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When mass government persecutions begin,
labor organizers are often among the first to be jailed, "disappeared," or
assassinated. Workers' rights activists insist that anyone expecting to benefit from the
labor of workers must respect the rights of workers. Safe working conditions, in addition
to free speech, free association, and equal access to due process of the law, are
foundations of workers' rights. Every person has the right to work for fair wages which sustain an adequate standard of living. The world's nations have a long way to go in ensuring this right for hundreds of millions of men and women who live in abject poverty today. According to some estimates, half of the clothing contractors in the United States fail to pay minimum wages. As labor activists in Indonesia press their government to increase the national minimum wage, authorities respond with brutal, sometimes lethal, repression. Safe working conditions and protection of workers' health are human rights norms, not luxuries. When a North Carolina processing plant caught fire in 1991, 25 workers were killed and 55 were injured. Survivors said fire exits were not clearly marked, and building doors leading outside were locked. Lobster enterprises in Honduras employed divers during the mid-1990s with insufficient gear for deep diving. One in every four divers ended up permanently paralyzed or dead. For many workers, the only route to fair wages and safe working conditions is through labor organizing and collective bargaining. The rights to organize and to join a labor union are proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet Guatemalan government agents continue to abduct and torture labor activists. Landowners in Brazil kill rural organizers, while the government fails to intervene. China's government-controlled labor union holds a monopoly on defining what rights, if any, workers can champion; independent labor activists face charges such as "plotting to overthrow the government." Following the 1989 coup in Sudan, authorities arrested labor leaders and today continue to ban unions. Discriminatory labor practices appear in countless forms. Cuban law requires foreign investors to hire workers from a government-regulated agency, which serves only Cubans with "acceptable" political views. According to a U.S. General Accounting Office report, 10 percent of employers surveyed in this country discriminate against individuals who look or sound "foreign." Migrant workers suffer a range of rights abuses. Asian domestic workers in Kuwait and England, for example, are sometimes forced to surrender their passports to employers and left with no legal recourse when subjected to rape or other abuses. Migrant agricultural workers are especially vulnerable to physical abuse, low wages, and extraordinarily long working hours. Both governments and private businesses today use forced labor. Burmese military authorities abduct adults and children from their villages to serve as porters or canal builders. Chinese authorities, sometimes without any judicial proceedings, sentence detainees to "re-education through labor." The regime is long hours of work under harsh conditions, with no pay, and officials routinely renew the sentence after a detainee has completed his or her term of "re-education." A Los Angeles police raid in 1995 freed 72 Thai immigrants from a clothing factory compound surrounded by a razor-wire fence. The workers held captive there endured 17-hour work days. Some employers lure workers from foreign countries with promises of well-paid jobs, then force them into debt by charging for travel expenses or lodging. The immigrants have little choice but to repay the debt through low-paid work, often under severely abusive conditions. Both agricultural and domestic workers worldwide labor under debt bondage. In India and Pakistan, as well as in other countries, many impoverished parents hand over their children to employers as repayment of debts. The children may work up to 15 hours a day in weaving, sewing, or other expoitative industries. The world's labor force includes an estimated 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen. Nearly half of them work full time, and working conditions are sometimes cruel and degrading. In the United States, reported child labor violations rose 600 percent between 1980 and 1990, and U.S. adolescent workers are killed or injured at a higher rate than in any other affluent country. In today's global economy, consumers increasingly take the trouble to find out where and how goods are produced. To enjoy a purchase, more and more consumers require assurances that workers did not suffer in its production. Act Now:Request and Read Act Locally Act
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National Coordinating Committee for UDHR50. |
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