JustTrade#42

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News

• Unbalanced 'Free ' Trade or a Balanced Economy? 'It's time to balance the books', said Rod Donald, Green Party Co-Leader & Finance Spokesperson, on 25 March.

  "New Zealand's current account deficit for the 2003 year was $5.94b, up from $4.66b in 2002, and on current projections is expected to get worse for at least the next three years.

  "New Zealand's international debt is now over $100b because successive governments have refused to take the necessary steps to ensure that our economy is self-reliant and sustainable.

  "This failure is most apparent in relation to trade in goods where New Zealand's reputation as an export-led economy has been destroyed by trade deficits for eight out of the last ten years. The annual trade deficit announced today of $3.49b is the worst February year deficit in New Zealand's history.

  "It's time to balance the books. The Government's free trade agenda has failed to deliver and needs to be replaced by a determined 'Buy New Zealand-made' campaign, led by the Government through its own purchasing policies.

  "Finance Minister Michael Cullen should also introduce across-the-board tariffs on imports, which would not only reduce the current account deficit but also provide some relief from the high dollar for domestic manufacturers," said Mr Donald.

  Read Rod's release.

• Human Rights Sacrificed to Free Trade - and does the New Zealand government care? On March 22, urging the government to call off free trade negotiations with Thailand until the Thai government ratifies core international labour and human rights conventions, Rod Donald said:

  "It's unconscionable that the Labour government would open up New Zealand's borders to a country that doesn't respect basic human rights and working conditions."

  "As a matter of principle New Zealand should not enter into trade agreements with countries that have not ratified nor enforce core international labour conventions.

  "Not only does Thailand refuse to protect children from exploitation but they fail to ensure that there is no forced labour despite having ratified this convention," said Mr Donald.

  Thailand's shameful labour record includes the non-ratification of four of the eight core International Labour Organisation labour conventions.
  

  • Thailand is not bound to allow for the right to organise and conduct collective bargaining, rights which New Zealand allows for;

  • Thailand has not ratified the Convention on Discrimination, meaning that Thai women workers can be and are less well-paid and less protected than Thai men;
  • Children are denied the protection of the Convention on Minimum Wage;
  • Thailand does little to enforce the Conventions on forced labour, despite ratifying them, so de facto forced labour remains widespread - particularly among those fleeing political oppression and human rights abuses in Burma.

  "More than 500,000 13-14 year-olds are known to be working while an additional 1,500,000 children aged six-to-14 are not registered in schools - many of which will probably be working illegally," said Mr Donald.
  "Child exploitation is coupled with an obscene minimum adult wage of only $6.20 a day, or $31 a week.

  "It is grossly unfair for Kiwi businesses and their staff to be forced to compete with Thai exporters who exploit their workers and it is vital that remaining tariffs are kept in place to protect vulnerable jobs and labour-intensive industries such as textile, clothing and footwear.''

  Read Read Rod's release and see below for action on sweatshop labour and information on the horrible plight of bonded workers (forced labour) around the world.

Action

• Give Them a Sporting Chance. Read about how Thai workers and many others around the world took action in early March to mark the launch of a campaign to get sportswear manufacturers to play fair in manufacturing clothes and shoes for the Athens Olympic Games at Fair Olympics On the site you can also read about how workers in the global sportswear industries are experiencing super-exploitation in the lead-up to the Games, and sent e-mails to the manufacturers and to the International Olympic Committee. How about asking New Zealand's Olympic Committee to guarantee that that the only sweat that stains the NZ gear will be from the athletes?

Analysis

• Bonded Labour, Indebted Labour, Forced Labour - The Modern Face Of Slavery. Reports appeared in the Christchurch Press this week about Asian migrants on student or business visas paying as much $20,000 to agencies and unscrupulous businesses for fake job offers, which would enable them to apply for work and residency permits. There was also the story of a young Japanese woman who paid all her savings - $2,400 - to an agency for a placement as an unpaid 'work experience' worker in a Christchurch hotel, where she does the same work as fellow workers who are being paid. The dark side of 'free' trade or corporate globalization is that while capital and corporate executives are free to migrate to where labor and natural resources are cheapest, labor is not so free to migrate to where jobs are better paid, nor to negotiate better wages and conditions at home. Indeed, the power of capital sets up a perverse logic in which workers even pay to enter foreign servitude, in the hope that it will be better than what they experience at home. This is rarely the case, as the stories excerpted below demonstrate.

  They illustrate the point that until genuine freedoms and basic human rights are afforded to all workers everywhere, so-called 'free' trade merely perpetuates a modern form of slavery. By signing free trade agreements with countries like Thailand, which do not honor human rights, New Zealand is making the problem worse, not better.

• Thais Traded to Taiwan. Junta Impresser of the Thai Labor Campaign filed a report on Thai shoemakers going to Taiwan in October 2000. The full report is at Thai Labour.

  ' " There were 230 of us travel together in the plane on 7 July 1997 to work for Pour Chen footwear factory in Chang Hue. [The Pour Chen company contracts to big brand names like Nike, Reebok and Adidas.] Each of us paid 85,000 Baht to Fayez Service Recruitment agency in Thailand, '' Pham, the first Pour Chen worker we contacted told us.

  Pham is lucky that his family has a piece of land, so he mortgaged the land with the bank, therefore, he could pay off the debt within eight months. When Pham went to Taiwan, the recruitment fee was around 85,000 - 95, 000 baht.

  But at the moment the recruitment fee is over 180,000 baht, which is higher than the limit of Ministry of Labor (not to be more than 56, 000 baht). The workers have to work for one or two years just to pay off the debt they borrow, in order to pay the recruitment agencies. For those who have land or property and can mortgage the bank, the interest rate would not be so high, but for those who do not have property to mortgage to the bank, they get loans from informal sector that the interest can be from 5 - 10% every month...

  ... According to the contract, these workers received 15,840 baht a month. Every month, the factory deducts 20 percent for tax. It also opens a bank account for all Thai workers and deposits 3,000 baht a month (deducted from the salary) as escape insurance. Workers who leave before the contract is due will not receive this amount back. The factory gives only 3,000 from the monthly salary for each worker's personal expenses in Taiwan. Another 400 baht per month is also deducted from the salary to contribute to medical care. The rest of the monthly salary will be sent back to their family in Thailand to service the worker's debt and to support his or her family...

  "The factories apply much power over the Thai workers. They were not open for any requests or suggestion from us. The company also took all contract documents and our passports," said Sompong...

  ...The factory provides a dormitory bed for every migrant worker. Twelve workers were arranged to stay in a 2.5 by 8 meters room, which the company provided six bunk beds in this small piece of space. However, the workers have to follow several rules, such as, they must return to the dormitory by 10.30 PM, they were not allowed to stay outside the dormitory, the guards will check whether they are in the room every night (some time twice), they were not allowed to cook in the dormitory, they was no electricity outlets in any room, and their clothes will be taken by guard if it was hanging in their room. "It is like a military camp", Phanthep told us.

  The dormitory opens at 6 AM and close at 10.30 PM. If anyone enters the dormitory late or was caught for not staying in the dormitory, that person will be fined 3,000 baht, which will be deducted from their salary...'

  These workers are clearly not free. Their pay and their living and working conditions, and the way in which they obtained them, and their lack of freedom to leave when they want, with the money they have earned, all seem very similar to what is experienced by illegal migrant workers in the UK.

• Chinese Traded to Britain. Hsiao-Hung Pai reported for the Guardian newspaper on the tragic story of the Chinese cocklepickers who drowned on Morecambe Sands in Britain. She then went undercover to experience the life of a migrant worker at the mercy of ruthless gangmasters. Her stories (from last weekend's Guardian) can be found at Inside the grim world of the gangmasters 1
  Inside the grim world of the gangmasters 2

  Pai found herself, like the Thais inTaiwan, sharing an impossibly small bedroom with 3 others. For this she had to provide her own bedding, and pay 30 pounds a week rent. Her first roommates were three educated middle-aged men who could not find work in Shanghai, and were driven to seek work overseas to provide for their children. But a lot of the money they earned from hard seasonal work - when they were paid - went on agency fees, and bribes to agency staff. They were also in danger of being violently robbed by gangs who knew where they were living, and came to claim 'protection money', and so lived in constant fear.

  Pai and her housemates were working in food processing factories, earning half what the full-time permanent local workers are paid. They were paid by the agency, not the employer. Pai reported: ''At 4pm, the agency office is full of workers of all nationalities, all queuing to get paid. When the Chinese workers got their cheques, some were upset by the low pay, especially the newly-registered, who only got paid