International Centre for Trade Union Rights

worldwideSource: International Union Rights, Vol. 4, No. 2, All different but equal: women workersdemand equality (1997), p. 16Published by: International Centre for Trade Union RightsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41935564 .

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ICTUR IN ACTION a

British

Committee The British Committee continues to meet regularly in London. Its March 1997 meeting was addressed by Olympia Ramirez, a leader of a US owned maquiladora producing clothing for the export market and by Margaret Lynch, General Secretary of War on Want, a British based NGO. Margaret spoke on Pensions in the Global economy and has

promised a feature article for a forthcoming issue of International Union Rights.

Olympia Ramirez (above) is on the European tour on behalf of the workers (mainly women) she represents. ICTUR was able to organise a number of meetings for her with the British TUC International Secretary Michael Walsh, with Peter Booth, National Textiles Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union and

Chairperson of the International Trade Secretariat for Clothing Workers, and with Des Farrell, National Textile Officer for the GMBATU.

Olympia told the meeting of the campaign her members have launched for compensation for losing their jobs following the closure without notice, of their factory.

Australian

, Committee The Australian Committee of

; ICTUR has set up a working party to study child labour. It

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a report before the end of 1997. It will focus particularly on

Asia and will identify ways in which the Australian labour movement can assist

in influencing the policies of governments , employers , importers and retailers to make them more child friendly by encouraging practices which discourage the use of child labour in hazardous conditions.

The working party will also be making recommendations to ICTUR as to the best way of campaigning internationally

International Union Rights will give regular updates on the working party's work in forthcoming editions.

worldwide

International union leaders condemn assasination of Algerian trade union leader The leader of the Algerian trade union federation the UGTA, Abdelhak Benhamouda, was brutally assasinated by terrorists on 28 January 1997. The international trade union movement has roundly condemned the murder.

Benhamouda strongly opposed both the policies of privatisation and structural adjustment and the guerrilla war being waged by Islamic extremists in Algeria. His loss is a sad one to his family, Algeria and the international labour movement.

Nike's boot camps There have been several recent reports of the trade unions and Vietnam's labour inspectorate intervening in those foreign owned companies abusing Vietnam's labour code.

For example, the Hong Kong-owned multinational Keyhinge Toys, which produces giveaway toys for McDonalds, was forced to reinstate 200 workers following the intervention of the Labour Ministry and the trade unions. And at Nike (see below) it is reported that the top manager has been arrested for violation of Vietnam's Labour Code.

More than 90 percent of the Nike workers in Vietnam are girls or young women, aged 15 to 28. Hunger follows many of them like a shadow. They work full time making the fabulous footwear that brings Nike billions, but they aren't paid enough to eat properly, or even regularly.

Workers interviewed by Thuyen Nguyen, an American businessman who studied conditions in factories that make Nike shoes in Vietnam, said it is a matter of "simple math". A meal consisting of rice, a few mouthfiils of a vegetable and maybe some tofu costs the equivalent of 70 cents.

Three similarly meagre meals a day would cost $2.10. But the workers only make $1.60 a day. And, as Mr Nguyen points out, they have other expenses.

Renting a room costs at least $6 a month. Clothing has to be purchased. And every now and then the workers have to buy a bar of soap and some toothpaste. To stretch the paycheck, something has to be sacrificed. Despite the persistent hunger, it's usually food.

Mr Nguyen's report, released last week, said: "Thirty-two out of 35 workers we interviewed told us they had lost weight since working at Nike factories. All reported not feeling good generally since working at the factories. They complained of frequent headaches as well as general fatigue".

The idea that factory workers don't make enough to eat properly is hardly a matter of concern to Nike. The company set up shop in Vietnam precisely because the wages are so low. If the workers become woozy from hunger, that's their problem. The beauty of the Nike formula is that the cost of the labour to make the product is next to nothing and the price at which the product sells is astonishingly high. That's how Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods get to make their Nike millions, and Phil Knight, the shrewd and combative Nike chairman, his billions. They thrive on the empty stomachs and other hardships of young women overseas.

The women often are treated little better than slaves. Mr Nguyen said the factories are like "military boot camps" in which workers are subjected to various forms of humiliation and corporal punishment. Even breaks for water and visits to the bathroom are rigidly controlled. One bathroom break per eight-hour shift is allowed, and two drinks of water. Sometimes, on assembly lines that can range from 78 to 300 workers, even fewer breaks are allowed. A worker can be hungry, thirsty and driven almost mad with the need to go to the bathroom, but she has to keep working on those shoes.

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 1 6 Volume 4 Issue 2 1997

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