Global Action
Blog Posts
The number of child laborers has declined by one-third globally, from 246 million in 2000 to 168 million in 2012, according to an International Labor Organization (ILO)
report
released Monday. Yet the report also shows that despite the reduction, the worst forms of child labor will not be eliminated by 2016, a goal sought by the ILO and its international allies.
Read more and comment »
Two themes prevailed at the AFL-CIO's global convention held in Los Angeles. The first was a deep indignation over the unbridled growth of corporate interest and money power in American politics. The second was a quieter understanding that the unions that once anchored people power in this country must reinvent themselves to survive. That reinvention depends on a new awareness among America's workers that their fate is bound to the fate of workers worldwide.
Read more and comment »
New research produced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirms that “fiscal consolidation” (i.e., deficit reduction) policies of the sort currently applied by several European governments at the behest of the IMF and EU increase inequality and unemployment.
IMF researchers also have determined that capital account liberalization, which the IMF pressed its member countries to carry out until it changed its policy last year, has been associated with increased inequality.
Read more and comment »
In a dramatic demonstration of how deadly the global supply chain really is, Scott Nova, director of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), opened a panel on workers' rights in Bangladesh during the recent AFL-CIO Convention with this observation:
Of the four deadliest factory disasters in history, three of those four happened in the last 12 months.
Read more and comment »
In its new briefing paper,
A Cautionary Tale: The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality in Europe
,
Oxfam
compares Europe’s current austerity measures to the failed “structural adjustment” programs imposed on developing countries by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 1990s. The conclusion? “Europe is facing a lost decade. An additional 15 [million] to 25 million people across Europe could face the prospect of living in poverty by 2025 if austerity measures continue,” says the report.
Read more and comment »
In a time when the globalized economy means that steelworkers in Bahia, Brazil, work for the same multinational as their counterparts in Beaumont, Texas, the AFL-CIO is ramping up efforts to help workers organize around the world and fight against bad international trade deals that strip workers of their rights and give corporations unchecked power. Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles passed two resolutions directly dealing with these important issues.
Read more and comment »
On Aug. 22, the government of Brunei will kick off the 19th round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a massive trade and investment pact among 12 Asia-Pacific countries, including all of North America, Australia, Malaysia and Vietnam. The latest country to accede is Japan.
Read more and comment »
There is a big strike in Colombia, and you probably don’t know about it. Farmers and others are protesting over a variety of grievances, including the devastating effect of free trade agreements, privatization and inequality-driven poverty. Corporate-owned American media is not covering it. These trade agreements make the really rich really richer while outsourcing jobs to places where people can’t object to the low pay and working conditions. This undercuts wages here. The end result is a race to the bottom.
Read more and comment »
The state-owned Fiji Sugar Corp. (FSC) continues to refuse to negotiate with workers over wages and working conditions—the last wage increase being more than seven years ago. Despite FSC management threats, and the presence of the police and military during the strike vote, workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.
Read more and comment »
On July 16, Kyungshin-Lear, a car parts manufacturing company with a factory in Honduras, fired three of nine newly elected union leaders. Within the following days, we have learned from our colleagues at the AFL-CIO
Solidarity Center
that the remaining six of the nine newly elected union leaders also were fired. Since January 2012, Kyungshin-Lear has fired 26 union leaders, with the company's most recent illegal firing of all nine union leaders in April 2013, and then in July, firing the nine union leaders who had been recently elected to replace the fired leaders from April.
Read more and comment »
