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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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

Zara’s Billionaire Owner Was Praised For Helping In The Coronavirus Crisis. Workers In Myanmar Paid The Price.

Fast fashion was always a problem. Now, COVID-19 has deepened the inequity between garment workers and fashion labels rebranding themselves as saviors.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING LONG READ FEATURE

Nishita JhaBuzz Feed News Reporter
Reporting From New Delhi Posted on May 7, 2020

Cameron Spencer / Getty Images
Zara's first store opening in Australia, in Sydney in 2011.

NEW DELHI — A woman immaculately dressed for quarantine reads on a plush sofa in her black crop top and anti-fit denim pants. Another, dressed in a flouncy floor-length peach dress, dances in her kitchen with joyous abandon. A third socially distances on a boat, her white poplin shirt dress a contrast to the lush green surroundings.

Meanwhile, in crowded factories located in chaotic, crime-filled industrial hubs, the workers making these clothes find themselves abandoned by Zara, the global retail brand that’s making quarantine look so glamorous.

When more than one-third of the planet went under coronavirus-related lockdowns, fashion changed. The globe-trotting, stylish woman from Zara’s campaigns moved indoors — or at least, that’s where you’ll see her in the slickly produced videos that the global fashion brand uploads to Twitter. It’s possible that no one will don a Versace cape anytime soon, but consumers are ordering clothes online to reflect their new lives: clothes to wear on work Zoom calls, athleisure for exercising at home, sweats and pajamas for lounging around, and clothes that simply make us feel good. The world might be full of uncertainty, but being able to choose the fit, color, and fabric of the shirt we pair with those comfy pajamas still offers the possibility of feeling in control.

The cost of this retail therapy, the longing for comfort and normalcy under lockdown, is being borne by workers thousands of miles away, faces you’d never see in a summer fashion campaign, even when the videos include token models of color. These workers cannot work from home and, in some cases, they are being forced to labor in factories in close proximity to each other without concern for protecting them from the coronavirus. While brands like Zara, which has stores in 96 countries, ramp up work at logistics centers, workers assembling clothes, swimwear, accessories, and shoes are being sacrificed to meet the demand

Zara / @Zara / Via Twitter: @ZARA, Zara / @Zara / Via Twitter: @ZARA, Zara / @Zara / Via Twitter: @ZARA A selection of still images from Zara's recent Twitter campaigns.

Issues with fast fashion far precede the emergence of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but its rapid spread has deepened the incredible inequity between garment workers who work at one end of the supply chain and wealthy individuals like Zara’s Spanish billionaire owner Amancio Ortega, the world’s sixth-richest man, who are rebranding themselves as benevolent saviors.

At the height of the pandemic in Spain this year, Zara’s parent company, Inditex, closed more than 3,000 stores. Ortega pivoted his fashion empire to making hospital gowns and masks, and according to Forbes, flew in medical supplies worth millions from China. Ortega also made sure that Zara’s Spanish employees received their full salaries during the crisis — all of which won him plenty of great press and support in Spain. On March 28, ambulance crews gathered outside his home to wish him a happy birthday. But Ortega’s generosity and concern for Zara’s workers stopped at the borders of Spain.

Nacho Louro@NachoLouroLas ambulancias de La Coruña delante de la casa de Amancio Ortega para expresar el agradecimiento de toda la sociedad y felicitarle por su cumpleaños. Felicidades Amancio, Marca España 🇪🇦07:38 PM - 28 Mar 2020Reply Retweet Favorite

Although Inditex does not publicly disclose the list of factories it sources clothing from, BuzzFeed News has spoken to employees from two factories that form part of Zara’s supply chain in Myanmar, where workers put in 11-hour shifts, six days a week, for as little as $3.50–$4.74 per day.
While people sang “Happy Birthday” to Ortega from their balconies in Spain, more than 500 workers at the two factories were laid off when they asked to be supplied with durable masks and for social distancing to be introduced to protect them from the coronavirus. One of the factories, Myan Mode, fired every single member of a workers’ union, along with a woman who had complained of being sexually harassed at the factory last year.



Obtained by BuzzFeed News
Inside a Zara factory in Yangon, Myanmar.

Inditex told BuzzFeed News it was working with suppliers to ensure they were following official guidance to protect workers during the pandemic. A spokesperson said that the dispute at Myan Mode had been at least partially resolved, with 29 sacked workers reinstated.

Anxiety about being laid off or having your salary slashed because of the coronavirus crisis has led to thinkpieces, graffiti, and “eat the rich” memes. Britney Spears might be a communist now, and teenagers on TikTok are calling Karl Marx “daddy.” Jeff Bezos — memed mercilessly for losing a minuscule portion of his money — has in fact now added $25 billion, more than the GDP of Honduras, to his total wealth since the coronavirus crisis began. Billionaires in the US have seen their net worth increase by tens of millions of dollars in the last three months.

Many want the ultra-rich to do more, which might be why Rihanna, who has donated millions of dollars to coronavirus relief efforts, has been described as a “one-woman COVID-19 foe.” But the pandemic and its economic repercussions have laid bare the hypocrisy of the super-wealthy who do just enough to make sure they get good press, while treating workers who labor for their brands as disposable.

“We could all die, and for what? Making already rich brands super rich,” one worker said on the phone from Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The working class is being sacrificed so they can wear good clothes.”



Sai Aung Main / Getty Images
A man wearing a face mask walks on an empty road, amid restrictions put in place to halt the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Yangon on April 10.

The coronavirus has so far not spread extensively in Myanmar, despite the country sharing a nearly 1,400-mile border with China, and the fact that an estimated 10,000 migrant workers were crossing the border on a daily basis until late January. As of May 7, the country has officially recorded only 176 cases and six deaths.

The country’s first positive case of the coronavirus was recorded on March 23 — a Myanmar citizen living in the United States who had recently returned for a wedding. Until then, Myanmar’s government was still patting itself on the back because there were “no cases of coronavirus in the country” — something the health minister said the people owed to their diet and lifestyle. There was still no mention of social distancing. But like several parts of Southeast Asia, it is difficult to give a true picture because there is insufficient testing — as of May 1, the government had administered 8,300 tests. Experts fear that if the number of coronavirus cases increased dramatically, the country’s public healthcare system would collapse. The World Bank has estimated that Myanmar has only 249 ventilators for a population of almost 55 million.

Not a whole lot had changed in the working practices at Myan Mode, the Zara factory which lies in the heart of the industrial district of Hlaing Tharyar, in Myanmar’s capital, Yangon. Since the factory, whose owners are based in South Korea, opened in 2016, half of all orders have been from Zara.

Hlaing Tharyar is a crowded hub of garment factories and light manufacturers, home to gang violence, police violence, and union clashes. Most of Myan Mode’s workers are young women from rural villages — Myanmar’s garment workforce is over 90% women. At the insistence of the workers’ union, factory bosses had added a basin for workers to wash their hands, while temperature checks took place as workers entered the factory. Employees had been provided with cloth masks in February but they were not durable, and the factory did not supply any other masks.



Courtesy Ohmar Myint
Ohmar Myint


Then suddenly, in the last week of March, everything changed. “The husbands of two women who worked at the factory returned from Thailand and were showing symptoms of COVID-19,” Ohmar Myint, a 34-year-old sewing machine operator at Myan Mode, told BuzzFeed News. “The women and their husbands lived in the dormitory, so everyone found out.”

On March 28, the union decided to speak to the factory’s owners again. “We wanted masks to be made mandatory, an end to mandatory overtime while the crisis was on, and we wanted them to send home the two women whose husbands had COVID-like symptoms,” a veteran union leader named Mau Maung, who was part of the negotiating committee, said. “It was a half-day, Saturday, so the management told us it would come back with a decision soon.” A few hours later, an official came to the room where the workers were gathered and read out a list of 571 names. Everyone on the list, including Myint, Maung, and 520 union members, was fired on the spot, representing about half of Myan Mode’s workforce.

“We were given no notice at all,” Maung said.

Nearly half a million people in Myanmar work in garment factories, living cheek by jowl in dormitories that factories rent to them for half of their salaries. The country’s minimum wage is one of the lowest in Asia, and following a wave of strikes last year, approximately 50,000 garment workers have joined or formed unions. These unions are a lifeline for people who are treated by big brands as convenient, but ultimately disposable, cheap labor. Myan Mode’s union was able to negotiate small victories for the workers, like permission to be up to 15 minutes late for work, and more reasonable working hours than other factories demanded — 44 hours a week, with up to 14 hours of overtime.

Dig into Zara’s history, and you will find its owner Ortega’s origin story recounted in breathless detail. It always begins with poverty, the seed for his philanthropic nature was planted when as a 12-year-old boy he saw his mother being denied food on credit at a local shop in La Coruña.

That kind of poverty is familiar for Myint, who was one of the 571 employees laid off at Myan Mode.

When she spoke to BuzzFeed News on the phone from Yangon, she sounded defiant and sad in turns — the factory had fired every single union member, and a woman who had complained that a senior colleague at the factory had made sexual advances toward her.

Myint said sexual harassment was rampant at garment worker factories in Myanmar, and she admired the way the union stood by the complainant, their solidarity ultimately leading to the man’s resignation from Myan Mode. This, she said, was why she joined the union. BuzzFeed News has been unable to contact the complainant, who union members say has left Yangon and returned to her native village.

“Workers cannot oppress workers, but that’s what happens at the factories,” Myint said. “The factory owners have absolute power — we cannot talk back to them no matter how much they exploit us, or demand better pay, or even ask for leave. If we take even one day off, we lose money. On days we finish our work early, we cannot sign out of the factory, we’re simply given another task, and then another, and another...the work never stops.”

Being in the union gave Myint more bargaining power, she was part of a collective of over 500 people, most of whom were women. But at the end of each day, Myint said, she still felt as though she was a machine whose batteries had died. Her entire body ached from hunching over the zippers and lining she sewed into skirts, jackets, shirts, and hoodies for Zara and its rival Spanish brand, Mango. Once her shift ended, there was still housework to be done, groceries to be carried home, food to be cooked for her family. She had five hours to herself in the entire day, and those were meant for sleep.

Myint said she first learned about the novel coronavirus in January, while browsing Facebook.

“[I was reading about] how contagious it is, and that’s scary for me, because we work so close to each other all day, if one of us fell sick, everyone would fall sick,” she said.

By February, Myint and the other union members had heard that the supply of raw materials from China, things like zippers, fabric, buttons, rivets, and velcro, had stopped coming to Myan Mode. That’s when Myint and the union decided to talk to their employers at the factory.

“We told them, ‘If you have plans to close the factory or fire workers because of coronavirus, let the union know first so we can help people look for other work,’” she said. “The owners agreed, but said there was no plan to close the factory yet.” Myan Mode confirmed the details of this conversation.



Iago Lopez / AP
Amancio Ortega, founding shareholder of Inditex fashion group, in July 2013.

The reputation that Ortega, Inditex’s billionaire founder, enjoys as a small-town hero in Spain is bolstered by stories about his legendary humility. Stories like how his first fashion distribution network began in 1963 at the port city of La Coruña to help women earn money, while their husbands went out to sea to fish. At Inditex’s headquarters in Arteixo, northwestern Spain, he sits at a desk in a corner of a Zara Woman workspace. Ortega, now 84, is so reclusive that until 1999 no photograph of him had even been published. Until lockdowns in Spain forced everyone to stay indoors, Ortega still drank his coffee at his favorite local café.

But Ortega’s true gift is speed. Inditex owns several other brands, including Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Oysho, Stradivarius, Zara Home, and Uterqüe. But the company’s crown jewel is undoubtedly Zara. Last month Spanish media gleefully noted that even Pablo Iglesias, Spain’s second deputy prime minister and one of Ortega’s most vocal critics, was spotted wearing a black, fitted Zara Man jacket.

Over the years, as Zara evolved both its name — from Zorba to Zara — and its fashion ethos, the brand built its reputation by trend-spotting and delivering those trends to customers at warp speed: in fashion terms, weeks, instead of months.

Ortega’s quick thinking served him well even when the coronavirus hit Spain. He directed 11 of his factories in Galicia, northwest Spain, to immediately switch to making personal protective equipment (PPE). Zara also delivered washable, splash-proof, even arguably stylish turquoise hospital gowns to medical workers in the city of La Coruña. Soon after that, Ortega flew in another 3 million units of PPE from China, along with 1,450 ventilators for Spain.

In a pre-coronavirus world, Ortega’s way of doing business courted plenty of controversy. In 2015, Zara was accused of discriminating against black employees at its corporate offices (Zara denied the reports), while conditions in factories in Brazil were likened to “slavery” (Zara Brazil responded to the charges saying “the alleged criminal offences pointed out by the inspection report refer to third-party conduct that is not to be confused with Zara’s”). In 2016, Inditex was accused of tax evasion worth over 550 million euros, about $596 million (Inditex published a lengthy response denying the allegations). In 2017, workers making clothes for Zara in Turkey began sewing pleas for help into their lining.

When confronted by these allegations from Brazil and Turkey, Zara turned to the argument often used by big brands that rely on cheap labor for supply chains — they had a contract with the factory, and the factory alone. The way those factories treat their employees is not the brand’s business.

“That’s completely false, of course,” Andrew Tillett-Saks, a labor rights activist who lives and works in Myanmar, told BuzzFeed News. “If these brands were to indicate any interest in keeping workers safe, the factories would immediately follow suit. The fact is the brands have all the power to change things. They just don’t because they prioritize their financial profits over the people who make their clothes.”

To some extent, fashion’s exploitative practices looked like they were about to change following a massive factory accident in Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza in 2013, when an eight-story commercial building collapsed, killing over 1,000 garment factory workers. Inditex was among 200 fast fashion labels to sign a worker safety accord for Bangladeshi workers following the accident — but increasingly, that accord has ceased to matter. This month, for instance, thousands of workers including those who sew clothes for Zara are returning to garment factories in Bangladesh, even during the pandemic.

Courtesy the Myan Mode union
Workers protest unsafe conditions at garment factories in Yangon, Myanmar.

As Thingyan, Myanmar's annual new year water festival, began in April, hundreds of workers returned to their hometowns, uncertain of when they would return to work. Some had accepted a small severance from the factory; others had not. Myint said she and the other union members were growing increasingly certain that they were being punished. Another factory, Rui Ning, located in the same industrial complex as Myan Mode, had laid off 30% of its workers, most of whom were union members too. By this time, the coronavirus crisis was also growing: Yangon imposed a lockdown during the holiday season from April 10 to April 19, as well as a night curfew when it was discovered that 80% of the country’s positive COVID-19 cases were in the capital.

In the past, labor unions and NGOs have been wary of publicly calling out brands because they were afraid of precisely what happened at Myan Mode and Rui Ning — troublemakers would be fired, or the brand would shut that particular factory down and sign a contract with another. “Owners briefly shut down the factory only to quickly reopen with new, nonunion workers,” Tillet-Saks, the labor rights activist, said. “Often, they will change technical details such as the factory’s name or registrant to circumvent labor laws, while maintaining the same core operation.”

VIDEO

 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nishitajha/coronavirus-zara-spain-inditex-myanmar
A union leader in Rui Ning explains what happened at the factory.

But the prospect of being unemployed during a pandemic might change that. For the past month, around 30 members of the Myan Mode union who were sacked appeared daily outside the factory’s gates in protest, where they ate, slept, sang union songs. The union has also approached the South Korean consulate and Yangon’s Arbitration Council. “If that does not work, we might even sue,” one leader told BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity. BuzzFeed News also learned that union members from the Myan Mode and Rui Ning unions have reached out to union workers in Spain, who have assured them that they will add pressure to negotiations with Inditex and Mango.

“If the Spanish unions do help, this is a great step in the international labor rights movement. It will mean a lot to the union in Myanmar,” said Tillett-Saks, who was aware of emails exchanged between the unions in Myanmar and Spain. “With the employers and brands being so multinational, workers need to be united internationally as well if they are going to have any power to improve the garment industry. All they want is that workers who were fired should be reinstated and that they do not use the pandemic as an excuse to attack the union.”

Inditex’s own code of conduct states that the company supports unions and wants factories to treat workers in the supply chain with care for their health and safety. Days after BuzzFeed News reached out to the company’s ethics committee for a response on the sacking of workers at Myan Mode, a representative from Inditex said the dispute at Myan Mode with 29 workers had been resolved through dialogue, and that the factory had agreed to reinstate the protesting workers. The more than 500 workers who had accepted severance pay could possibly be able to return to the factory once it resumed work at full capacity — although it was unclear when that might happen.

“We have communicated with suppliers to follow local government recommendations and instructions and/or to implement measures to ensure they are following the health protection guidelines for workplaces detailed by the WHO regarding Covid 19,” the Inditex representative wrote.

“We are working closely with our suppliers at this difficult time and we expect continued compliance with our Code of Conduct, which clearly requires fair treatment of workers and no discrimination against workers’ representatives.”

But union workers said the olive branch from Zara, which arrived on May 6, more than a month after 571 workers were fired, was a belated attempt at damage control. “This union-busting case using COVID-19 as cover has not yet been resolved,” a union worker told BuzzFeed News, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The union worker said that the offer to reinstate 29 people fell short of the union’s demands.

For instance, more than 500 workers who were laid off still had no jobs, and the fact that they had accepted a paltry severance was being used against them. Myan Mode had failed to honor an agreement that it would not target the union and lay off workers during the pandemic, the union member said. Myan Mode is still refusing to recognize the union officially, while it has hired hundreds of daily migrant workers who are not members of any union.

Mango did not respond to a BuzzFeed News request for comment.


Sai Aung Main / Getty Images
Firefighters wearing protective clothing spray disinfectant along a street as a preventive measure against the spread of COVID-19 in Yangon, April 23.

Across Asia, countries have had two kinds of responses to the pandemic: complete shutdowns like India and Sri Lanka, or partial lockdowns with restrictions, like Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar, where governments have banned gatherings but kept factories running. While these decisions have largely depended on the health of each country’s domestic economy, countries suddenly closing down their borders have caused panic — particularly among the poorest and most invisible populations of migrant workers, who cross domestic and international borders searching for work. This exodus of worried workers, desperate to return home as the worst economic and health crisis grows around them, is occurring in tandem with spikes in COVID-19 cases.

Everything is terrible — but the pandemic is particularly worrying for the people making our clothes, because readymade garment workers work on short-term contracts or are sometimes paid per piece of apparel, existing precariously close to poverty. Already, several brands have canceled orders of clothes that have already been made in factories, and many have reneged on payments promised to workers in Asia. The relentless consumer hunger for branded clothes and fast fashion means that when the worst of the crisis is over, and our appetite for shopping returns, all that a big brand has to do is find the next bunch of cheap laborers.

For too long, we’ve pretended that fast fashion and eco-consciousness can coexist, that the worst excesses of sweatshop exploitation are a thing of the past. Brands like Zara and Mango advertise sustainability all over their stores; other brands assure customers that they recycle all their packaging. But in the middle of a pandemic, it is no longer enough to wear faux concern. ●



Nishita Jha is a global women's rights reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in India.
Contact Nishita Jha