and the editorial board at the NYTimes, see no choice but sweat shop labour for Africa.

The opening sentence of Kristof's op-ed piece is meant to startle the reader:

"Africa desperately needs Western help in the form of schools, clinics and sweatshops."

The infatuation with sweatshops on the NY Times op-ed page even extends to Paul Krugman, the liberal icon who really differs little from Thomas Friedman when it comes to a belief in the benefits of low-wage coolie labor. Basically, Krugman wrote a column identical to Kristof's on April 22, 2001

But one wonders in light of Kristof's hymn to sweatshops whether there might be a connection to Friedman's more openly mercenary understanding of how the dollar and the bullet intersect. Could this insufferable moralizing prig be possibly be more interested in corporate profits than he is in missionary-style rescues?

For an answer to this, I'd recommend John Bellamy Foster's article in the current Monthly Review, which does a really good job of describing the emerging strategic interests of US imperialism in Africa–especially in regions that are the focus of Cruise Missile liberals like Kristof.

Always a great turn of phrase in Proyect's writings. I like that 'curise missle liberals'.


Lenins Tomb takes up the challenge of writing a lengthy, well documented essay on Iraq: Nationalism, Communism and Islamism. Lenin has received over 198 comments on it. Showing that many are up to the challenge of reading this treatise. And this may be the reason why, he challenges and titlates his readers in his prologue;

"Someone told me once that if the United States had been serious about making the occupation of Iraq work on usable terms for the ruling class, they would have had to oblige every official to read Hanna Batatu's classic tome, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. That and a few other things besides. As it happens, those driving the policy - while by no means heterodox - went to radical lengths to avoid having to hear from people who knew what they were talking about. We who intend to occupy nowhere but our happy little ruts are faced with all the usual questions: why is the occupation in such trouble; how did Political Islam emerge as a serious force in Iraq; what was the role of the communists, and why have they colluded with the occupiers; how did the Ba'athists develop and come to power; what's the role of Iraqi and Arab nationalism? It seems to me that the main problem to start with is understanding Ba'athism - we're always propelled toward certain metaphors or proto-concepts in describing it. From the lexicon of totalitarianism, it is always either fascist or Stalinist or both, which is understandable in a sense if you're just concerned with certain superficial modes of state rule. I shall argue a fairly orthodox class-based approach. You can't understand what happened in Iraq - from its creation under British occupation to monarchy to Qasim's Free Officers to the Ba'athist dictatorship - without understanding how class structured social power, the state's hegemonic practises and eventually the methods of Ba'athist rule."


Larry Gambone at Porcupine Blog in his essay "The Myth Of Socialism As Statism". asks; "What did the original socialists envision as the owner and controller of the economy? Did they think it ought to be the state? Did they favor nationalization? Or did they want something else entirely? Let’s have a look, going right back to the late 18th Century." He then documents all the Great Socialist thinkers who said workers control and cooperation is the real aim of Socialism. Then he says;

Why The Confusion

The state did play a role in the Marxist parties of the Second International. But its role was not to nationalize industry and create a vast bureaucratic state socialist economy. Put simply, the workers parties were to be elected to the national government, and backed by the trade unions, cooperative movement and other popular organizations, would expropriate the big capitalist enterprises. Three things would then happen:

1. The expropriated enterprises handed over to the workers organizations, coops and municipalities. 2, The army and police disbanded and replaced by worker and municipal militias. 3. Political power decentralized to the cantonal and municipal level and direct democracy and federalism introduced. These three aspects are the famous “withering away of the state” that Marx and Engels talked about.

Ravenblade at Ravens Nest, which I think may be located in the river valley of fair Redmonton, takes on the humanitarian nature of the war in Afghanistan. Wait it's not a war according to the Minister of War.....err Minister of Defense.

Anyways Ravenblade was thumbing through the local papers and discovered some contradicitions.Ignorance is bliss.

A few days later, I was reading a copy of the Edmonton SUN . Someone wrote the following article to the editorials section:

"Could all of the anti-war protesters try protesting in Iraq or Afghanistan where the war is actually going on? Or are you all too comfortable in your homes that were won throughout the hard work and effort of Canadian, American and British troops?- Al Boschman"
Edmonton Sun, March 23, 2006

What exactly does the unprovoked Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have to do with Canadians living in warm homes? In what war were these homes won, exactly? Certainly not Iraq and Afghanistan. Does this loud individual really believe that our troops are defending Canada by invading sovereign countries? Does he honestly believe that Afghanistan posed a military threat to Canada, or that Iraq posed a military threat to America?

Our final contributor is from the Green Left perspective. A local campaign blog to Save the Ribble. It's a campaign to save a river in the UK from city planners and their efforts barrage the river for increased housing and commercial development. It shows again the importance of Thinking Globally, Acting Locally.

Renowned Environmentalists Express Concerns about Barrage Proposals

One of the consequences of global warming and climate change is the likely rise in sea levels over the coming years and decades. Fragile ecosystems such as the Ribble are already vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and low lying flood plain areas will be at increased risk of flooding as sea levels rise. Building a barrage on the Ribble will exacerbate these risks at a time when we should be considering ways to protect our environment from the effects of global warming. The Environment Agency is also warning against building on floodplain as this puts ‘new development at risk from flooding or [is] likely to exacerbate flooding elsewhere’ which alone should prohibit the ‘Central Park’ housing and business building development proposal. In addition this so called ‘Central Park’ will result in the loss of a broad range of natural habitats which support diverse wildlife species. And once our Green Belt is developed and built on it will be lost forever.

In closing ,while they did not ask for it, I would like to contribute my own recommendation; the Atlantic Canadian web site Left News.

While providing a blog of news about the peoples struggles against capitalism, imperialism and all the other oppresive isms from around the world, they too never forget that all issues are local issues. And they interact with their local community by announcing actions, protests, etc. and then reporting on them.

Labour March Concludes Days of Action Against Atlantica!

Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, comrades all, this is your Carnival of Socialism #4.


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Harpers Latin America Tour

Harper leaves on his mission to Canada's trading partners in Latin and Central America and the Caribbean. The small number of countries he is visiting shows this trips is all about being Canada's salesman for our friendly Imperialism in the region.

Whether it is promoting our investment interests in Haiti, or those of Barrick Gold in Chile, or the role of the money laundering Scotia Bank in the region. Canadian miners are big investors in the Caribbean and Latin America, and their impact on the environment leave much to be desired.

It is a natural extension of the Conservatives contientialism. They have abandoned aid to Africa, a Liberal policy, for selective aid to countries we have sent our military to, or have investment interests in.

Ironically one of the Caribbean countries we have major investments and influence in is not being visited by Harper, Cuba.

Harper's itinerary is also packed with meetings with Canadian investors in the region, and with speeches to local economists and businessmen.

In Santiago, he will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Canada's free-trade deal with Chile, tour a new Scotiabank office, and stop by the local headquarters of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, which is developing a highly controversial mine in Chile.

"It will be very disappointing if the prime minister returns from this trip and it simply has been a business-as-usual approach - of trying to sign as many new contracts as possible, slapping leaders on the back, talking about how investment is going to flow and how new commercial opportunities are opening up - without any significant attention paid to these very real human rights concerns," said Alex Neve of Amnesty International Canada.

Well Alex be prepared to be disappointed.

See:

More Munk-Key Business

Haiti Quebec's Shame

Haiti Canada's Colony

Haiti Atrocities

Canadian Imperialism

Gildan Sweat Wear

Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story

Gothic Capitalism Redux

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