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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Fashion activist Aja Barber is encouraging us to change our buying behaviour

By Fiona Pepper, ABC News


File image. Photo: David Cliff / NurPhoto via AFP

It was during the darkest days of the pandemic that Aja Barber had her revelation about fast fashion.

"A lot of us were sitting in our houses looking around going, 'Holy crap, I have a lot of stuff' and yet there were weeks where I wore the same two outfits," Barber told ABC RN's Big Ideas.

Yet beyond having an overflowing wardrobe, Barber began questioning how the price of clothing had gone down within her lifetime, while everything else was going up. The conclusions made her uncomfortable.

"There was always a feeling of, 'But why are we okay with people in other countries making terrible wages?'. That feeling was always there and I couldn't fight it," she said.

Currently the average Australian purchases 56 items of clothing each year and sends 23 kilograms to landfill.

Globally, the garment and textile industry employs approximately 75 million people worldwide. The Clean Clothes Campaign estimated less than 1 percent of what you pay for a typical garment goes to the workers who made it.

Now Barber, the author of Consumed: The Need for Collective Change wants to demystify the structural inequality embedded in the global fashion industry, and show consumers how they can change that.
'I was part of the problem'

Barber was quick to admit that she was part of the problem from a young age.

"When I think about my own path to being a fast-fashion shopper, I was so ripe for the taking because I grew up being made fun of for my clothing," she said.

"[I was] never being invited to subsequently sit at that lunch table with that group of snobs that were mean to me, thinking that maybe if I just had a T-shirt from the Gap, they'd be nice to me.

"And that's how it starts."

In her 20s, Barber read about the highly covetable leather Birkin bag and she set her sights on owning this expensive piece.

That is, even though she admitted she thought the bags were ugly.

"But I wanted one because of what it said about me. I'm a young black woman in a very white world, going into white business places and I want people to treat me well. That's why I wanted the bag, not because it was pretty," she said.

Barber bought the bag and this was just one example she said of her long-standing relationship with fashion and this belief that it could fix her feelings of inadequacy.

Now she wanted to remind everyone of what was lurking behind our desire to own the next big thing.

"Maybe you don't even need that dress; maybe you need a hug," she said.

Barber said we have grown accustomed to downplaying the scale of the fast-fashion problem, in order to continue justifying the purchase of sweatshop-made clothing.

"In devaluing the system, we're entirely able to look away from the harm of the system," Barber said.

By framing the issue as trivial, Barber said we were also devaluing the labour that goes into making garments, and the entire labour force propping up the clothing industry.

The 2022 Ethical Fashion Report found that just 10 percent of companies surveyed could evidence paying workers living wages at any of their final-stage factories.

"We have to value it because it is having a deep and profound impact on not just our planet, not just our fellow sisters, but our psyche as well," Barber said.
Countering all the old excuses

A common argument that Barber came up against was that cheap clothing was accessible to everyone.

Her counter argument was simple: "Is it really accessible when it can only exist if we exploit other women?"

"We're so indoctrinated into consumerism, we really squeeze and manipulate rhetoric to fit our particular situation, so we feel good about buying sweatshop clothing," Barber said.

She also pointed out that the target audience for cheap clothing was usually the middle class.

"When I try and talk to people with platforms that sell sweatshop clothing, I'm like, 'So you're a rich woman, why are you selling sweatshop clothes?'," she said.

Their common response was that it was what their audience and followers could afford.

"And I'm like, your audience is just like you, your readership is just as middle class as you are. Do not even pretend like they need you to sell them shite that they don't need."

Additionally, she said we need to change our mindset around ethical shopping.

If Australians bought ethically made clothing at the rates they currently buy fast fashion, the cost would likely be prohibitive.

But if we reduce the amount we buy and wear those items longer, then ethically made clothing will be cost-effective.

Another common justification for buying cheap clothing was that the sweatshop workers were better off working than not.

But Barber argued this was straight up colonialism.

"This is the idea that all of these systems can only exist, if a corporation from a foreign entity exploits everyone," she said.

And she pointed out that there were brands that do pay fair wages. And these companies could challenge others to do better.
Social media and excess consumption

In 2017, environmental charity Hubbub, found that one in six young people did not feel they could repeat an outfit once it had been seen on social media.

Barber said this message was starting to become normalised.

"I grew up wearing second-hand [clothes]. I did not tell my little snot-nose peers because that would have been another thing for them to make fun of me for," Barber said.

"I think there's still stigma there. That's a hurdle that we're going to have to get through culturally in our society."

She also wanted consumers to slow down and rediscover their individual style.

"Fast fashion has gotten us so away from knowing our personal style, knowing what we really like because you're having a lot of stuff pushed at you," she said.

"And once we get back to that, it really narrows down what you're purchasing … It's a lot more considered, which means it's probably going to stay in your wardrobe for a lot longer."

Yet Barber admitted, while encouraging people to buy ethically, second hand or educating young people were all important steps forward, she said individuals could not be expected to fix the problem.

"We need legislation, we cannot group hug our way out of this."

For example, Barber suggested the introduction of an extended responsibility tax being placed on all fast fashion garments would mean that companies would have to pay for the end of the life of every product manufactured.

Additionally, imposing financial penalties around non-compliance of Modern Slavery Acts.

And as an individual, Barber said: "If you already have clothing you can wear, then you don't need new things."

And the next new item of clothing you do buy, "has to be from a company that pays everyone fair wages, that's it".

- ABC

Biden urged to pick California attorney who fought sweatshop slavery as new head of Labor Department

cdavis@insider.com (Charles Davis) 

California Labor Secretary Julie Su is photographed at her home in Cerritos, California. Katie Falkenberg/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

California labor activists are asking President-elect Joe Biden to select Julie Su as his Secretary of Labor.

Su, once dubbed the "bane of deadbeat employers," has served as California's Labor Secretary since 2019.

Previously, Su served as the state's labor commissioner. She also co-founded the group Sweatshop Watch.

"Thinking about Julie Su as Secretary of Labor is almost a physical sense of relief," one source in the labor movement told Business Insider.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Labor organizers in Southern California are pushing President-elect Joe Biden to pick a progressive, hometown hero for Labor Secretary, arguing that the state's top labor official — an anti-sweatshop campaigner dubbed the "bane of the deadbeat employer" — is supremely qualified to protect workers' rights during the pandemic.


Julie Su has served in statewide office since 2011, when former Gov. Jerry Brown picked her to lead the state's enforcement of labor laws. Before that, at the age of 26, she represented dozens of undocumented Thai workers who were effectively enslaved at a garment factory outside Los Angeles, a landmark case that prompted federal and state efforts to combat human trafficking; that work was cited by the MacArthur Foundation, which awarded her its "genius" award in 2001.

As labor commissioner, Su turned the state's under-resourced team of worker advocates into "what could be the most aggressive and effective state labor law enforcement division in the country," according to a 2013 report from In These Times, a progressive magazine.

Under Su's reign, California sought the largest-ever judgment against an employer in state history, assessing almost $12 million in citations against a construction company. "[E]mployers who steal from workers will end up paying for it," she said at the time.

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom promoted her to Secretary of Labor, a role that has seen her oversee worker safety and unemployment checks amid a pandemic and recession — experience her advocates believe has well prepared her to do the same on a larger scale.

"Workers, especially workers of color, are hurting across the country," Marissa Nuncio, director of the Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles, told Business Insider. "They need and deserve someone with a demonstrated record of leadership and expertise in fighting for working individuals and families, and Julie's record is exemplary."

 Julie Su received a 2001 "genius" grant from the MacAuthur Foundation for her efforts to protect undocumented immigrant workers. 

Carlos Chavez/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

As Bloomberg Law reported last week, Su's odds for a cabinet pick have been aided by a split in union support among contenders who are better known on the national stage, such as US Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Andy Levin. "I think she's very, very viable," Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, a supporter, told Bloomberg. "She's really been a warrior for us."

But, the outlet noted, a lack of public support from organized labor has also been one factor hindering Su's candidacy.

A letter sent to the president-elect on Sunday aims to address that gap.

"It is a critical time for women's leadership and we need a strong woman as US Secretary of Labor, especially a woman of color who understand what it's like to grow up in an immigrant household," states the letter signed by Dolores Huerta, the famed farm worker organizer, and the leaders of groups such as the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California, and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

"She fully enforced the rights of farm workers, janitors, and domestic workers," the letter says. "In short, Su has been at the forefront of some of the most innovative policies and enforcement strategies in our state's history.

A senior staffer at a national labor organization, requesting anonymity to speak freely, said a Su cabinet post would be seen as a big win for the labor movement.

"Thinking about Julie Su as Secretary of Labor is almost a physical sense of relief," the source told Business Insider. She's spent years leading enforcement in the world's fifth-largest economy and before that fought for workers' rights as an activist exposing labor conditions in the garment industry.

"She is widely respected as a labor rights and civil rights attorney, so she truly 'speaks the language' of workers' issues," the source said, noting she is also fluent in both Spanish and Mandarin.

Su "will walk in that door fully capable, ready to work, and without any serious shadows of past transactional relationships or controversies," they added.

Sweatshop Secrets of Success

You know its serious when its reported in Business Week. And while this is about American companies in China lets not forget that we have our own sweatshop companies here in Canada investing in Nicaragua and Haiti. Like Gilden Active Wear. They too use third party codes of conduct.


For more than a decade, major American retailers and name brands have answered accusations that they exploit "sweatshop" labor with elaborate codes of conduct and on-site monitoring. But in China many factories have just gotten better at concealing abuses. Internal industry documents reviewed by BusinessWeek reveal that numerous Chinese factories keep double sets of books to fool auditors and distribute scripts for employees to recite if they are questioned. And a new breed of Chinese consultant has sprung up to assist companies like Beifa in evading audits. "Tutoring and helping factories deal with audits has become an industry in China," says Tang, 34, who recently left Beifa of his own volition to start a Web site for workers.

Some American companies now concede that the cheating is far more pervasive than they had imagined. "We've come to realize that, while monitoring is crucial to measuring the performance of our suppliers, it doesn't per se lead to sustainable improvements," says Hannah Jones, Nike Inc.'s (NKE ) vice-president for corporate responsibility. "We still have the same core problems."

This raises disturbing questions. Guarantees by multi-nationals that offshore suppliers are meeting widely accepted codes of conduct have been important to maintaining political support in the U.S. for growing trade ties with China, especially in the wake of protests by unions and antiglobalization activists. "For many retailers, audits are a way of covering themselves," says Auret van Heerden, chief executive of the Fair Labor Assn., a coalition of 20 apparel and sporting goods makers and retailers, including Nike, Adidas Group, Eddie Bauer, and Nordstrom (JWN ). But can corporations successfully impose Western labor standards on a nation that lacks real unions and a meaningful rule of law?

See:

China Needs Free Unions

Independent Unions In China

Sweatshops


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Freed Taiwan activist recounts 'fascist circus' of Chinese court


Lee Ming-che spent more than four years in a Chinese prison under national security laws, saying authorities there operated 'a total slavery sweatshop'

 (AFP/Sam Yeh)
Sam YehMore

Amber WANG
Tue, May 10, 2022

A Taiwanese democracy activist, jailed in China for five years, on Tuesday described the court proceedings as a "fascist circus" and said he was told he might be released if he admitted to bei
Lee said he bought books and supplies and donated money to some Chinese political prisoners and their families, as well as visiting them on the mainland.

"My actions are very normal in Taiwan or any democratic society... I didn't expect China would view my humanitarian acts as grossly as subverting state power," he said.

He was sent to Chishan Prison in Hunan province where Lee said he initially had to work 11 to 12 hours daily all year round, except for a four-day lunar new year break.

Food often smelt "rotten" when it cooled and he was initially without hot water during Hunan's bitter winters.

"Chishan is like a big factory... It's a total slavery sweatshop," Lee said, adding the prison produces gloves, shoes, bags and backpacks.

China's prisons have long deployed forced labour programmes for inmates, something that has received increased international scrutiny following the construction of a vast detention system in western Xinjiang province.

Lee was accompanied Tuesday by his wife Lee Ching-yu who campaigned hard for her husband's release.

Lee said he believed that campaign kept public focus on his case and helped improve his treatment.

Asked if he had anything to say to the Chinese government, Lee replied with a pro-independence slogan in Taiwan: "Taiwan, China, one country on each side".

China claims self-ruled democratic Taiwan as its own and vows to seize it one day, by force if necessary.

Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen came to power on the island in 2016, as she views Taiwan as an "already independent" sovereign nation and not part of Chinese territory.

aw/jta/aha/reb

'I'm Asking You To Help': Amazon Employee Describes 'Sheer Brutality' of Work to Senators

"Amazon's high-tech sweatshop caused me to develop plantar fasciitis... I take what little time I have to run to the bathroom just to cry."


Workers pack and ship customer orders at the 750,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center on August 1, 2017 in Romeoville, Illinois.

(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMONDREAMS

December 7, 2021

"I'm looking to you to stand up to corporations like Amazon and protect us."

"We are living in a country where machines are getting better treatment than people."

That was Courtenay Brown's message to U.S. senators during a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. The Newark, New Jersey resident and Navy veteran has worked at an Amazon fulfillment center for more than three years.

Brown—also a leader at United for Respect, a movement of Amazon and Walmart workers fighting for better labor conditions—said in her "powerful" and "compelling" testimony that she wanted to "raise the alarm about Amazon's business model, its threat to working people, and its threat to our economy."

As a process guide at an Amazon facility in Avenel, New Jersey, Brown sorts groceries for delivery, work she described as "physically and mentally exhausting," before noting that "on top of that, we are monitored every single second as we scan items."

According to Brown:

So pausing even to wipe the sweat off our forehead can lead to a write-up as managers monitor our locations and times we spend doing work. If we fall behind in any way during our 12-hour shift, we risk being disciplined. We are pushed to our limit to the point where we can’t even take regular bathroom breaks. Often we literally have to run to and from the bathroom in under two minutes so we don't get in trouble. The constant pressure and surveillance is one reason why Amazon has twice the level of injuries and turnover compared to similar employers.

Taking aim at Amazon's founder and former CEO—who competes with Telsa's Elon Musk for the title of the world's richest person—Brown detailed her difficulties with the e-commerce giant's bereavement policy in the wake of her mother's death, explaining that she had to take "a month of unpaid time off, while Jeff Bezos made $75 billion last year thanks to me and my coworkers."

"Amazon's multibillion-dollar wealth is made possible by offering one- and two-day delivery," she said, "and the corporation has achieved this speed and scale through sheer brutality—watching, timing, and punishing associates like me and my coworkers for not working fast enough and not allowing associates to take time off to adequately recover, rest, and prevent burnout."

"We are living in a country where machines are getting better treatment than people," she asserted. "The machines at my facility undergo routine maintenance checks to ensure they don't burn out. Meanwhile, research has shown that workplace injury rates are higher at Amazon facilities with more robotic and automated technology."

"Amazon's high-tech sweatshop caused me to develop plantar fasciitis—a debilitating pain in my heel—because I'm having to stand up for long periods of time at work with little to no rest. The burning sensation around my heels is so painful that I take what little time I have to run to the bathroom just to cry," Brown continued, noting that one time she begged doctors to keep her at the emergency room longer because she had to return to work.

The Amazon worker accused the company of setting up facilities "in Black and Brown communities desperate for work" and pointed out that Bezos recently told shareholders he plans to use more automated control of warehouse workers—or what she called "dehumanizing tactics designed to break our bodies."

Warning members of the Senate Finance Committee's panel on fiscal responsibility and economic growth that "Amazon has built an empire on our backs, and now other employers, like Walmart, are racing to copy" its model, Brown implored them to take action.

"I'm asking you to help me put an end to inhumane, exploitative processes that leave America's workers injured, exhausted, and mentally battered each day," she said.

Brown's testimony came during a wide-ranging hearing entitled "Promoting Competition, Growth, and Privacy Protection in the Technology Sector." The subcommittee's chair, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), asked Brown how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted logistical operations.

Brown also shared her experience working under Amazon's surveillance with The Washington Post last week.

"They basically can see everything you do, and it's all to their benefit," the 31-year-old said. "They don't value you as a human being. It's demeaning."

In an emailed statement to the Post, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel framed the employee monitoring as beneficial to not only the company but also its workers.

"Like any business, we use technology to maintain a level of security within our operations to help keep our employees, buildings, and inventory safe—it would be irresponsible if we didn't do so," Nantel said. "It's also important to note that while the technology helps keep our employees safe, it also allows them to be more efficient in their jobs."

The newspaper noted that some workers don't agree with Nantel's framing—such as Chris Smalls, a former employee at an Amazon facility in Staten Island who is leading a unionization effort there.

"It's one of the big reasons people want to unionize," Smalls said of the monitoring policies. "Who wants to be surveilled all day? It's not prison. It's work."

Staten Island isn't the only place where Amazon employees are fighting for a union. A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board determined last week that following allegations of unlawful interference by the company in an unsuccessful April union election, workers at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama will get to vote again.

The Alabama decision came on Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year, and followed a Black Friday that saw Amazon workers walk out of facilities around the world to demand better working conditions.

Amazon's treatment of its workers and opposition to unionization efforts have fueled demands for the Senate to pass the House-approved Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.

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'The Box' gets inside Mexican sweatshop at Venice film festival

Issued on: 06/09/2021 - 

'How do you put a camera inside a real maquiladora?' said Vigas.

 'It's nearly impossible.'

 Filippo MONTEFORTE AFP

Venice (AFP)

Getting access to a "maquiladora", one of the hundreds of factories that line Mexico's border with the United States, was the biggest challenge of shooting Lorenzo Vigas' latest film at Venice, the director said Monday.

"The Box" is in competition for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, to be announced on Saturday.

It was shot in Chihuahua, the site of hundreds of foreign-owned factories assembling cheap goods and apparel for the United States just across the border, and one of Mexico's most violence-plagued states.

The cheap labour that fuels the maquiladoras has made Mexico a major exporter, but at the cost of its poor and uneducated workers, many of whom work in sweatshop conditions for rock-bottom wages.

"How do you put a camera inside a real maquiladora? It's nearly impossible," the Venezuelan director, who lives in Mexico, told journalists Monday.

"They're very jealous of not exposing their production line," said Vigas, who in 2015 became the first Latin American to win Venice's prestigious Golden Lion with his first feature, "From Afar".

"They're very jealous of not exposing the condition of their workers -- so how do you shoot a film?"

The production team spent nearly a year trying to find a maquiladora that would allow the crew to shoot inside, before finally getting the green light from a company that was ready to close for bankruptcy.

"We didn't get any roadmap from people who had done this before -- because nobody was allowed before to do this," said one of the film's producers, Jorge Hernandez Aldana.

- Missing women -

The film tells the story of a 13-year-old boy (first-time actor Hatzín Navarrete), who travels halfway across Mexico to recover the remains of his father, whose body has been found in a mass grave.

On the way, he hooks up with a man, played by Hernan Mendoza, who supplies workers for the maquiladoras. He signs up poor people in remote villages with a pitch that they must protect Mexican jobs from Chinese competition.

When we finally see inside the jeans assembly factory where the workers are taken, in the middle of a bleak, unforgiving desert, we immediately wish they could turn back -- it's loud, hot, and the pace is non-stop.

Besides its central theme of replacing absent fathers, "The Box" touches on the brutal reality of thousands of women there -- many of them maquiladora workers. Since the 1990s hundreds have been abducted, either vanishing entirely or their bodies turning up discarded or buried in the desert.

Tarantino regular Tim Roth stars in another film in competition, 'Sundown', by Mexico's Michel Franco

 Filippo MONTEFORTE AFP

"More than 20,000 women in the north of Mexico have disappeared," said Vigas. "Nobody knows why."

More than 73,000 people in Mexico are missing, the government said in 2020, a quarter of them female.

Another Latin American film in competition is "Sundown" from Mexico's Michel Franco. His "New Order" with its searing indictment of the gap between rich and poor in Mexico, won Venice's Silver Lion last year.

"Sundown" stars Tim Roth as a man escaping his obligations at a time of family crisis to hang out on an Acapulco beach.

But, just as in Vigas's film, an undercurrent of social tension pervades the quiet drama, keeping the viewer on edge -- and even a tranquil beach holiday in Mexico is not enough to keep violence at bay.

© 2021 AFP

IS THERE REALLY A PETITE BOURGEOISIE

Originally posted July 5, on Marxism-Leninism Today.
Zoltan ZigedyAugust 4, 2016
https://www.liberationnews.org/really-petty-bourgeoisie/

As a tool of social analysis, the concept of class fell into disfavor. Academics scoff at it as a crude, outdated remnant of a discredited Marxist tradition. Politicians scorn it as an affront to the social homogeneity of modern advanced democracies.

But the rising awareness of economic inequality and its growth in the US has recently brought the idea back into focus, though a decidedly cloudy focus.

The Occupy Movement, its counterparts and spin-offs, generated a simplistic picture of social class based upon an arbitrary, yet compelling division of income and wealth. The idea of the “1%” is a welcome radical slogan, but of little use in understanding the dynamics of various social groups and the relative stability of a social system operating against the interests of the 99%.

Others have contrived a structure that places a vast “middle class” at the center of US society with the decadently rich and the poor at the margins. This quasi-class structure is the preferred depiction of social democratic trade union leaders and politicians who rail against the “shrinkage” of the middle class while evading an indictment of corporations or capitalism. This construction is both misleading and politically impotent.

I cite this perspective in a recent post: Modern liberals have… [created] …an artificial class— the “middle class”— that purports to include hospital workers, food service workers, and sweatshop workers in the same class with doctors, lawyers, and financial managers. For those left out of this broad, meaningless class, the Democratic Party offers the fruits of volunteerism and charitable giving as expressed in its 2012 platform.

Unlike the Occupy movement’s hazy recognition of class antagonism, liberals see social harmony disrupted by unchecked greed. For them, the expansive “middle class” is a happy product of capitalism when properly regulated.

The Marxist Alternative

Like the Occupy movement, Marxists see a class divide roughly based on wealth and income. But they probe deeper for the cause of that divide, locating the cause in social relations unique to capitalism. Those social relations turn on a person’s relationship to the instruments essential to the creation of society’s wealth. Those who possess (own) those instruments form a social class (the bourgeoisie, capitalist class) that, not coincidentally, acquires a greater share of society’s wealth.

Those who own little or none of the instruments of production must hire themselves out to the owners of those instruments in order to find a place in the economic system. They exchange their labor for an income. But because they depend upon this exchange for their continued existence, the owners of the means of production maintain an advantage over them. Marx calls those who are dependent “the proletariat” (the working class); he calls the relationship of dependency “exploitation.”

Thus, capitalist society divides itself into two classes based upon a social/legal relation to the material and immaterial means of creating wealth: those who control (own) those means fall into the capitalist class; those who add their labor to the means of production constitute the working class.

Marx’s neat class divide calls for some refinement: he recognized that there were penumbra on the two major classes, lesser groups with ambiguous features. At the margin of the working class are déclassé workers who often survive by extra-legal means or as parasites on other workers. Marx dubbed this group the lumpen-proletariat.

But below the principal owners of the most powerful economic entities— the national and multinational corporations, in our era— is a group of small business owners, merchants, managers, consultants, intellectuals, and professionals who identify and share many interests with the bourgeoisie. Marx labeled this group the petty bourgeoisie or petite-bourgeoisie. Though the group’s relations to the means of production (and wealth) may be tenuous, those populating this group nonetheless tend to share values with the bourgeois class. The petty bourgeois world view is essentially that of the very wealthy and powerful.

The Petty Bourgeoisie and Today’s Politics

A recent (June, 2016) study by Stephen Rose of the Urban Institute gives credence to the Marxist class analysis and provides a key to both the resilience of capitalist domination and the current political crisis. Ross endeavoured to track the growth of the US “upper middle class” (UMC), an economic category assigned a benign name, but not reflective of a similarly benign role. While Rose chooses to define the UMC in terms of income— a slippery approach to class— his category roughly captures the class dimensions of the Marxist concept of the petty bourgeoisie. Rose’s income-filters select those who persistently identify with the bourgeoisie (Rose’s top .1-1.8% of incomes) because of their economic status.

His findings show a remarkable increase in the size of the UMC from 12.9% of the population in 1979 to 29.4% in 2014! In other words, the mass base potentially supporting the ideology and values of the so-called 1% more than doubled in size in 35 years.

Even more striking, the rich and the upper middle class accounted for 30% of all income in 1979. By 2014, their share grew to 63.1% of all income, demonstrating the enormous growth in resources available to those with a vested interest in capitalism and the status quo.

Thus, as 70% of the population— the working class and the poor— experienced greater and greater inequality, rising poverty and insecurity, intensifying racism, unemployment, and growing debt, the capitalist class and its junior partners grew in size, wealth, and influence. At the same time, the class divide grew wider.

What Does the Class Analysis Reveal?

The relative growth and strength of the petty bourgeoisie offers a powerful ally with the capitalist class before an increasingly demoralized, poorly led, and fragmented majority. As the capitalist/petty bourgeois coalition became more powerful over the last 35 years, union militancy declined, electoral cynicism grew, and radical opposition faded, further denying the majority its place in the democratic process and the defense of its interests.

Clearly, the simplistic class analysis of the 1% versus the 99% fails to grasp the implications of this development. It offers no explanation of the inability of the 99% to simply overpower the will of the 1%. And it fails to reveal the pitfalls of petty bourgeois leadership.

Likewise, the social democratic theory of a thriving, homogenous “middle class” favors class collaboration with a powerful, rapacious coalition of the rich and their bedfellows. This road, too, is a dead end.

When one brings the Marxist analysis to bear on the Democratic Party, it is possible to understand the shift to the New Democrats that found full expression in the Clinton and Obama administrations. I wrote in May: …the social base of the Democratic Party shifted, in the post-Watergate era, away from poor and working class voters, its traditional base through most of the twentieth century, toward professionals and middle strata in urban centers and suburban bedroom communities.

This observation finds an empirical foundation in the data available with the June release of the Rose study; the correlation of the shift and the emergent power of the petty bourgeoisie is no accident. The unparalleled growth of the petty bourgeoisie in size, resources, and voting power becomes a target for the two US parties. In the case of the Democrats, with their traditional link to labor and minorities guaranteed by ossified leaders, upper-income, “liberal” professionals have come to play a decisive role.

The traditional New Deal agenda offered again and again as a tease for workers, Blacks, Latinos, and the poor has been discarded for the social issues near and dear to the petty bourgeoisie. Redistribution, as a sop to the old coalition, gave way to “A rising tide lifts all boats,” the New Democrat metaphor for Reagan’s “trickle down” economics. Gun control, sexual politics, lifestyle issues replace bread and butter.

The contest between the two parties became a contest for the votes, resources, and agenda of the upper income 30%. The remaining 70% were fed an unappetizing gruel of empty promises and neglect.

Of course the US two parties have always been bourgeois parties in the sense that they are, in the end, owned by the rich and powerful and are committed to preserving the existing economic and social relations. However, the Democratic Party, for most of the twentieth century, competed for the loyalty of workers and minorities, conceding small reforms to maintain that coalition. With the wedding of labor unions and civil rights organizations to the Democrats, that deference is no longer necessary. With the ascendency of the petty bourgeoisie, a new agenda has emerged— one decidedly negligent of the interests of the working class and its allies.

It is likely that a similar expansion of the size and influence of the petty bourgeoisie accounts for the devolution of New Labour in the UK, the Socialists-in-name-only in France, and of other popular parties in Europe.

Sanders, Trump, and Brexit

This season of political shock and awe leaves many elites and servile pundits with soiled underwear; they are scrambling to respond to the rejection of the script carefully prepared for the electorate. Sanders was not supposed to seriously challenge the trusted Democratic Party corporate candidate; Trump was supposed to be a sideshow to the anointing of another trusted corporate candidate for the Republican Party; and in the UK, citizens were supposed to follow their “betters” and vote for the continuation of a state of affairs that served only the interests of the privileged.

In all three cases, voters showed an unexpected and unprecedented refusal to be herded like sheep toward preordained outcomes. Voters demonstrated anger and independence. And their anger was directed at political institutions, parties, and politicians that have failed them. The outrage marks the first stages of a rejection of political options that take the majority of the people for granted and ignore or deflect their interests. In a real sense, the class dynamics outlined above have led to a crisis of legitimacy in both the US and the EU. In the short run, it may be contained. But. going forward, the political crisis will only deepen.

PLAYERS NEED A UNION & CBA

How much are student-athletes worth?

March Madness returns, as does compensation debate.


Artur Davis and James Davis
Tue, March 16, 2021

On Thursday, March Madness returns — a small but real step toward making America normal again. This same month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could serve as a catalyst to reshape college sports.

The legal question in the court’s case sounds abstract: Did the superpower that runs college athletics, the NCAA, violate federal law by restricting benefits for college athletes?

But the two of us, an ex-Alabama politician who practices employment rights law and a public affairs consultant with Georgia roots, know the hardship of college athletes, especially in the South (where college sports dominate the pros in so many ways). Many students struggle to afford a plane ticket home while making plenty of money for their colleges and their coaches. They should be allowed to benefit financially from their association with sports and position themselves for future success.


The South that we know is the epicenter of big-time college sports in all its wealth and glory. It is also a landscape of shattered athletic dreams: men whose knees gave out, who never fully regained that lost step after rehab, or who lacked pro-level talent. Some of them ended up broke. Some can’t bear to watch the games they once loved.

March Madness begins March 18, 2021.

Former college athletes such as Shabazz Napier, a University of Connecticut standout who played for the Washington Wizards, and former Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace, who never made the cut in the NFL, have described another cruel feature of college sports: Student-athletes going to bed hungry unable to buy food.

Exploitation and arbitrary rules

College sports is partly built on exploitative and arbitrary NCAA rules that prevent college athletes from having an equity interest in Division I football and basketball — despite the risks and grueling demands of playing big-time sports. College sports is a $19 billion industry, but the revenue creators — the student-athletes — lose eligibility to play if they receive any financial benefit based on their status as an athlete, such as pay for endorsements or appearances.

Since 2015, the major regional college sports conferences have been allowed to offer student-athletes, in addition to scholarships, stipends for expenses such as food and travel up to $5,000 a year. This sounds generous if you don’t do the math and realize the sports locker room is a below-minimum-wage sweatshop. Five years into the 2015 reforms, nearly a quarter of Division I athletes reported struggling to buy food. Others reported homelessness.

More than 60% of Division I athletes sustained a major injury and 50% developed a chronic condition, according to the Journal of Athletic Training. While the NCAA requires college athletes to have insurance, the coverage can be spotty and inadequate. Only the small number of athletes with high round draft potential can genuinely protect the value of a future wrecked by catastrophic injury.

No matter what the Supreme Court decides, federal lawmakers can set things right by passing bipartisan legislation to preserve the best of college sports while empowering college athletes.

Promising policy ideas are emerging. Several democrats in the House and the Senate have proposed, among other things, revenue sharing for college athletes. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., has offered a narrower reform focused on name, image and likeness compensation.

Neither approach has the votes to pass, and they both seem centered on the biggest brand name teams and players. Women’s sports and college programs outside the Power Five won’t fare well under either option.
Some nontraditional fixes

We think something more creative is needed to ensure athletes are included in the financial rewards of their billion dollar industry. While we agree with two-thirds of Americans who support letting college athletes earn product endorsement money, the biggest beneficiaries would be a small number of superstars.

A more inclusive reform would allow college athletes to begin building their economic future while they are in school the time-tested way, through jobs and connections with corporate America. For instance, college athletes deserve the chance to trade sponsorship and promotional ties with businesses for job training and apprenticeship opportunities.

While there are some student-athletes who could be popular enough to work with Nike to create (and make money off of) an entire shoe line, others might get a different deal — one in which Nike could use their likeness in exchange for job training in the manufacturer's marketing or research departments. Let students and corporations work out whatever deal works for them. The NCAA (and everyone else) should get out of the way.

Freeing athletes to be entrepreneurial turns the scales on defenders of the status quo who claim that banning outside income protects the interests of small schools that can’t compete with the cash cows in Athens, Clemson and Tuscaloosa.

The solution is broader than “salaries” and creates opportunities based on skill, a core American principle. Alabama State and Grambling can’t afford bidding wars with Southeastern Conference powers, but think of the potential of Apple and Citigroup engaging stars at smaller historically Black colleges and universities without today’s fuzzy rules on “impermissible benefits.”

Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association who is a crusader for student-athletes, has other transformative ideas, among them the establishment of trust funds that would be available to college athletes who have either completed their degree or are on their way to completion.

Student-athletes — all of them, not just the future first-round picks — need a path to security and wealth. The Cinderella teams during March Madness must share in a more equitable future.

The rules need to permit companies and communities to creatively invest in our student-athletes.

Artur Davis is an employment rights lawyer and a former Democratic congressman from Alabama. James Davis is a criminal justice activist and founder of Touchdown Strategies, a marketing and communications firm.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How much are student-athletes worth? March Madness returns, as does pay debate

Chipotle Is Raising Menu Prices & Blaming It On “Employee Costs”

AND REPUBLICANS BLAME DEMOCRATS 

FOR FIGHT FOR $15 MINIMUM WAGE

Lydia Wang 

REFINERY29

Next time you head to Chipotle, guac won’t be the only thing that costs a little extra. Your whole burrito bowl will, too. As of Tuesday, the burrito chain’s menu costs have risen by around 4%, following worker demands for increased wages and better labor conditions. At a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol said the company’s executives “really prefer not to” hike up prices, “but it made sense in this scenario to invest in our employees and get these restaurants staffed, and make sure we had the pipeline of people to support our growth.”

© Provided by Refinery29

Chipotle announced in May that workers would receive an average payment of $15 an hour by the end of June. In a statement to Refinery29, a spokesperson confirmed that the menu price increase would “help off-set the wage increase that Chipotle is now offering its employees.” In other words, the marginally higher menu prices — Niccol said the price increase is akin to “quarters and dimes that we’re layering in” — will go towards fairly compensating current and future employees.

Many outlets ran with this reasoning: Reuters reported that “Chipotle raises menu prices as employee costs increase,” and the New York Times cited “labor costs” as the reason for the spike. But this frames the updated menu costs as a sacrifice consumers will have to make so that the chain’s workers — whose employer makes tens of millions a year — can earn a living wage. In reality, Chipotle’s executives should have been paying their workers appropriately all along.

“Chipotle is a multibillion-dollar company with one of the highest-paid CEOs on the planet,” Kyle Bragg, President of a New York-based branch of the Service Employees International Union, told Jacobin in May. “But it still pays most of its workers across the country less than $15 an hour.”

Niccol’s salary has only continued to grow over time. In 2020, Niccol received the highest compensation he’s made since he took over the reins as CEO in 2018. Per Newsweek, he was paid $38 million — a sharp increase from the $14.8 million he would have made if not for the pandemic-related modifications Chipotle implemented. This means Niccol made 2,898 times more than the median Chipotle employee in 2020, and actually earned more money during the pandemic than he would have had it not happened. Other executives, including CFO Jack Hartung, CTO Curt Garner, and Chief Restaurant Officer Scott Boatwright, also received pay increases last year.

Employees, meanwhile, saw their salaries go down. Chipotle confirmed to Newsweek that the average worker took a pay decrease as a result of government-mandated shutdowns and COVID-19 safety measures. A representative clarified, though, that Chipotle workers still made more than their peers working for competitors. “Since all Chipotle restaurants are company-owned, our employee population and resulting pay ratio is higher compared to industry peers that operate under a franchise model,” the company said in a statement.

Like many other restaurant chains, Chipotle has faced criticism, lawsuits, and a sharp decrease in prospective employees for understaffing and underpaying its workers. On May 8, a photo of an unknown Chipotle location went viral on Twitter. “Ask our corporate offices why their employees are forced to work in borderline sweatshop conditions for 8+ hours without breaks,” read a sign taped to the restaurant’s door. “We are overworked, understaffed, underpaid, and underappreciated.” And while employees at Chipotle have been attempting to unionize for awhile, they’ve faced a lack of support.

The exploitation of fast food workers has been an ongoing problem across brands and across the country, but the pandemic showcased just how little companies value the employees working tireless days for under $15 an hour — the same employees often considered essential workers. As a result, fewer people are applying to work at fast food restaurants, and the workers already there are facing increased hours and a heavier workload as a result, reported Business Insider.

Make no mistake: This is why Chipotle finally decided to pay employees fairly. If anyone is to “blame” for the extra 50 cents or so your next Lifestyle Bowl may cost you, it’s not the workers, who should have been making more money years ago. It’s the executives, who underpaid them from the beginning, while their own wallets grew fatter.

Chipotle Fined For 13,253 Child Labor Violations

NEWEST SWEATSHOP ECONOMY

Cambodian labour leader's trial for border remarks begins

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The trial of a Cambodian labour union leader charged with inciting social unrest opened in Phnom Penh on Friday, part of a large-scale legal offensive by the government against its critics

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, is standing trial for “incitement to commit felony” for comments concerning territory in border areas, a politically sensitive issue. If found guilty, he could face from six months to two years in prison.

Rong Chhun was arrested in July after the government claimed he spread false information about Cambodia’s border with Vietnam. He has been held in detention ever since. A week before his arrest, Rong Chhun gave an interview to U.S. government-supported Radio Free Asia in which he spoke about meeting farmers in eastern Cambodia who complained about their land being infringed upon by neighbouring Vietnam.

His trial is part of a crackdown on opposition politicians and supporters carried out in the courts by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government. According to the human rights group Amnesty International, about 150 individuals affiliated with the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party are facing treason charges in mass trials, the first of which was held Thursday.

Labour leaders such as Rong Chhun hold significant political influence in Cambodia because they represent the vast number of industrial workers in the textile industry, which is the country’s major export earner. The major unions have historically aligned themselves with the political opposition to Hun Sen.

The issue of Vietnam encroaching on Cambodian land is a highly sensitive one with domestic political significance in Cambodia because of widespread historical antagonism toward the country’s larger neighbour to the east. Hun Sen’s government maintains close relations with Vietnam, leading his political foes to accuse him of failing to protect Cambodian land. Several prominent opposition figures have been prosecuted on various charges in recent years for making such allegations.

Sam Sokong, a lawyer for Rong Chhun, said his client has done nothing illegal in his interview with Radio Free Asia, and that he only had relayed the complaints of villagers along the border to the public at large.

The Joint Boundary Commission of Cambodia and Vietnam rejected the allegations about any violation of Cambodian territory.

Rong Chhun served on the national election committee of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party before it was dissolved by court order in November 2017, ahead of the 2018 general election. The party dissolution was generally seen as intended to ensure victory for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Hun Sen has been in power for 36 years, and has often been accused of heading an authoritarian regime.

Sopheng Cheang, The Associated Press

Activist slams 'sham trial' of Cambodia opposition members

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Ten opposition activists, including a Cambodian-American lawyer, faced treason and other charges Thursday in a trial in Cambodia's capital widely criticized by rights advocates

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

More than 60 defendants were summoned, mostly former members or supporters of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which had been the sole credible political opposition until Cambodia’s highest court in late 2017 ordered its dissolution. But only 10 defendants attended, according to defence lawyer Sam Sokong.

The reasons for the absences were not immediately explained, though some defendants reside abroad. Under Cambodian law, defendants can be tried in absentia.

The court announced that because of the courtroom's limited capacity and coronavirus precautions, only the defendants, their lawyers, and representatives of some civil society organizations and several foreign embassies would be allowed inside.

Many of the defendants are accused of being involved with a failed effort by former opposition leader Sam Rainsy to return from exile in November 2019 to challenge the country's longtime ruler, Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Other exiled activists have announced they also will try to return this Sunday, although their plans are again opposed by Hun Sen's government, which has launched a sweeping crackdown on its opponents.

Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who has long been one of the most outspoken critics of Hun Sen, told reporters at the court that she was not afraid of his regime and would not be intimidated.

Describing the charges as baseless, and the proceedings as “a sham trial,” she said “the decision will be made by politicians, not judges.”

“I’m being persecuted for my political opinion, for expressing my opinion,” she said.

Hun Sen has been in power for more than three decades and tolerates little opposition. An adroit political operator, he has employed both guile and force to maintain his position in an ostensibly democratic state.

Amnesty International said that along with related cases, approximately 150 opposition politicians and supporters are facing mass trials.

“These mass trials are an affront to international fair trial standards, Cambodia’s human rights commitments and the rule of law,” the group’s Asia-Pacific regional director, Yamini Mishra, said in a statement. “This onslaught of cases is the culmination of a relentless campaign of persecution against Cambodia’s political opposition and other dissenting voices.”

Misha said recent history suggests those accused have faint hope of a fair trial. "When it comes to cases against opposition activists and government critics, political motivations consistently outweigh facts and law,” Misha said.

Virtually all of the defendants have been charged with conspiracy to commit treason and incitement to commit a felony, which together carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison.

An initial hearing by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in the cases of about 130 defendants was held in November, when the judge agreed to split the defendants into two groups to make the proceedings easier and allow those who did not yet have lawyers to find representation. The hearings for the second batch are slated to begin March 4.

Thursday's session was adjourned after the judge questioned two defendants and announced the hearing would continue on Jan. 28. There is no estimate of when the trial might conclude.

Several Western nations have imposed sanctions on Hun Sen's government, mainly after concluding that elections in 2008 without the opposition were neither free nor fair. The harshest measure came from the European Union, which last year withdrew some preferential trading privileges.

The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh said on its Facebook page that it had observers at the court Thursday. “We have serious concerns about the lack of due process and urge Cambodian authorities to preserve the constitutional right to peaceful expression,” it said.

——-

This story corrects the number of defendants appearing in court to 10 based on new information from lawyer.

Sopheng Cheang, The Associated Pres

STATEHOOD OR INDEPENDENCE

Puerto Rico Protests Against Higher Ed Cuts Follow Long Fight Against Austerity


The university showdown is the latest chapter in a decades-long struggle against austerity on the archipelago.

By Jonathan Ng ,

Truthout

March 27, 2025

Teacher, students and workers of the University of Puerto Rico protest against a budget cut of $94 million imposed by the Fiscal Control Board on June 11, 2021, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.Alejandro Granadillo / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Teacher, students and workers of the University of Puerto Rico protest against a budget cut of $94 million imposed by the Fiscal Control Board on June 11, 2021, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.Alejandro Granadillo / NurPhoto via Getty Images

This February, President Luis A. Ferrao Delgado of the University of Puerto Rico resigned after attempting to suspend 64 educational programs. The measure targeted core disciplines such as history, philosophy and comparative literature, stunning the university community and provoking bitter opposition. Eleven days of protests followed, compelling Ferrao to reverse the decision before stepping down.

The university showdown is the latest chapter in a two-decade struggle against austerity, as Puerto Rico grapples with a debt crisis and economic stagnation. Since 2016, a fiscal control board has managed the U.S. colony’s finances. Repeatedly, board members have frozen university funding to secure spending cuts and encourage “operational efficiency,” whittling down academic departments, salaries and employee pensions.

Reportedly, Ferrao proposed his reform to unlock $102 million in public revenue that the board is withholding from educators. Authorities had long pressured him to reduce operating costs in exchange for access to basic funding. During his resignation, Ferrao denounced looming “draconian measures” for threatening the university’s “stability and educational mission,” implying that the board is squeezing the budget.

The debt crisis and struggle over education reflect both the failure of U.S. colonialism and capitalist development in Puerto Rico. For decades, officials in Washington, the local elite and foreign financiers have blamed the colony’s fiscal problems on profligate social spending. But these arguments stand reality on its head. In large part, Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis is the foreseeable result of policies that U.S. leaders have imposed from the outside: a model of economic development that relies on tax exemptions and low wages while prioritizing the rights of foreign investors over the well-being of residents.
Colonial Capitalism

During the Cold War, the U.S. government planted the seeds of the current crisis when it launched Operation Bootstrap to develop Puerto Rico’s economy. The modernization program aimed to attract investment by advertising tax exemptions and the territory’s cheap labor. By the 1950s, the international financial press portrayed Puerto Rico as a “bounty for industry” and “taxpayers’ paradise.” Gulf Caribbean and other petrochemical giants constructed factories, and apparel makers like Newberry Textile Mills turned the archipelago into a floating sweatshop: the single largest supplier of clothing to the U.S. market.

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Openly promoting decolonization and a social democratic alternative, a historic coalition made record electoral gains.
By Jonathan Ng , TruthoutDecember 10, 2024

Leftists and independence activists noted that Bootstrap allowed corporations to shirk their fiscal responsibility and exploit workers while making the archipelago dependent on foreign capital. Yet authorities ruthlessly suppressed such criticism. For decades, U.S. officials illegally surveilled over 135,000 civilians to defend a highly unstable model of colonial capitalism.

One target was the independence leader, Juan Mari Brás, who denounced the “colonial-capitalist system” for enabling foreign corporations to absorb the “largest share” of Puerto Rico’s wealth. In response, the FBI allowed right-wing extremists to attack his party’s offices, newspaper press and daycare for young children. In a letter to the FBI director, a bureau agent celebrated Mari Brás’s heart attack in 1964, claiming that its harassment campaign was responsible for his brush with death.

Authorities began spying on his socialist colleague, Manuel de. J. González, when he was still a teenager. Eventually, the police enlisted two neighbors, his landlord, a postman and the local security guard as informants to monitor his activities. Decades later, González discovered that “almost every meeting that I attended is documented.”

The experiences of Mari Brás and González were not unusual. Defending U.S. rule and private investment, the CIA and FBI systematically persecuted dissent, compiling “a list of names” of political activists, spying on U.S. citizens, and intercepting “mail to and from Puerto Rico.” An undercover FBI agent even became the lover of Commander Gloria Fontanez of the Young Lords Organization, which promoted socialism in the colony. While physically abusing Fontanez, he helped engineer the group’s collapse.

Across Latin America, U.S. officials touted Operation Bootstrap as a model for emulation, but neglected a key detail: Repression was the heart of the economic program. Through the 1960s, foreign investment propelled growth in Puerto Rico. Yet wages stayed low, and policymakers promoted emigration to mitigate appallingly high levels of unemployment. As socialists observed, the economy remained dependent on foreign capital: a foundation that would vanish if investors chased profits elsewhere.
Rebooting the System

During the mid-1970s, a prolonged recession gripped Puerto Rico and discredited Operation Bootstrap. Unemployment rates and budget deficits climbed, as corporations began leaving the archipelago to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere in Latin America. The economist Iyari Ríos González registers roughly $16 million in capital flight for 1960, yet estimates that Puerto Rico hemorrhaged over $3 billion in 1980.

Once more, officials adopted fiscal incentives to lure foreign investment. In 1976, the U.S. Congress slotted Section 936 into the tax code, exempting corporate profits in Puerto Rico from federal taxes.

Repression remained a central feature of economic policy. Above all, Gov. Carlos Romero Barceló attacked social spending and workers to attract foreign capital, balance the budget and reverse deindustrialization. In 1977, his administration drafted a secret memo calling for a “carefully conceived plan” to permit the “participation of law enforcement agencies” in labor disputes. That year, police strangled the union leader Juan Rafael Caballero to death. Police also bludgeoned and shot striking workers. Meanwhile, authorities tacitly allowed firms like General Gases and Esso to ram trucks into picket lines and assault employees during labor disputes.

By battering the labor movement, Puerto Rican leaders kept wages flat and cultivated a pro-business climate for foreign investors. The combination of fiscal incentives and bare-knuckled repression stimulated investment and economic growth.

But it also infused the economy with dangerous contradictions. Corporate tax exemptions and high unemployment rates – which routinely surpassed 14 percent of the workforce – prevented Puerto Rico from developing a stable tax base. Government debt rose from 35 to 57 percent of GNP between 1970 and 2000. Increasingly, officials relied on bond sales to underwrite spending, as the public sector confronted revenue shortages.
Decadence and Austerity

By 2006, the North American Free Trade Agreement and expiration of Section 936 had undermined Puerto Rico’s appeal as a labor market, prompting the mass exodus of industry from the archipelago. It marked the definitive failure of the U.S.-imposed model of colonial capitalism. The territory’s already insufficient tax base migrated overseas, and the economy severely contracted.

Over the following decade, Puerto Rico spiraled into the worst municipal debt crisis in U.S. history by selling bonds to cover budget deficits.

The financial crisis and government response has reflected the deeper chaos of the colonial order. Since 2006, every governor’s office has combined austerity measures with visible corruption – cutting public services to reduce the debt, while embezzling funds for political gain.

Before pioneering austerity, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá oversaw an illegal campaign financing scheme to win the gubernatorial election in 2004. The leadership of the Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association and a network of “collaborators” laundered over $7 million for him in illicit contributions. Under legal pressure, suspects admitted to wrongdoing in return for light sentences.

The legacy of corruption continued. Aníbal Vilá’s successor, Gov. Luis Fortuño, laid off thousands of public employees to pay foreign bondholders. Afterward, he retired to the law firm Steptoe & Johnson, while promoting Puerto Rican bond sales. The watchdog group Hedge Clippers acidly noted that Fortuño exited the government to advise “Wall Street types on how best to pillage his former homeland.”

Corruption then reached conspicuous heights under Gov. Alejandro García Padilla in 2013. His campaign manager, Anaudi Hernández Pérez, exploited personal connections to win government contracts, engage in influence laundering and practice extortion. A flamboyant businessman, Hernández raised funds for the Popular Democratic Party by holding drug-soaked parties with sex workers, nude revelers, fireworks and live music at his mansion.

In 2015, federal authorities swept up Hernández and other members of the García Padilla administration in an anti-corruption probe. Losing his patience, the FBI chief in Puerto Rico openly demanded García Padilla “clean the house of parasites… that have bled Puerto Rico dry and left it in critical condition.”

The scandal allowed the gubernatorial candidate Ricardo Rosselló of the New Progressive Party to win office in 2017, while promising to purge the government of corruption and stabilize the territory’s finances. To reduce Puerto Rico’s debt, his administration closed over 400 public schools. Yet in 2019, federal authorities arrested his secretary of education, Julia Keleher, for misappropriating government funds.

Days later, journalists published a Telegram thread exposing the Rosselló administration’s cronyism. One government whistleblower asserted that an “institutional mafia” held the reins of power in a key agency.

Two weeks of protests forced Rosselló to resign. Yet the ruling class’s combined commitment to austerity and personal enrichment endured. Bribery charges plagued Rosselló’s successor, Wanda Vázquez, after she left office. And her successor, Pedro Pierluisi, profited from both sides of the debt crisis: As a corporate lawyer, he helped Puerto Rico issue new bonds, before winning a federal contract to restructure these very debt obligations.

For two decades, the rituals of democracy in Puerto Rico have served to legitimate its colonial orientation and unpopular austerity measures. Elections offered voters candidates instead of options, as both major parties preached a gospel of fiscal discipline and shared sacrifice that they mocked in practice.
Blood in the Streets

During the same period, new grassroots movements emerged to resist the belt-tightening reforms and corruption. Every governor faced popular backlash as the debt crisis worsened. A discernible pattern took root, as government repression incited further waves of mobilization and undercut the legitimacy of the colonial order.

In September 2005, the FBI laid siege to the home of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a socialist activist who had organized a 1983 heist to raise funds for the independence movement. Since 1990, the elderly revolutionary had lived in hiding after removing a tracking device from his ankle. In a provocative display of force, a swarm of FBI agents invaded his neighborhood before triggering a shootout. Afterward, the bureau airlifted an injured agent to a hospital, while leaving Ojeda Ríos to die from a gunshot wound. Amnesty International called his death an “extrajudicial execution.”

The brutal raid occurred on the anniversary of the Grito de Lares – Puerto Rico’s equivalent to Independence Day – and turned Ojeda Ríos into an instant symbol of national resistance. Students forced the University of Puerto Rico to declare an “academic recess,” and the Puerto Rico Bar Association awarded Ojeda Ríos posthumous honors. The outpouring of grief and anger revealed a powerful undercurrent of frustration over the structural inequality and violence of the colonial order.

Immediately, Ojeda Ríos’s death galvanized a new wave of anti-colonial activism. Resurgent social movements largely focused on combating cuts to education, health care and other public services, while confronting the repressive power of the colonial government.

Student activists quickly assumed the vanguard of the struggle against austerity. In 2009, students at the University of Puerto Rico contested tuition hikes and gutted budgets by organizing protests that immobilized the campus.

Governor Fortuño in turn unleashed the police. Police boasted on social media about plowing through students with pepper spray and billy clubs, while acting as the shock troops of austerity. Addressing his colleagues, officer José Rosado openly fantasized about making blood “run” in the streets: “Dinner is served, boys… it’s time!” Other policemen celebrated the opportunity for “emptying” their rifles into crowds and promised to beat back “the mobs that don’t want to study.”

Police brutality led the mainstream Daily Sun to editorialize that the behavior of security forces was “comparable only to the acts of the dictatorships we all denounce.” The Department of Justice itself concluded that “constitutional violations” were “pervasive and plague all levels” of the Puerto Rico Police Department, unveiling a “staggering level of crime and corruption.”

Despite the repression, students have repeatedly mobilized to prevent the government from dismantling public services. In the spring of 2017, colonial authorities proposed slashing $450 million in funding for the University of Puerto Rico. Experts warned that the reform meant “the end of UPR.” And again, students launched a massive strike that police met with indiscriminate violence.

Then in September, Hurricane María slammed the archipelago. The warnings of student activists appeared prescient, as the natural disaster exposed the man-made scars left by over a decade of austerity politics. Puerto Rico’s weakened health care system, decaying infrastructure and anemic social programs collapsed. Ultimately, the legacy of austerity proved deadly: The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that 4,645 Puerto Ricans died in the hurricane’s wake.
The Dictatorship of Capital

The dialectic between resistance and repression continues to define Puerto Rican reality. Despite the austerity program, Puerto Rico’s debt rose from $35 to $72 billion between 2005 and 2017. In response, U.S. officials curbed local control of the archipelago’s debt, delegating authority to foreign financial institutions and, inadvertently, fueling movements that demand economic justice.

Since 2016, a fiscal control board appointed by the U.S. Congress has managed Puerto Rico’s finances. Residents simply call it the “Junta” – alluding to its undemocratic character and past Latin American dictatorships.

Tellingly, the first Treasury official to oversee the debt crisis, Antonio Weiss, previously received a $21 million retirement package from Lazard Frères, a firm heavily invested in Puerto Rican bonds. Federal officials stocked the Junta with foreign bankers and corporate lawyers. Their professional backgrounds made them unsympathetic to Puerto Rico’s plight. Indeed, before assuming her post, Director Natalie Jaresko of the Junta pocketed $1.7 million in bonuses while helping Ukraine navigate its own economic turmoil.

Board members have doubled down on austerity, further hollowing out social programs to pay foreign creditors. Yet the nonprofit group Espacios Abiertos demonstrates that the Junta has routinely overestimated the savings gained from cutting public services. Its 2018 fiscal statement predicted that such reforms would secure $193.9 billion in government savings over the next 30 years. By 2022, the board had lowered its forecast to $49.7 billion, before suspending predictions altogether. Ironically, the Junta itself aggravates the territory’s debt by managing a restructuring process that has cost over $1 billion.

This February, the Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico published an exposé revealing that the board refuses to leave the territory. After nearly a decade, Puerto Rican officials call the Junta a “leviathan,” explaining that “we have complied” with its demands only to receive additional ultimatums. Recently, the board released a report that admits spending cuts have devastated an “overburdened healthcare system.” Nonetheless, members remain confident in their leadership and have announced 50 new preconditions before the archipelago can regain its sovereignty.

The obstacles to its removal are formidable. Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) reports that financial lobbyists have “repeatedly delayed and opposed efforts” to dissolve it and enjoy a stranglehold on Congress. Even Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale have invested in Puerto Rico’s debt through hedge funds like the Baupost Group, profiting from the destruction of its educational system.

Yet grassroots movements are fighting back. As in 2009 and 2017, opposition erupted at the University of Puerto Rico when its president, Luis Ferrao, announced program cuts this January. The mass mobilization lambasted not only the Junta but U.S. colonialism. One leftist group, the Fighting Student Collective, asserts that “it is no coincidence” that cutbacks target the humanities since “a people that does not know its own history is easy to keep subjugated.”

A new governor, Jenniffer González, helped replace Ferrao with a political crony and appointed a lobbyist for bondholders as her chief of staff. What’s more, President Donald Trump’s federal funding cuts further undermine the viability of the colony’s education system, while extending political repression to the U.S. mainland. His attack on universities dramatizes the importance of solidarity in the struggle against austerity, which now threatens the very schools that have profited from Puerto Rico’s debt.

In short, the ongoing crisis reflects the contradictions of U.S. colonialism and capitalist development in the Global South. For decades, elite policymakers and investors have dismantled Puerto Rico’s economy, then cited the resultant debt crisis to shred its social safety net. Perversely, their own mistakes have become a justification for further exploitation, while the Junta and foreign capital attempt to milk a shrinking corpse. But such violence continues to inspire resistance, as social movements mobilize to combat austerity – again resurrecting the Puerto Rican nation in the struggle for a democratic and sovereign future.

The author would like to thank Sarah Priscilla Lee of the Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University for reviewing this article.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Jonathan Ng  is a postdoctoral fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.