[Fwd: We need to discipline corporations, not nations!]
"Activist groups need to work together to require that all trade negotiations be conducted in public." "The secret dispute panels used in international trade organizations now seriously undermine our democratic parliamentary system." We need "International institutions which discipline corporations, rather than countries." National Action Committee On The Status of Women (Canada) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 416-932-1718 Laura Cabarrocas [EMAIL PROTECTED] GLOBALIZATION: SOME IMPLICATIONS STRATEGIES FOR WOMEN GLOBALIZATION: SOME IMPLICATIONS STRATEGIES FOR WOMEN GLOBALIZATION: SOME IMPLICATIONS STRATEGIES FOR WOMEN Written by Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Laurell Ritchie, Michelle Swenarchuk, and Leah Vosko Here is 40% of the document. The complete document is at http://www3.sympatico.ca/truegrowth/womenstrat1.html THE CONTEXT: Our world is getting meaner and as we reach the new millennium, ideas about collective ways of solving social problems have lost ground to arguments that the rules of competition are inevitable in the face of globalization. The apparent inevitability of a meaner world is reinforced by the remarkable ideological convergence of political and economic institutions around the world. Where diversity in economic and political institutions was once tolerated, uniformity is now demanded by international institutions. Globalization has become a metaphor for the conditioning framework which shapes and standardizes our choices. It entrenches corporate values at the epicenter of our society, and it does this through the international and national structures which facilitate the mobility of capital and speculative finance. Globalization provides a view of the world in which the interests of the powerful are defined as necessity, while the demands of the poor appear as greed which undermines economic success. The ideology that underpins globalization focuses on trade as the vehicle for improving the conditions of people everywhere. It is an old idea which sees the increasing integration of international economies as a positive step and one which would inevitably occur, if markets are not unduly hampered by governments. The restructuring associated with globalization doesn't even attempt to promise anything to those traditionally disadvantaged in our society: the unemployed cannot expect jobs, the poor cannot expect prosperity, and women and other disadvantaged people cannot expect equality. The justification for economic change focuses solely on the competitive benefits for businesses that operate internationally. Social and economic well-being is subordinate to the well-being of the corporate sector and harmonization downward (for people) is perceived to be necessary so that the corporate sector will be in a position to compete internationally. The shift to the right at the end of the twentieth century was not inevitable because of the logic of economic forces, but was carefully planned by political elites at both the national and international level. Ideas about the moral superiority of market-based solutions to social problems based on individual self-interest have gained ascendancy through deliberate strategies of control and dissemination of ideas on behalf of the corporate elite. These ideas have, then, become the foundation for shaping international political institutions which have provided a rule book, or a conditioning framework, affecting future decision-making. Throughout this process the nation state has shifted its role from one which at least tempered the ability of the rich and powerful to dominate, to one which followed the path of least difficulty, by championing mainly the interests of the powerful. The changing nature of the state (or government) was itself made possible by the conditioning framework put in place by international political institutions. States are accepting and even actively pursuing globalization because international corporations want to create conditions for the free movement of capital, unfettered by the ability of nation states to inhibit business transactions. The world is being shaped to meet this need for predictable, market-friendly conditions wherever corporations and investors choose to operate. The main point to understand from this is that the international economy has been designed with these giant players in mind and the new rules for action accommodate their best interests. The narrow interests this free trade regime favours is startling when one considers Canada's export situation. A recent World Trade Organization report pointed out that only fifty companies in Canada account for about half of the country's total exports. Many of these are the U.S.-owned automotive companies which dominate exports in Canada. Within industrialized nations, the ability of the state to control the actions of corporations appears to have been
[Fwd: [corp-focus] The Meaning of April 16]
The Meaning of April 16 By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman The April 16 protests in Washington, D.C. against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank made history and marked a new phase in the effort to halt and reverse the processes of corporate globalization. Citizens in developing countries -- from Jordan to Zambia, Indonesia to Venezuela -- have long protested against the policies of the IMF and World Bank. On April 16, for the first time, citizens in the United States came out in large numbers to join the calls for a rollback of IMF and World Bank powers. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets, or joined a permitted demonstration on the Ellipse to denounce structural adjustment policies -- the deregulatory policy package that the Fund and Bank impose on country after country -- for hurting the poor and exacerbating economic inequality. The exact impact of the demonstrations will only be apparent in the years to come, but it is already clear that the protests -- evidence of the deepening citizen movement against corporate globalization -- have had dramatic effect. First, the U.S. public is newly aware of what the IMF and World Bank are, and millions of people in the United States have for the first time learned of how the institutions' policies hurt people in poor countries. In anticipation of the protests, the mainstream media focused some attention on structural adjustment policies, both by conveying the viewpoints of the Mobilization for Global Justice and, in some instances, by actually reporting on the effects of structural adjustment in countries like Haiti or Tanzania. There was probably more U.S. mainstream media coverage of IMF/World Bank/structural adjustment issues in the past two weeks than in the previous 20 years combined. The growing U.S. public concern with IMF and World Bank policy is crucial because while the Fund and Bank are unaccountable to the people in the Third World they are allegedly trying to help, they are responsive to the United States -- the largest shareholder in both institutions and the dominant influence at the IMF in particular. The second noteworthy outcome from the April 16 protests was the role of U.S. organized labor in the permitted demonstration on the Ellipse. The AFL-CIO and a number of major unions, including the Service Employees, the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, the American Federation of Government Employees, the United Electrical workers and UNITE, the textile union, endorsed the demonstration, and many of the unions sent top official to address the rally. Two years ago, the AFL-CIO lent its support to the Clinton administration's request for $18 billion in funding for the IMF, so the newfound willingness to strongly denounce IMF and Bank structural adjustment policies represents an important shift. The AFL-CIO is also beginning to develop a penetrating critique of the notion of export-led development -- one of the core principles of structural adjustment. Instead of joining in a race to the bottom to produce goods using sweatshop labor or lax environmental standards, the AFL-CIO is suggesting, countries should instead concentrate on developing productive capacity to meet local needs. A third historic occurrence was the endorsement by members of the G-77 -- a grouping of most of the world's developing nations -- of the Washington protests and a stinging condemnation of the Fund and Bank's structural adjustment policies. "I, for one, support the demonstrators," said Arthur Mbanefo of Nigeria, spokesperson for the G-77 during its recent three-day summit in Havana. "Many countries have rejected the results of various policy initiatives of the World Bank and IMF," he said, citing privatization, a refusal to cancel debt and a "one-size-fits-all" structural adjustment agenda. "We are very supportive of demonstrations that could forcefully handle those concerns." The DC protests seem to have exerted a "Columbus Effect." Just as the Columbus, Ohio protests against Clinton administration plans to bomb Iraq led Egyptian President Mubarak to comment that surely he could oppose bombing if the people of Columbus did, so the Washington protests against the IMF and World Bank have created more political space for developing countries to speak up on behalf of their own interests. The IMF and World Bank spokespeople acknowledged the protests -- pointing out that it was impossible to ignore them. They emphasized that they are increasingly focusing on poverty and trying to empower the poor. But they refuse to abandon their emphasis on structural adjustment, and in fact are using their very modest debt relief initiative to force poor countries to undergo still more, carefully monitored structural adjustment. Real change at the IMF and World Bank will come not from voluntary "reforms" in their policies, but from external forces -- such as the U.S. Congress or large numbers of developing country governments cooperating closely
FW: Individualism
Futher to Michael and Ed's posts relating to the growth of individualism in the western world (and doctor's obsessions with their personal portfolios), today's Toronto Star has an article "Free agency comes to the shop floor" quoting Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, who expects the workplace to evolve into a world of free agents, with workers demanding their own work terms just like athletes. That, he says, is because the concept of loyalty to an employer is fading, while loyalty to one's own career is on the upswing. In time, human resources policies where all employees get the same wages, benefits and vacations will disappear, Martin argues. Instead, workers will demand one-on-one contracts that recognise individual needs...customised spaces at home. Also, I see a similarity in the defiant police union president in Toronto with his threatening and intimidating tactics to enhance his individual power and influence as a battle of individual/community values. (He has a fundraising campaign to support his favored politicians and denigrate his opponents, with donors to the campaign given car stickers). His career path and individual power is to be determined in court. By the way what is happening with police in the U.S. Do police forces in the U.S. really have control over the city councils as the media are reporting? What is happening in Texas?
[Fwd: Purpose of Human Race]
* * * * * The Purpose of the Human Race. Civilization is coming of age. After a long childhood and a hundred years of rapid adolescent growth, human kind is at the threshold of maturity. In some cultures young people mark their entry to adult life by venturing into the world without the material trappings of society. Alone, they seek a vision; an inspiration about what their role is to be now that they are no longer children. This coming year, if we experience real or imagined discomforts around Y2K, let them help us distinguish between our selves and our tools. Whether or not our technical support systems fail, the Millennium is an opportunity to look into the future and reflect on being human. If ever adolescents are ready to assume responsibility for their actions, the time has come for civilization to do the same. What is the purpose of the Human Race? - Is it to perpetually expand economic activity? Or - Should we settle in for a long stay amidst the other forms of life on Earth? See "Question of Direction" at: http://www.cyberus.ca/choose.sustain * * * * * "The goals we pursue are the seeds from which our future grows." If you'd like to see a review of public goals, please pass this on.
Re: WTO Chief Proposes World Environment Organization (fwd)
I am reposting this from Michael's earlier post to relate it to current discussion from Sylvia Ostry's article. 'Melanie Michael Gurstein wrote: -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 16:54:14 -0800 From: Ed Deak [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: WTO Chief Proposes World Environment Organization Forwarded without comment, except: Does anybody believe this sob? Ed. ++ WTO Chief Proposes World Environment Organization GENEVA, Switzerland, March 15, 1999 (ENS) - The World Trade Organization's (WTO) High-Level Symposium on Trade and the Environment that opened today in Geneva was highlighted by a call from WTO director-general, Renato Ruggiero, to create a World Environment Organization parallel to the World Trade Organization. Renato Ruggiero(Photo courtesy WTO) For the first time, senior trade officials are holding open dialogues with non-governmental organizations in two high-level symposia organized by the WTO: on trade and environment on March 15-16, and on trade and development on March 17-18. Delegates from the 134 nations who are members of the WTO met today with representatives of 26 inter-governmental organizations, and people from 130 non-governmental organizations representing the environment, development, agriculture, trade unions, consumers, academia and business. Discussions in this high level symposium focus on the links between global trade - close to $3 trillion dollars of activity each year - and efforts to protect the global environment. In his opening statement Ruggiero told them, "With the WTO we are poised to create something truly revolutionary - a universal trading system bringing together developed, developing, and least-developed countries under one set of international rules, with a binding dispute settlement mechanism. I would suggest that we need a similar multilateral rules-based system for the environment - a World Environment Organization to also be the institutional and legal counterpart to the World Trade Organization. This should be a main message from this meeting." Saying that he does not belive that the issue of national sovereignty is at stake in this debate, Ruggiero said, "On the contrary, consensus-based multilateral rules - for trade as for the environment - by definition only extend national sovereignty beyond borders. The issue of trade barriers and subsidies which waste precious resources and harm the environment, is clearly one which must be addressed. And most important of all, we need to tackle the problem of poverty - a major cause of the environmental crisis we all face." United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Klaus Toefper agreed that there has been a failure to articulate clear, acceptable trade and environment policies because "too much has been demanded of the WTO and too little has been done in other fora, both at the national and international levels." While he did not specifically endorse the concept of a World Environment Organization, Toepfer said UNEP is ready, willing and able to strengthen collaboration with WTO. Toepfer said UNEP will be gathering essential data on the environmental consequences of international economic policies. "Many countries have identified, for example, environmental and trade benefits of removing price-distorting subsidies. The environmental costs of these distortions are now known to be staggering. Experts estimate that these inefficient policies cost society over $50 billion dollars in fishing subsidies; over $300 billion in energy subsidies and over $350 billion in agricultural subsidies," Toepfer said. Sir Leon Brittan, vice-president of the European Commission, who originated the idea for a high-level meeting on trade and environment, emphasized the principles of sustainable development as agreed by 178 nations at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. "The key to a successful policy on trade and environment seems to me to pursue in a co-ordinated way that concept of sustainable development, Sir Leon said. "This in turn means that in every area of WTO activity, and not simply the deliberations of the Committee on Trade and the Environment, we need to apply Rio Earth Summit principles. In particular, we need to reconcile the competing demands of economic growth, environmental protection and social development. Pursuing any one of these three at the expense of the other two will inevitably lead to an unbalanced approach." Sir Leon called for the formation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) "so as to have a common base, agreed among as many states as is feasible, for tackling particular environmental problems. These include not only national ones but the protection of global resources, and of course include animal welfare," he said. The problem is that even multilateral
Trade and employment
This is from Mel Hertig's book Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids, page 128. In 1988, the year before the Free Trade Agreement came into effect, the ratio of those employed as a percentage of the population fifteen years and over stood at 62 per cent. During the first ten years of the FTA the employment rate averaged only 59.5 per cent. Once again, the 2.5 per cent difference may seem small, but it translates into a difference of some 350,000 jobs per year. In the decade before the FTA, employment in Canada increased by 2,498,600 jobs. During the first decade of the FTA, employment in Canada increased by only 1,507,500 jobs, a huge difference of almost one million jobs. In the decade before the FTA, full-time employment in Canada increased by 1,719,200 jobs. During the first decade of the FTA, full-time employment increased by a dismal 975,000 jobs. During the decade before the FTA, part-time employment averaged 16 per cent of all jobs. In the first decade of the FTA, part-time employment aveaged 18.3 per cent of all jobs. In the decade before the FTA, the number of payroll employees in Canada increased by 2,037,900. During the first FTA decade, the number of payroll employees increased by a paltry 803,200. Even these awful statistics are overly generous ...more than half of all jobs created in Canada during the 1990's have been in the category of the "self-employed". .. Self-employed workers in canda on average earn between 50 and 65 percent of the earnings of paid workers usually work longer and have poor benefits. About half of the self-employed earn less than $20,000 per year and about one-quarter earn less than $10,000. Only about 10 per cen of those classified as self-employed hire employees. This also is a big change from the previous decade, when about two-thirds of those newly self-employed hired others. .. As indicated previoiusly, during the first decade of the FTA only 1,507,500 jobs were created. But of those, 704,300 were "self-employed jobs" , while 581,100 constituted part-time jobs. That leaves a pathetic remaining average of only 22,210 new jobs a year. Through much of 1999, Canadians were bombarded with laudatory comments in the media about how successful the FTA had been for Canada. The comments came mostly from the same big business sources that helped buy the 1988 free trade election...Surely they said, it was self-evident the FTA has been such a great success because there has been a huge increase in exports to the U.S. and now about 40 per cent of our GDP (and by inference our jobs and our standard of living ) depends on that trade. ..But the impact on Canadians has been devastating.
[Fwd: WTO: Paul Hellyer, former Dep Prime Minister, Canada]
This is an open letter to the leaders of the world from the Honourable Paul Hellyer, (former Deputy Prime Minister) Leader of the Canadian Action Party. The views expressed reflect 50 years of experience in business, politics and economic affairs. November 23, 1999 The World Trade Organization Year 2000 Round of Negotiations If you want a fairer, more just and prosperous world, you must reject outright any extension of the World Trade Organization (WTO) mandate to include services as proposed by the major powers. Instead, you should review the existing scope of WTO jurisdiction and remove all references to "national treatment" as a fundamental tenet of international trade and investment. If you don't, you will never be able to develop the kind of diversified economy necessary to provide interesting and challenging jobs to your brightest young people and you will not have the tax base required to finance essential public services. The "national treatment" clause The "national treatment" clause is the lever by which the transnational corporations and international banks of the five big powers are colonizing the world to an extent previously considered impossible. As soon as your country has a company with good prospects to expand globally, it will be bought by one of the transnationals which will shut the company down, make it part of the transnational's empire or move production to another country. In the event that the choice is either to shut down the company or move production elsewhere, trade agreements require countries to allow products previously made within their borders to be imported from abroad without penalty. My country, Canada, has already suffered in this way when foreign investors bought our companies and curtailed or ended production with the inevitable loss of jobs. Even if the facility purchased remains in your country, the most challenging jobs will be moved to a foreign head office. Consequently, your most creative people will be denied the opportunities they want or be forced to emigrate to the country where the head office is located. Again, Canada has experienced this tragic result. In addition, your national tax base will be eroded. Transnational corporations are ingenious at finding ways to minimize the taxes they pay in host countries. They use many devices, including the amount they charge for administration and royalty payments on patents, in order to transfer profits to a location of their choice. Meanwhile, they expect the host country to carry the major burden for the construction of infrastructure and the provision of social services. The WTO and Democracy In effect, globalization is a combination of colonization and corporatization. Corporations are usurping the power of nation states and robbing them of their ability to legislate positively on behalf of their own people. Power is shifting to the World Trade Organization which is little more than a surrogate for transnational corporations and the banks that finance corporations' global acquisitions. This development is a travesty of democracy. The World Trade Organization is now exercising de facto executive, legislative and judicial powers in much of the world. It does this in the absence of any democratic foundation and without checks and balances. It has all the characteristics of a bureaucratic dictatorship, unaccountable to any electorate. That the second millennium should end with democracy being totally undermined at the hands of countries that claim to be democratic is an unspeakable tragedy. It is a measure of the extent to which real democracy no longer exists in these countries, including Canada and the United States. Only candidates and parties with substantial financial backing from large corporations have any hope of getting elected. Once in office, they are obliged to favour corporate interests over those of rank and file electors. To accomplish this, politicians favourable to the big corporations have been selling the idea that globalization is both inevitable and good for ordinary people. They speak of "the unquestionable benefits" of globalization without providing any evidence or data to support this myth. In fact, the "benefits" accrue largely to the officers, directors and principal shareholders of transnational corporations and the people they hire to do their bidding. Nearly everyone else in the world is worse off. Economic "success" This new economic system (under which we have all been living since central banks adopted the ideas of Milton Friedman and his colleagues at the University of Chicago in 1974), is really a reversion to the boom-bust system in effect prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It can only be judged by its "success". A look at the data shows that neo-classical, monetarist (globalized) economics has been a monumental flop. In Canada, for example, our performance has been humiliating. From 1949 to
Globalisation
A summary of an article from the Global Futures Bulletin #97, "Globalisation, Protectionism and 3rd World Development" Richard Douthwaite pointed out in his article "Sustainable economies and globalisation" that " net" outflows of capital from mature economies result in greater income and wealth inequity in those economies. He suggested that it is difficult to claw back equity standards once they have been eroded. The authors believe that equity standards must be agreed on and the least painful strategies implemented following Principle 5, of the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, "to decrease disparitries in standards of living" One strategy to increase equity might be to impose a progressive Elected Social Development Tax where taxpayers may choose amongst a wide range of jprograms and charities they wish to support. Another strategy is to increase resource taxes particularly those with high environmental impact such as fossil fuels, pesiticides, non-recyclables. If these taxes are used for social servies and fund zero tax for low wage earners dispartiy can be reduced. The aim being over the next 5 to 10 decades to ultimately shift focus toward community based development and focus on quality of life indicators. What is essential in the short term is to establish an appropriate global regulatory framework to ensure that corporate driven development is ecologically sustainable and socially just. Corporate driven development and transfer of capital must be recognized as expedient for increased living standard of least developed countries. While some critics argue that corporate driven development and social justice are an anathma, another argument says that given a strong global regulatory framework capital will conform since it has no where else to go. The creation of capital is dependent on conditions for growth. The answer must lie in regulation which is: --global with provision for variation and flexibility as the situation may warrent -- enforceable at minimum cost --smart, working with private enterprise using global instuments Proponents of environmentally sustainable and socially just development must get together with proponents of globalisation to hammer out a regulatory framework that works for all. The framework must include strategies and incentives for direct investment to least developed countries. The WTO thus far has functioned as a closed shop. This needs to change. Ultimately over the next few decades we must work towards an optimum mix of government (reinvented), corporate interests (tempered) and local community driven interests (just recently rising in influence). Much of the anti-WTO movement in Seattle is in fact lobbying for a different sort of cautious, controlled and regulated globalisation that deals with environment, labour, social, intellectual property, cultural and development issues. Transnationals themselves are seeking regulations--a global regulated environment which provides more consistent investment environment, reducing bureacratic procedures, ad hoc fluctuations, and investment risk. How to balance the question for protection of jobs in developed countries with the transfer of capital to the least developed? The increase of transfer of capital to developing countries must happen in a controlled fashion (with taxes and incentives). Since there are already problems of unemployment partly attibutable to the flight of captial to countries where labour is cheaper, strategies for dealing with unemployment need to be improved with such strategies as: ---reducing inequitiy (taxes mentioned above) --shorter work week --deter automation where only marginal cost-benefits are acheived --resource taxes to be used to fund sustainable development creating jobs (The only problem I see with this is there is no global body to implement anything--Melanie's comment)
Contingent Workers Project
I recently learned about a new organization in Ontario providing support for contingent workers that you might want to know about. A large number of people in the workforce are now contingent workers--temporary, contract, agency, casual, self-employed. Contingent workers are those of us who do not have full-time permanent employment contracts. The vast majority of contingent workers are not well-paid "consultants" or "self-employed" but rather have limited resources, face instability and insecurity of income and work. The Contingent Workers Project is an effort to strengthen contingent workers' ties with each other so that we can better deal with common concerns about how our work affects our lives. Overall goals: --to explore issues and concerns facing contingent workers --to build collective support among contingent workers --to create a representative committee to address the needs of contingent workers --to hold a series of workshops for contingent workers which will address some immediate concerns and issues The current Contingent Workers Labour Adjustment Group (CWLAG) is made up of individuals concerned about the issues and representatives from the following: *contract and contingent workers *Workers Information and Action Centre of Toronto *Parkdale Community Legal Service *Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers *Ontario Federation of Labour The CWLAG has received funding for the project from the Adjustment Advisory Program, Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Contact: Deena Ladd, Coordinator 541 Dovercourt Road Toronto, Ontario M6H 2W5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
35 hour week
With all the protests by businesses (and the threats to lay off staff) against the 35 hour work week, its implementation next year seems shaky. Analysts say that France is going against the trend in the rest of Europe to part-time and temporary employment and will not be able to compete. What do you people think about the potential of the 35 hour week for paid permanent employment? Who is still advocating it and where? Melanie
[Fwd:Balance?:Scientists Say Future is in the Balance]
===Electronic Edition . . . RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT HEALTH WEEKLY #669 . . ---September 23, 1999---. . HEADLINES: . .SCIENTISTS SAY FUTURE IS IN THE BALANCE. . == . . Environmental Research Foundation . . P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403 . . Fax (410) 263-8944; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] . . == . .All back issues are available by E-mail: send E-mail to. . [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the single word HELP in the message. . . Back issues are also available from http://www.rachel.org. . . To start your own free subscription, send E-mail to . . [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words . . SUBSCRIBE RACHEL-WEEKLY YOUR NAME in the message. . .The Rachel newsletter is now also available in Spanish;. . to learn how to subscribe, send the word AYUDA in an . . E-mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . = SCIENTISTS SAY FUTURE IS IN THE BALANCE In 1992, Sir Michael Atiyah, president of the Royal Society of London, and Dr. Frank Press, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, issued a joint statement under the title, "Population Growth, Resource Consumption and a Sustainable World."[1] The Royal Society, founded in 1660, is sometimes called the United Kingdom's Academy of Science. This joint statement, issued by two of the world's leading scientific organizations, was unprecedented. The Royal Society, in particular, had in the past been very reluctant to issue pronouncements on matters of public policy that might stir controversy. Unfortunately, this important joint statement was almost entirely ignored by the world's media. Therefore, we are reprinting it verbatim as part of our series on "the meaning of sustainability." The statement says that if population growth continues and patterns of human activity remain unchanged, "science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world." "The future of our planet is in the balance" the statement says. "Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if irreversible degradation of the environment can be halted in time. The next 30 years may be crucial." The joint statement: WORLD POPULATION In its 1991 report on world population, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) states that population growth is even faster than forecast in its report of 1984. Assuming nevertheless that there will in the future be substantial and sustained falls in fertility rates, the global population is expected in the UN's mid-range projection to rise from 5.4 billion in 1991 to 10 billion in 2050. This rapid rise may be unavoidable; considerably larger rises must be expected if fertility rates do not stabilize at the replacement level of about 2.1 children per woman. At present, about 95 percent of this growth is in the less developed countries (LDCs); the percentage of global population that live in the LDCs is projected to increase from 77 percent in 1990 to 84 percent in 2020. THE ENVIRONMENT Although there is a relationship between population, economic activity, and the environment, it is not simple. Most of the environmental changes during the twentieth century have been a product of the efforts of humans to secure improved standards of food, clothing, shelter, comfort, and recreation. Both developed and developing countries have contributed to environmental degradation. Developed countries, with 85 percent of the world's gross national product and 23 percent of its population, account for the majority of mineral and fossil-fuel consumption. One issue alone, the increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, has the potential for altering global climate with significant consequences for all countries. The prosperity and technology of the developed countries, however, give them the greater possibilities and the greater responsibility for addressing environmental problems. In the developing countries the resource consumption per capita is lower, but the rapidly growing population and the pressure to develop their economies are leading to substantial and increasing damage to the local environment. This damage comes by direct pollution from energy use and other industrial activities, as well as by activities such as clearing forests and inappropriate agricultural practices. THE REALITY OF THE PROBLEM Scientific and technological innovations, such as in agriculture, have been able to overcome many pessimistic
Germaine Greer on N.Y. and Ottawa
The Globe and Mail, Saturday Sept. 25, 1999, p. D2 Dreary as Ottawa was, it was in the end a better place than New York by Germaine Greer . . . .Which is the great thing about New York. Anything, but anything, can be had for money, from huge diamonds of the finest water, furs of lynx and sable, wines of vintages long said to have been exhausted, important works of art and rock cocaine, to toy boys of the most sponaneous, entertaining and beautifully made, of any sexual orientation and all colours. Every day, planes land at JFK freighted with orchids from Malaysia, roses from Istanbul, mangos gathered that morning from trees in Karnataka, passion fruit from Townsville, limes from Barbados, truffles from Perigord, lobsters bought live from the coldest seas on the planet. Wilthin 24 hours, all will have been put on sale and consumed. The huge prices are no deterrent. The New York elite likes to be seen to pay them with nonchalance, on the J.P. Morgan principle that if you need to know how much something costs, you can't afford it. Nobody looks at the tab; the platinum credit card is thrown down for the obsequiouis salesperson to do his worst with. This is what I don't like about New York. Below the thin upper crust of high rollers, there is a dense layer of struggling aspirants to elite status, and below them dead-end poverty, which no longer aspires, if it ever did. The vast mass of urban New Yorkers are struggling to get by, in conditions that are truly unbearable, from the helots who open the hair salongs at 6 in the morning and lock them up at 89 at night to the dry cleaners who have worked 12 hours a day in the steam and fumes ever since they stepped off the boat from Europe 60 or 70 years ago. It's great that I can get my hair washed at any hour of day or night and my clothes altered or invisibly mended within four hours of dropping them off, but it is also terrible.If I ask these people about their working lives, they display no rancour. They tell me they cannot afford to retire and are amused at my consternation. They would rather keep on working, they say. What else would they do? The pain in the hairdresser's feet and back, the listlessness and pallor of the dry cleaner, can't be complained of, Everbody has to be up. The power of positive thinking is to convince people that the nararative of their grim existence is a success story. Though New Yorkers have been tellling themselves that story for so long that they have stopped believing it, they cannot permit themselves to stop telling it. Everywhere in New York, wizened ancients are drudging. The elevator operator who takes me up to my hotel room looks 90, if a day. Her bird body balanced on groosly distorted feet; the hands in her white goves are knobbly with arthritis; her skeletal face is gailly painted and her few remaining hairs coloured bight auburn and brushed up into a transparent crest. She opens and shuts the doors of her elevator as if her only ambition had been to do just that. I want to howl with rage on her behalf. Though I love New York, I disapprove of it. Dreary as Ottawa was, it was in the end a better place than New York. Canadians believe that happiness is living in a just society; they will not sing the Yankee song that capitalism is happiness, capitalism is freedom. Canadians have a lively sense of decency and human dignity. Though no Canadian can afford freshly squeezed orange juice, every Canddian can have juice made from concentrate. Thae lack of luxury is meant to coincide with the absence of misery. It doesn't work altogether, but the idea is worth defending. ** It's flattering that Germaine Greer sees more dignity and social justice in Canadian society..but along comes the new right and the Harris government rushing blindly to push us into the same thing
Re: workfare
Actually for the $520 monthly "workfare" in Ontario a person is expected to work 17 hours per week--supposedly using the rest of the time to apply for more permanent work. But even before it was implemented the recipient had to provide a list of places, with names of personel directors, that (s)he applied to. I think 10 were required per week. Which one would think is a fulltime "job" Today the CBC interviewed a grandmother who has legal custody of her five grandchildren. She was forced to obtain workfare. She leaves home early and does not get back until after they have left school, and two of the children have serious problems with school and the law but she is now not able to attend to their problems. I have one "workfare", person renting a room in my house. He is in training courses. But since I charge him $300 a month for rent, transit fare is $88 per month, and he has a phone for $29 per month--his $520 does not stretch for food, clothes, personal care, let alone books, newspapers, postage stamps, vitamins, entertainment or socializing (he washes his clothes with bars of soap in my bathtub and hangs them in his window and I won't tell you what he uses for toilet paper) and his religion requires him to give 10 percent of income to the mosque. There was a program on the radio this morning about the increase in evictions since the province enacted the "Tenants Protection Act" allowing landhoards to evict tenants and convert to condominiums and charge more. With the increase in evictions are increasing numbers of single mothers in homeless shelters and living on the streets. They represent the group with the largest increase in numbers of homeless. And to top it off, the newly appointed federal Minister of Homelessness has announced that she has finished her "research" and will shortly present to cabinet her information. She is quoted in the newspapers to the effect that she doesn't know if they will do anything about it, but she will give them the information that she gathered! john courtneidge wrote: Dear Friends I snip and then comment. -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christoph Reuss) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: workfare Date: Mon, Sep 27, 1999, 3:00 pm Victor Milne calculated: If a workfare participant works 8 hours each working day (22 workdays in the average month) for his welfare benefit of $520 a month, then he is being paid $2.95 an hour. Over here, the 'wage' is about 2-3 times higher. Considering that the workfare work is very easy work that can't be compared with the stressing work in private companies, and that it basically helps the candidates to maintain a regular activity (and possibly to find a 'real' job), I think this wage isn't too bad... Chris One intriguing aspect of wages under capitalism is that the people who do the crap jobs get the crap money. Given that, as income (and wealth) inequality grows, ill-health also grows (Richard Wilkinson's book) then we *have* to work out how to close the present, obscene factors of income inequality. Any ideas? j
Labour Day message from United Church moderator
Labour Day message from The Right Rev. Dr. Bill Phipps, Moderator of theUnited Church of Canada as printed in the Toronto Star, Monday, Sept. 6, 1999, p.A9 "Thanking People Who Do Real Work" Work. Vocation. Job. Calling. The nature of work and how we view it is changing rapidly. With cell phones glued to the ear and constant access though personal computers, many people are "working" all the time. With downsizing, cutbacks and wage depression, many more are scrambling to survive. What is happening? A few years ago, a lawyer friend told me that work wasn't fun anymore. Although, he is highly successful, the pressure to bill clients for every possible minute was becoming oppressive. Competition and the pursuit of ever increasing profits deflated his love of practising law. Another friend, a "hot shot" in the corporate world, confesses that his valuesoften conflict with the profit- driven bottom line. People are expendable. Money, ever-larger profits and so-called efficiency are the only things that matter. He feels trapped. Other people I meet are struggling at part-time jobs with no benefits and little future. Young people wonder about the benefit of university graduation with huge debt and no apparent career opportunity. Labour Day used to be a day of celebration. We valued the dignity of real work, the contribution of all to the common good with reasonable compensation to the individual. With globalizaiton and the market as god mentality, this has all changed. People are seen, not as human beings but as "human resources" picked upand discarded as easily as anyother piece of equipment. We were once citizens of a vibrant democracy. Now, we are commodities valued only as consumers in one hugh impersonal global market. With some exceptions, the idea of a large corporation being loyal to its employees and thecommunity is almost quaint. Similarly the dignity of human work is eroding in the devotion to profit at any cost. Our values are changing. We are losing our communal moral moorings. Why it is we value speculators who make millions on the casino-like global financial markets, yet devalue the real work of teachers, nurses, socialworkers, farmers? Why is it we seek to emulate people with exorbitant wealth, yet pay ridiculously low wages to child-care workers and those who look after the elderly? Why do we squeeze the life out of those who grow our food, teach our children, care for the sick, while we coddle the money changers? At one stroke, the governemnts in Alberta and Ontario declare nurses redundnat. A few years later, they say we need them back. We play with people's lives. Just another unit to be bought and trashed. The economy is booming you say? Well it is for the fortunate few at the top of the money ladder. Yet for the 60 per cent of Canadians whose income is less than it was 15 years ago, life is often a fear-filled struggle. Incredibly, 10 per cent unemployment is now considered normal--though not by those who are unemployed. For the poorest it is a disaster. Twenty-five years ago most of the poorest Canadians had some kind of employment. Today, most do not. Since the free trade agreement with the United States, 37 of our largest corporations have laid off nearly 30 per cent of their employees--some 215,000 people--while revenue increased. Brain washed by the inevitable magic of the market, we are allowing dangerous divisions to infest our social fabric. ...This Labour Day, I thank those who do real work, who grow our food, create local busiensses, teach our children, build our shelter, care for the sick,produce products we need. I challenge all of us to think about what we truly value and why. There is so much creative work to be done in enhancing life, expanding well-beingforthose from whom it is being taken away, and building a society of genuine enterprise and self respect. To do so requires a change of mind and heart. * The CBC also has a program on the 20% of the working population that is being stressed out with overwork, overtime, long hours and taking home work.
Retirement to solve unemployement?
Re: "Plenty of jobs in future for today's kids", The Toronto Star, Thursday, August 5, 1999, p. 1 and A20. I would like to hear your response to the Urban Futures Institutue's Report released in today's newspaper. According to this report the retirement of the big bulge of the baby boom (currently aged 35 to 51 ) will take place between 2014 and 2026 and will create a significant labour shortage. If the current ratio of jobs to residents stays constant, Canada's unemployment rate will have dropped to 3 per cent by 2009 as the number of Canadians retirring will rise from the current 225,000 a year to 265,000 over the next five years. The number will then jumpto 320,000 a year from 2005 on and keep growing to hit 425,000 a year between 2020 and 2029. Nurses, teachers and clerical workers have been cited as being not significantly considered in planning. In other words from what I am reading there will be no end to work for those who are now 10 and under, but the "lost generation" now in their 20s and 30s are the one's who may still sense the end of work has come. Are their other factors that have not been considered? How will this relate to a global increase in population by 2 or 3 billion? Melanie
Re: the broad, middle class?
I think a number of people have made that point. That the period of time when theWestern social safety net, universal rights, substantial proportion of the population with a good standard of living, etc, is an aberration rather than the rule of human history. But its hope of survival is often pending on the development of a strong civil society, that globalization would raise standards of labour, environment, literacy is dependent on a strong moral civic society. Which would depend on the have nots having access to communications, Internet, voting, participation in state's decision making. I have been reading Thomas Homer-Dixon's *Environment, Scarcity, and Violence* in which he feels that the state and civic society (and their interrelationship) are key to prevent societal breakdown in his particular analysis of pending environmental scarcities, but I think it may be appllied to our concerns for humane work in the future. He states "scholars of the state now widely ackowledge the indistinct nature of the boundary between the state and civil society. Some important scholarlship currently focuses on the circumstanes under which the relationship between the state and civil society is either mutually empowering or mutually debilitating. Many scholars now argue that the state's strength is enhanced by a vigorous civil societiy that instills habits of trust, reciprocity, and civic engagement in the populace; that provides information to the state on the interest, desires, and concerns of social groups; and that collaborates with the state on the local implementation of state policies." He proposes a ( on pg. 100)Table of Indicators of State Capacity (to prevent social breakdown) as follows: Human Capital -The techncial and managerial skill level of individuals of the state Instumental Rationality - The ability of state's components of gather and evaluate information relevent to interests and make decisions Coherence- The degree to which the state's components agree and act on shared ideological bases, objectives, methods. Also, the ability of these components to communciate and consturctively debate ideas, information and policies Resilience- The state's capacitiy to absorb sudden shocks, to adapt to longer-term changes in socioenocmic conditions, and to resolve societal disputes sustainably. Autonomy- The extent to which the state can act independently of external forces, both domestic and international and co-opt those that would alter or constrain its actions Fiscal Resources- The financial capicity of the state or of a given component of the state. The capacity is a function of both current and reasonably feasible revenue streams as well as demands on that revenue Reach and Responsiveness-- The degree to which the state is successful in extending its ideology, sociopolitical structures and administrative apparatus throughout the society ;* and* the responsiveness of these structures and apparatus to the society Legitamacy- The strength of the state's moral authority; i.e. the extent to which the populace obeys itscommands out of a sense of allegiance and duty, rather than as a result of coercion or economic incentive. I know Walter Stewart's book and many other of our discussions about the state and the events in Iran this week are all pretty discouraging, but as Homer-Dixon states (or understates), "research suggests that one institution in particular, the state, is * key*." tom abeles wrote: I think that Arthur's concerns about the prevention of the loss of and potential restoration of the "broad middle class" needs some serious addressment. First we have to add an element of time to the consideration along with the idea that we are living in a world where change is the norm and not the exception. Think about the bell shaped curve as you would a snapshot of a wave pattern as in the ocean where the peaks and troughs change over time both in location and size. Within the history of human existance, from pre agrarian to post industrial, the condition of humans in a societal context, at different points of theglobe, had differing distributions. The current western world's bell shapped curve is just a very short snapshot in this history and at one location. There are many factors which affect a wave, many beyond the immdiate control of those who are riding on the crest. Who knows what a small pebble dropped in the pool might cause and who knows what larger winds are marshalling their forces off the shore? Time and change...ebb and flow. the micro has been zeroed out often because it seems inconsequential. The macro is so large that we assume it to be a static background. We have concerned outselves with a short term, static window and, perhaps it is time to change our perspectives thoughts? tom abeles
Re: The End of Work/The End of Jobs
I have been reading a book about the escalating forms of slavery throughout the world and its relationship to the world population crisis and global capital. *Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy* by Kevin Bales, Bales estimates there are now 27 million people in forms of debt bondage, and contract slavery mostly in Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, some Arab states, Brazin, but virtually everywhere in the world. The numbers are rising rapidly, in agriculture, mining, factories, sex trade, domestic service. "Government corruption, plus the vast increase in the number of people and their ongoing impoverishment has let to the "new" slavery. For the first time in human history there is an absolute glut ofpotential slaves. It is a dramatic illustration of the laws of supply and demand; with so many possible slaves, their value has plummeted. Slaves are now so cheap thaat they have become cost-effective in many new kinds of work, completely changing how they are seen and used. Today slaves cost so little that it is notworththehassleof securing permanent, "legal" ownership. Slaves are disposable. Today most slaves are temporary; some aare enslaves for only a few months, it is simply not profitable to keep them when they are not immediately useful, medicine costs money, and it's cheaper to let them die. Although slavery has always existed, Bales distinguishes between the historic more paternalistic, "old" slavery and the "new" slavery conforming to modern global capitalism. Old Slavery: legal ownership asserted high purchase cost low profits shortage of potential slaves long-term relationship slaves maintained, medical care given ethnic differences important New Slavery legal ownership avoided very low purchase cost very high profits surplus of potential slaves short-term relationship slaves disposable ethnic differences not important In Tailand a girl between twelve and fifteen can be purchased for $800 and the costs of running a brothel are relatively low. The profit is often as high as 800 percent. This kind of return can be made for five or ten years, when she becomes HIV positive she is thrown out. Agricultural bonded laborers, after an initial loan of $50 (for food, medicine, etc.) generate up to 100 percent net profit for the slaveholders. Bales estimates the total yearlyprofit world wide at $13 billion directly, but the "indirect value is much greater". Slavery lowers a factory's productioncosts, these savings can be pased upthe economic stream, ultimately reaching shops of Europeand NorthAmerica as lowerprices or higher profits for retailers. And slavery as an international economic activity reverberates through the world economy in ways harder to escape. Workers making computer parts or televisions in India can be paid low wages in part because food produced by slave labor is so cheap. This lowers the cost of the goods they make, and factories unableto compete with their prices close in North America and Euorpe. Slave labor (which corrupt governments support) threatens real jobs everywhere. Michael Gurstein wrote: One thing seems to be overlooked in the "end of work" argument--both pro and con. While the evidence is still unclear as to whether there is a net positive or negative impact of technology on the number of jobs, there seems little doubt that technology is having a significant impact on the manner and form of work and in this way on the nature of at least some jobs. How much impact and how many jobs are so impacted isn't, it's true, clear but the old industrial work structures with master/slave authority systems, repetitive and clearly definable/delimitable tasks, continuity of work organization, stability of job content, and so on and so on has for many disappeared and is for very many others disappearing. I won't put an evaluation on it... for many it is an improvement for many others it's a step back but for most it appears inevitable. I have a feeling, in response to the "End of Work" argument, that we may only be seeing the end of "jobs" as we have known them and not the end of "work" and in fact, the transformation in the nature of "jobs" may be such as to increase the number of those "employed" while decreasing their security, stability, continuity, and so on. If this is the case, then the End of Work argument is not only a bit of a red herring but also a diversion from the task of determining how the new type of "employment" can or should be regulated, and what sort of safety net/transition programs makes sense in the context of rapidly emerging fluid, speedy, contractual, self-defining, skill/knowledge intensive, job structures. Mike Gurstein
[Fwd: [corp-ethics] FWD:Behind the Economic Miracle]
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 12:19:19 -0400 Sender: The Other Economic Summit USA 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Doug Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Behind the "Economic Miracle" From the Common Dreams News Center http://www.commondreams.org JUNE 3, 1999 3:57 PM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020 David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 Behind the "Economic Miracle" WASHINGTON - June 3 - JOEL BLAU, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Author of the just-released "Illusions of Prosperity: America's Working Families in an Age of Economic Insecurity," Blau said: "Below the rosy surface of economic exuberance lurk low-paying jobs, job insecurity, corporate downsizing and massive inequality. The average worker's pay (in real terms) actually declined 8 percent from 1973 to 1997. CEO compensation has skyrocketed so much that if other salaries had kept pace, the typical factory worker would now be earning $90,000 a year and the income from a minimum wage job would yield $39,000 annually." HELENE JORGENSEN, [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.2030.org Senior policy fellow at the 2030 Center, Jorgensen said: "People are working more and more hours, more and more jobs -- and more family members are working. Young workers entering the labor market now are getting paid substantially less than their parents. A high school graduate today makes 28 percent less than a young man with a high school degree did in 1973. Even with people with a college degree, you still see a decline of 8 percent in their starting salaries. Very few manufacturing jobs with benefits remain; rather, we see service sector jobs that are typically low paying. There has been growth in non-standard jobs, like temp agency workers who are paid less than people with a regular job and don't have health insurance." JANE D'ARISTA, [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.fmcenter.org Director of programs at the Financial Markets Center, D'Arista said: "This is a prosperity that is based on intolerable levels of debt by households, businesses, and state and local governments. Further, it's debt that is being fueled not by savings -- because net personal savings have fallen virtually to zero -- but by inflows of foreign savings. It's a very vulnerable situation and one that should not be considered sustainable for very long." ### © Copyrighted 1997-1999. All rights Reserved. Common Dreams ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ** Big Yellow! Your yellow pages on the web. To find out more about Money and Investments click here! http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/230 eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/corp-ethics http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications
Re: democracy/cornucopia
Re: William Rees and his "ecological footprint" . Most people still don't "get" it. The Globe and Mail had an editorial yesterday ridiculing him and maintaining everyone's right to go to Florida for the winter and to drive a van. They see no limits to the size of the pie, as U.S. consumers who are now spending more than they earn to keep fueling their economy. The Globe's article ridiculed Rees for presuming to know that "happiness" does not depend on material wealth. To be rich is glorious. But to be happy? Melanie Steve Kurtz wrote: Durant wrote: At the moment it is a big enough pie, Not according to thousands of scientists including majority of living Nobel winners. Not according to Wm. Rees Mathis Wackernagel, _The Ecological Footprint_. Their estimate is that 2Billion is maximum population sustainable at the *current global average per capita consumption level*. (NOT the western/northern/developed level) If you won't dispute their data and calculations in a systematic way, you are merely indicating that you wish it were otherwise. The DAILY loss of species, the daily net drop in aquifers, topsoil, trees, marine life, ...are not refutable. Your plea is like a tape in a loop, replayed ad infinitum without evidence. Mid-winter break for me; next episode in Spring. Steve begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
Bell Canada operators
This is the Big Story of the week in Canadian employment. Is it becoming so common we don't react any more? The press is plastered with it, but I still can't really digest this. Bell Canada has sold its telephone operator business to an American company Excell Global Services. This means 2,400 operators' jobs will be terminated with Bell Canada and some will be rehired (at a far lower salary) and some possibly relocated. Dalton Camp's column (Toronto Star, Jan.13) refers to the work of Richard Sennett of the London School of Economics a publication, The Corrosion of Character: the Perosnal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism: Downsizing has less to do with the profit-mongering than with the private lusts of senior corporate executives. Sennet points ot the modern practice of paying corporate CEOs in stock options. By cutting payrolls and corners, the CEO maximizes profits int he short term, which inflates share values to allow him to exsercise his options at maximum profit. He leaves when the fun is over, himself richer for the experience, the corporation poorer. As for the downsized, many become a charge to society as a whole...society pays whie the corpartion downsizers profit, enjoying tax breaks in the bargain. begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
[Fwd: (mai) Official Press Release from EU Japan]
. If Japan and the EU take a common stance, the WTO talks can be brought to an early settlement, Yosano said. Japan has opposed liberalizing trade in forestry and fishery products. Asked to comment on rising expectations that Japan-U.S. trade friction may be intensified in 1999, Yosano said that the recent expansion of Japan's trade surplus with the United States is due mainly to falls in imports hit by sagging domestic demand. In a move to boost demand, the government has launched the biggest-ever economy-boosting measures and is cutting income and corporate taxes, and wrote its fiscal 1999 budget to fund these steps, he said. If Japan's trade practices are suspected of playing any role in hindering imports of foreign products, then those impediments should be removed, the MITI chief added. MITI will formulate an industrial revitalization plan for 15 areas with strong growth potential, including information-telecommunications as well as biotechnology, early next year, Yosano said. Resolving problems on the suppliers' side is important along with taking measures to boost effective demand, he said. MITI will consider how redundant workers at Japanese companies can be absorbed by other industry sectors and how excess production facilities can be disposed of, Yosano said. LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: December 31, 1998 ** In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Margrete Strand Rangnes MAI Project Coordinator Public Citizen Global Trade Watch 215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE Washington DC, 20003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 202-546 4996, ext. 306 202-547 7392 (fax) To subscribe to our MAI Listserv send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or subscribe directly by going to our website, www.tradewatch.org begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
Paradigms of Generation X
I don't know how many Generation X people are in futurework , but I think it is important to understand their perspective as they will hold enormous power in the near future. As I am a Boomer I sometimes feel out of touch or disillusioned certainly by how the media portray the upcoming generation as extremely materialistic, cynical and bitter--have we Boomers created this? I draw your attention to an article in the November issue of the Globe and Mail's Report on Business Magazine, "Rebels with a Business Plan: Old Paradigms Got you Down? These Enterprising Gen-Xers Created Their Own?" by Richard Bingham. He refers to a book "Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will" Bingham defines the boundaries of Generation X in this way: If you graduated from university in anything other than computer science without encountering a computer, you're too old; if you can't remember a time when there were no video stores , you're too young. He outlines the differences with this chart. Boomers Generation Xers 1 Dress for success1.Think "casual Fridays" are pathetic 2. Want the boss'sjob 2. Want the boss's stock options 3. Fear or loathe computers3. Are contemptuous of computer illiteracy 4. Have careers 4. Have contracts 5. Work 9 to 5, Monday to Friday 5. Prefer flex-time 6. Are comfortable in hierarchies 6. Are indifferent to/frustrated by hierarchies 7. Expect to retire in comfort at age 65 7. Expect to work until they die, but take long sabbaticals throughout Did they really create this paradigm, (I scratch my head) or was it forced on them? When I look in the newspapers, more than half of the IT jobs are for 3 month or 6 month contracts? OK, well, if that's what he says... I quote from Richard Bingham's article below: "The first great downsizing and re-engineering wave in the early 90s shell-shocked a vast swath of boomer workers because they still clung to a quaint notion of reciprocal loyalty between employees and companies. It's a dead idea. It may have been an illusion all along, but now hardly anyone even bothers to keep up the facade. The only loyalty is to shareholders. Companies encourage employees to think like independent contractors and to assume that their career management is their own responsibility. The corollary of this way of thinking is that benefits--that part of the employment relationship which recognizes people have lives beyond their mere utility--are going the way of the passenger pigeon as more companies shift jobs to contract positions. This is the world my generation takes for granted. And we're comfortable with it. We're also comfortable with technology and the culture of permanent change that technology has engendered. Paradigm shifts don't faze us because our entire working lives have paralleled the greatest work-place transformations since the Industrial Revolution. We like to work, but we negotiate work and leisure differently from our parents. And most of all, we are an entrepreneurial generation, as much in frustration with the boomer pig ahead of us in the python as with the inertia of large, hierarchical companies. Gon an idea your company is too slow or too stupid to move on? Start your own company. If it tanks, try something else. And if it flies, make a killing on the initial public offering and move on to the next thing that you find fun. Fun is a key word for the Gen-X worker.We are a paradox in that, one one hand, our self-esteem is very closely tied to our work--hence, our willingness to work stupid hours and erase the boundaries between time on and time off; on the other hand, we retain an ironic distance about the seriousness of it all: It's only a job. We see ourselves as in the system, but not of it begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: Views on Rifkin's theory
e without merit. It could be an important palliative measure while the present economic order endures and it would be invaluable once we have achieved a world where people are looking for work because they want a task that fits their measure and not because they need the money. By the way, if you solve it in the near future (before I reach retirement age) let me know as I have been seriously underemployed for the past 12 years! Regards, Victor Milne FIGHT THE BASTARDS! An anti-neoconservative website at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/pat-vic/ LONESOME ACRES RIDING STABLE at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/ begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
Labor participation rates
I wanted to draw futureworkers attention to an article in the Globe and Mail, Monday, November 16th."Low unemployment has hidden cause". It indicates that just over 65 percent of the potential labor force (Canadians 15 and over) was working or looking for work in October, while in 1990 this percentage was 67.9%. This drop in participation rate was broken down by age groups: aged 25-54---9% of this drop in participation rate aged over 55---27% of this drop in participation rate aged 15-24---64% of this drop in participation rate Thus it is falling most heavily on youth who had a participation rate of 70% in 1989 , but last year had a rate of 61% (and this includes any type of part-time job). We discussed this some time ago about the "missing workers" in the U.S., many of whom were older "discouraged" "downsized" workers, but the implications here bring this back to some of the original discussions about the changing nature of work and problems of youth employment that Keith Hudson referred to. I wonder how these Canadian statistics compare internationally, and what realistic steps are being taken to counteract this trend? Also, I found this article to be going against the general media reporting that seems to be saying that our unemployment problems are solved or at least is not seriously evaluating the significance of the participation rate drop. Melanie Toronto begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
FW: Is Russia Breaking Up?
This is a message from a Russian relative of mine in Moscow, his English is not great, but his message is strong and real. Perhaps futureworkers could offer him and his compatriots some advice? He works in computers. Melanie From redline.ru!iphiton Mon Sep 7 01:47:14 1998 Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from mac.redline.ru by web.net via rsmtp with esmtp id [EMAIL PROTECTED] for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Mon, 7 Sep 1998 01:47:12 -0400 (EDT) (Smail-3.2 1996-Jul-4 #1 built 1996-Oct-8) X-BlackMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], mac.redline.ru, [EMAIL PROTECTED], 194.87.69.17 X-Authenticated-Timestamp: 01:47:12(EDT) on September 07, 1998 Received: from MMX166 (ppp189.redline.ru [195.210.190.189]) by mac.redline.ru (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id JAA31941 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Mon, 7 Sep 1998 09:43:09 +0400 Message-ID: 003701bdda22$766c6380$bdbed2c3@MMX166 From: "Alex" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Melanie Milanich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Moscow Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 09:41:41 +0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="koi8-r" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Status: R Hi Melanie! That is a shot last events review. Here is crises and I was involved now more and more. As a sketch of Moscow life. Yesterday I receive information? that on Monday (today), it will changes prices on gasoline ( a government did not said any word, information travels from people to people). So about all people with a car were very active and buy a gas yesterday. I do so. Yesterday it was announced as a Moscow city Day. And it was many shows. I was surprised, when I saw a man which fly along a street on a jet (10-20 m high 100-200m long, 30 -50 seconds). That was a pity that I did not take my video. All this show was not intrusting to many peoples, because the crises. Now ruble drop 3 times, prices increase 2 times etc. The only how it concern me, it seams I lose some money in Latvia (it was a money of my company) and I have a preliminary information, that the bank is bankrupt. I do something to save the money, but I am not sure I had a time. As a result of all this events I became more active. I begin to realize some of my parents and do the new. Also, it seams that may be year it would be better out of Russia. Here may be something like Revolution and for that I want be ready. My wife get her vacation in Slovenia now. She bought this tour before a crises and I am sure she is near TV all her vacation. At this crises I saw. that it is really you do something very intrusting in crises. That is in Russians history like a red line. Because all my money are in $ in this situation I even have some indirect profit (prices can not rise as quick as $). Now I am waiting events in Duma. That is not such a simple situation as newspapers said, but we'll wait the result. That is about all (all interesting what happens here). Best regards, Alexander
[PNEWS] Understanding globalization
/* Written 9:43 PM May 27, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:p.news */ /* -- "[PNEWS] Understanding globalization" -- */ /* Written 3:43 PM May 27, 1998 by jdav in igc:peoplestrib */ /* -- "06-98 Edit: Understanding globaliza" -- */ ** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 25 No. 6/ June, 1998 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.mcs.com/~league ** EDITORIAL: UNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION Globalization! The very word makes a worker tremble, and with good reason. On the one hand, the term "globalization" has become a bogeyman reactionaries use to frighten and politically disorient people. On the other, it is looked upon as part of the painful birth process of a new world. Let's look at what we're struggling with, because globalization is a result of history, it is real and here to stay. Everything that happens is the result of a chain of causes and effects that tie the world together into an understandable whole. By examining cause and effect, we can understand what globalization is at this time. At the beginnings of capitalism, merchants had to cast their commercial nets far and wide since they had to expand their businesses or perish in the competition. A primitive form of "globalization" called "mercantile imperialism" began to tie the economies of sectors of the world together. As capitalism matured, it produced more than it could consume and accumulated a mass of finance capital it could not profitably invest in its various national markets. A new stage of "globalization" set in as the major financial-industrial nations carved out spheres of influence to guarantee a place for investment and a protected market to dump their industrial surplus. By 1939, all the contradictions within the financial-capitalist imperialist system burst out as World War II. By the end of that war, the world was in economic and social ruins. The United States, unscathed by war, financially enriched and militarily dominant, initiated the so-called Cold War in order to consolidate its political and financial grip on those regions of the world not within the military or political influence of the Soviet Union. This control was consolidated and insured by a complex set of military alliances that were watchdogs for an expanding global capital termed first multinational, then transnational and finally supranational capitalist enterprises. Each stage of development has brought more powerful groups of financiers together to invest on a global scale. There were limits to this stage of globalization because it was not possible to minutely control the flow of money. The development of the computer meant instant control and solved one aspect of this problem. The subversion of the Soviet Union, eliminating the last political barriers, solved the other. From its secure base in the domination of Europe and Latin America, world financiers, dominated by U.S. finance capital, have set out to reorganize the world. Their battle cry is "free trade." Their artillery is the alphabet-soup committees such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Group of Eight and other shadowy international bodies that no one has elected, but that, by clandestine international treaties, all nations have become subservient to. At this point, globalization means that capital is free to roam the world in search of cheap labor since every worker is competing against all the rest as never before. The inevitable result is the lowering of living standards for all the workers and absolute poverty for most. Does this mean there are no longer national interests? No, actually the national interests are exacerbated. No nation, if it wants to remain part of international commerce, has the economic power to defy these world bodies. Since the United States dominates these bodies by virtue of its military and economic might, it has imposed an economic Pax Americana over the rest of the world. The other part of the picture is that there is a growing grouping of financiers who are without national identification or interests. While globalization today means a global economy dominated by the United States, the tendency is toward a future dominated by these truly global capitalists with the entire world as their colony. Can they accomplish this? Probably not. What they are achieving historically is preparing the peoples and economies of the world for a truly world revolution; investing in economic infrastructure that ties all the workers together. This means bringing the most advanced means of production to economically backward areas, thus economically evening up the world. Globalization of the economy ultimately means globalization of class politics -- which is the basis of world revolution.
The era of corporate rule
/* Written 12:51 PM May 2, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:twn.features */ /* -- "The era of corporate rule" -- */ Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit THE ERA OF CORPORATE RULE Arguing that corporate codes of conduct are never democratic documents, the writer warns that if we let multinationals draft global labour and human rights declarations, we would allow ourselves to be ruled by the multinationals and become citizens of corporate states. By Naomi Klein The verdict is in: transnationals have pulled off nothing short of a corporate coup d'etat, ushering in what American author David Korten calls 'the era of Corporate Rule'. In this context, a growing consensus is emerging among progressive intellectuals and activists in the North which holds that if citizens are to have any input into their communal futures, they must deal directly with the real power brokers - no longer just the politicians but the people pulling their strings: the transnational corporations themselves. The past decade has seen a marked increase in activist campaigns focused on specific brand-name products. Shell, McDonald's and nearly all the major mining companies have come under fire for ecological devastation and for violent crimes against indigenous peoples. Disney, Mattel, the Gap, Nike and Wal-Mart have all faced public attacks for the working conditions in their contractors' factories in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. In New York, London and Vancouver, demonstrations are now as likely to take place outside of a shopping mall, gas station or superstore, as they are outside of a government building. It is still unclear whether these brand-based campaigns will succeed in changing corporate behaviour but there is one thing we know for certain: they sure have changed the way corporations talk. The most savvy multinationals have tried to quell the growing outrage by drafting codes of conduct which are held up as cure-all labour solutions, no matter what the problem. It has also become popular for corporations to deflect the criticism that they answer only to an elite group of shareholders by claiming accountability to a broader cross-section of 'stakeholders': customers, employees, the natural environment. It's difficult not to get swept up reading these codes of conduct: they are such deeply moral documents, more idealistic than almost anything that has come out of the US Left in a decade. They stare back at their critics with a look of perfect inevitability as if to ask: what did you expect? We have been like this all along. One starts to wonder (or at least one is supposed to wonder), if perhaps the problem isn't as these benevolent patriarchs say... one big misunderstanding, a 'communication breakdown' with a rogue contractor, something lost in the translation. Last summer, I travelled to Indonesia and the Philippines to find out what codes of conduct mean to the garment and electronics workers they are supposed to protect. What I found was the entire debate around corporate codes seems to be taking place in a parallel universe to the one where people in Asia do the work. Without exception, all the workers I spoke with were confused by the codes: some had never heard of them, some had heard of them but didn't understand them, some had seen copies but didn't know what to do with them. The confusion is far from coincidental. Most workers in Asia don't understand corporate codes of conduct because the codes were not written for them. They were written about them, for someone else - the crowds of protesters outside the mall. The codes, more often than not, come out of the company's public relations department in the North, not the labour departments in the South (if they have one). That's why it wasn't until a year and a half ago that companies even considered translating these workers' manifestoes into any language other than English. And that's why when Mattel finally unveiled its code of conduct this past November, it did so at the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. These are not codes for workers, but for shoppers. Now that the codes exist, there is a belief among many European and North American activists that campaigning should now focus on ensuring that the documents are enforced. This project raises a number of practical problems. For instance, how can they be monitored in a systematic way when companies often have layers of contractors and subcontractors - what sort of network could be big and well-financed enough to cover every nook and cranny? If NGOs become monitors, will they sign away their right to speak out against labour violations, thereby taking the issue out of public eye and losing leverage? What about workers who sew for up to 15 companies at once and for whom names like 'The Gap' or 'Eddie Bauer' aren't those of employers, but simply names on a label. In Jakarta last August, I attended
Biotech industry threatens organic
/* Written 12:54 PM May 2, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:twn.features */ /* -- "Biotech industry threatens organic" -- */ Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BIOTECH INDUSTRY THREATENS ORGANIC AGRICULTURE The writer observes that the biotechnology industry seems to control government regulators in Canada and the US. There is growing pressure from industry to have genetically engineered crops declared organic by government regulation. By Joe Cummins Genetic engineering is changing the genetic makeup of plant and animal crops in the laboratory. Genes from insects, animals or humans have been added to crop plants or human genes have been added to pigs and cattle. Contrary to the claims of biotechnology, genetic engineering is not the normal progress of crop breeding. Humans have not been mating with canola nor fish with tomatoes for centuries to my best knowledge. The danger in genetic engineering is that industry has 'convinced' government that the gene-tinkered crops are substantially equivalent to normal crops. For that reason the crops are not tested extensively to insure that they are safe. One genetically engineered product, tryptophan, has been associated with at least 70 deaths and crippled thousands. At least $1 billion has been paid in compensation for the disaster. Other health concerns include allergy and autoimmune diseases. The antibiotic resistance genes engineered in the crop plants contribute to the spread of antibiotic-tolerant disease bacteria. Some genes used as plant pesticides have been implicated in skin disease in farm and market workers and those crops caused cancer in laboratory animals. The crops are sold without labels so the only secure food at present is certified organic. Along with impacting on human health the crops have been found to spread genes to neighbouring crops and weeds and to promote rapid appearance of resistance in organic pesticides such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Gene-tinkered crops have been found to injure pollinating insects in some cases. They also promote the use of toxic herbicides. For example, the herbicide glufosinate (Basta or Liberty) caused birth defects in laboratory animals including brain and skeletal defects. In spite of those findings the herbicide is used very extensively both prior to planting (where it kills nearly everything green) and to finish pulses and canola. Liberty-ready canola is genetically engineered to tolerate high levels of the herbicide. It has been approved for use in Canada since last year. Food contaminated with glufosinate if eaten by women of child-bearing age is likely to produce birth defects in children. The effect cannot be detected using the science epidemiology because the genetically engineered crops are not labelled in the market and they are mixed with the general pool of crops. Such crops are marketed before their impacts have been thoroughly evaluated. There is a threat to organic agriculture from the aggressive methods of the biotechnology industry along with its apparent control of government regulators in Canada and the United States. In Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada not only regulates biotechnology but promotes it and takes millions in direct funds from industry for that support. There is growing pressure from industry to have genetically engineered crops declared organic by government regulation. Recently, the Canadian Minister of Health Hon. Alan Rock has begun to assemble a review of the bovine growth hormone prior to its approval for use in Canada. The information I was provided by Senator Whelan's office was that the panel was to be selected from the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and the professional organisation for Veterinary Medicine. A panel of that type is industry-dominated and will ignore the input of organic agriculture and the family farmer. The Codex Alimentarius Commission of the United Nations is taking on a key role in setting standards for organic products, unfortunately that organisation is dominated by industry but with strong independent voices from the organic farmers in Australia and Europe. As a delegate to the Codex committee on food labelling I observed the power and manipulativeness of industry in that committee. It is that committee which will set the standards defining organic crops for international commerce. Under the trade arrangements that emerged in recent years Codex will set the standards that will have to be followed in Canada if crops are to be exported and the standards used in imported foods that compete with domestic organic crops. The clandestine introduction of genetically engineered products into organic agriculture has been a problem and will be a growing problem. For example, the Mycogen company introduced forms of the Bt toxin such as MVP II that is described as a patented encapsulated form of Bt (Cell Cap). The product is marketed extensively to control insects
Trade liberalization kills Banglade
/* Written 12:56 PM May 2, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:twn.features */ /* -- "Trade liberalization kills Banglade" -- */ Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit TRADE LIBERALISATION KILLS BANGLADESHI SMALL BUSINESSES Trade liberalisation - removal of non-tariff barriers and reduction of import duties - is said to have adversely affected some 7,000 businesses in Bangladesh, mainly small and medium enterprises, with many closing or on the verge of collapse. By Tabibul Islam Dhaka: Stiff competition from cheaper imports and smuggled goods has slowed down industrial growth of small and medium enterprises in Bangladesh, forcing closure of several factories in various parts of the country. The textile industry, on which the economy was pegged to take off, has been pushed close to collapse by competition from cheaper imports. Heavily taxed raw materials like dyes, chemicals and yarn have pushed up prices of locally manufactured fabric. The situation has worsened because of rampant corruption at all levels. For instance, customs officials can be bribed to turn a blind eye to the illegal flow of goods over the border. An ailing textile industry, which is the biggest employer after agriculture, has been laying off workers, and shutting down units. There are more than 10,000 hosiery mills alone across the country, and thousands of people work on hand- and power-looms. Yusuf Abdullah Harun, president, Federation of the Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said trade liberalisation - removal of non-tariff barriers and reduction of import duties - has adversely affected some 7,000 businesses, mainly small and medium enterprises. A large number of loss-making detergent and biscuit factories are on the verge of closure. Even transnational corporations like Lever Brothers, which dominates the local market here, have switched to marketing Indian-made products. Similarly, British-based GEC has substantially reduced its local manufacturing activities, retrenching thousands of people. Fans made in India, China, Pakistan, Taiwan and Malaysia are available in shops everywhere, while popular local brands like 'Millat', 'Jumana' and 'Hira' have all but vanished from the shelves. The labour-intensive electric fittings industry is in the doldrums. The industry had grown in 1992-93, exporting products to Middle Eastern and European markets, but the lifting of tariff restrictions has been a death blow. The imposition of 15% value-added tax (VAT) on local production has also added to the burden of manufacturers, who are unable to compete with the imported goods in so far as price competitiveness is concerned. Smuggled products at lower prices have entered the market in a big way, analysts said. Enayet Hossain Chowdhury, former president of the Electrical Manufacturers Association, said foreign goods have invaded the local market. Our products can compete only if duty on raw materials was lowered, and locally manufactured items exempted from VAT, he added. Economist Abdullah Harun warned of mounting losses of small and medium enterprises, which are up against unequal global competition. The government has to improve infrastructure - power supply, transportation, port facilities, customs clearance - if local industry was to compete, he advised. Illegal cross-border trade has been frustrating industrial revival plans. What the government needed to do was to rationalise trade and taxation policies to enable Bangladeshi business to take on international competitors. Dr Muzaffar Ahmed, a well-known economist, however, advised the need for controls on liberalisation, arguing that mere adoption of a liberal trade policy and the opening up of the economy would be counter-productive. For instance, the gap between the poor and the rich has widened in Bangladesh with the new rich lacking even a social conscience, Dr Ahmed observed. The trend was new for Bangladesh, which, despite having the highest concentration of poverty, is not so inequitable. The lowest 40% of the population command around 23% of national wealth, according to Human Development in South Asia 1997, a report prepared by an Islamabad-based NGO. Income disparities between the 65 districts of Bangladesh are not as wide as in the various regions of India and Pakistan. Normally the income disparity is between 10% and 25%, the report states. According to Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmed, an economist, the government must not remove all state controls on the economy, because investments in the country's human capital were essential. Currently Bangladesh only invests $5 a year per person on providing education and health services, very low compared to Pakistan's $10, India's $14 and Malaysia's $150. 'Wherever Bangladesh has invested in skill-training, as in the garments industry, it has
futurework: Microcredit
/* Written 7:48 PM May 3, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:reg.india */ /* -- "India: Micro Credit Women (Part 2" -- */ Asialink - Electronic Newsletter Information Exchange for Social Change Issue No. 10 (May 1998) Dear Friends, This in the second in our two-part series on micro-credit. The following facts, culled from "Micro-Credit: Economic Empowerment of Women," by the Comet Media Foundation, Mumbai, 1997, suggest that micro-credit, however promising it might be, still reaches relatively few Indians: ... Up to December 1995, RMK (Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, the central pool of micro-credit for women) had sanctioned credit of Rs. 1,406.28 lakhs (about 140 million rupees or four million in US dollars) to 73 NGOs to benefit 82,474 women. (Participants included self-help groups, 75 percent of which are women's groups,) linked to 28 commercial banks, 60 regional rural banks and seven co-operative banks in 16 States and two Union territories. ... (Promoted by SEWA, in Ahmedabad, the programme) operates in eight states and its support to underprivileged women has been routed through 93 NGOs. FWWB credit has reached nearly 44,000 women, and a total amount of Rs. 40.7 million has been lent through the supporting NGOs since 1990 ... *** Grameen in Bangladesh and SEWA in India are examples of micro- credit schemes that encourage women's participation. Both have seen some big successes, so it's no wonder that so much is expected. Still, we need to ask what micro-credit really means for poor women? Just how far does it go towards alleviating poverty? Are all participating NGOs indeed following in the footsteps of SEWA and Grameen? Not everyone has hopped on the micro-credit bandwagon. The following viewpoint, excerpted from "Micro-Credit: Band-Aid or Wound?" by Kavaljit Singh, Nan Dawkins-Scully and Daphne Wysham, explores some of the downside of micro-credit: ... A global campaign to ensure that 100 million of the world's poorest families receive credit for self-employment by the year 2005 was launched at the three-day Micro-credit Summit in Washington, D.C., on February 2-4 1997. Organised by RESULTS Educational Fund, a US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), this summit was supported by an array of financial and development institutions, including the World Bank, the International Fund for Agriculture and Development, and transnational banking institutions like Citicorp, Chase Manhattan and American Express. Although it is too early to comment on the outcome of the summit, the available reports suggest that the summit was successful in mobilising financial and political support from international aid agencies and financial institutions to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families with credit for self-employment by year 2005. Suddenly, it appears, everyone is jumping on the micro- credit bandwagon. The reasons for this are as varied as the players. Micro-credit has the support of many women's advocates who view expansion of micro-credit as a potential bellwether for women's empowerment as poor women gain greater access to financial resources. Multilateral development banks, in an era of budget cuts and disbursement reductions, are embracing micro-credit as an opportunity for them to move away from the capital-intensive "development as charity" model to the potentially more profitable "development as business." But perhaps most significantly, the financial community has woken up to the fact that there is a great deal of money to be made in micro-lending, where interest rates can range from 20 to 100 percent. Micro-credit is often portrayed as a "win-win" option, wherein investors profit handsomely while the poor gain access to resources that allow them to help themselves. The reality, however, is not always so rosy. In India, a number of self-help groups (SHGs) were created in the 1980s to provide credit facilities to the poor, especially women, in both urban and rural areas. These SHGs stumbled upon a surprising finding: by targeting women, repayment rates came in well over 95 percent, higher than most traditional banks. Impressed by the repayment rates, institutions like National Bank for Rural Development (NABARD) and the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) began increasing their lending to SHGs in India. However, the lending rates of SHGs to borrowers were not cheap. For example, (SIDBI) lent to NGOs at nine percent; NGOs were allowed to lend to SHGs at a rate up to 15 percent; and SHGs, in turn, were allowed to charge up to 30 percent to individual borrowers.
[PNEWS] Workfare: Operation Coverup
/* Written 5:25 PM Apr 12, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:p.news */ /* -- "[PNEWS] Workfare: Operation Coverup" -- */ The NY Times is running a four day series on NYC's Workfare programs: Today (4/12/98): "An uncertain road to a real job." Monday: "A Low-cost city labor force." Tuesday: "The scramble for child care." Wednesday: "Trimming the rolls; Tough or too touch?" The Mayor, according to the first article, has apparently ordered members of his administration to say N*O*T*H*I*N*G in response to NY Times or any other queries about WEP. "City Hall's message seems to be that the press -- and the voters and taxpayers -- should celeberate what the Mayor decrees to be reforms but should not look beyond the press releases, or check the record, or ask difficult questions," said Bill Keller, The Times's managing editor. "That's a remarkably cyncial view of the responsibilities of public office." Sound familiar? What really horrifies in this matter is the ticking clock that will drive all people off welfare after a maximum lifetime support of 5 years (and much less in many nearby states). Any one who knows anything about the subject is aware that 2/3 or more of those on welfare are children; many others are variously disabled. And, of course, thousands of our CUNY students have been and are being driven out of college by the WEP program, blocking their efforts to get off welfare. Ed Kent [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Child Labour Global March Goes Acro
I wonder if futureworkers have been following this issue. Melanie
/* Written 4:12 AM Apr 3, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:reg.india */
/* -- "Child Labour Global March Goes Acro" -- */
--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 05:29:49 +0530 (GMT+5:30)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
INDIAN-INSPIRED CHILD LABOUR GLOBAL MARCH GOES ACROSS CONTINENTS
From Frederick Noronha
Panaji (Goa), March 28: "I just love to go to school," says
Nurullah. But instead, this twelve-year-old boy spends his day
selling plastic bags to shoppers visiting the local fish-market.
For earnings of Rs 15 to 35 (forty to ninety US cents) per day,
youngsters like Narullah are compelled to a wasted childhood and
an uncertain future. To highlight their woes, and battle social
myths about child labour, an ambitious 80,000 km-long global
march is traversing 70 nations worldwide.
Campaigners say it could become the "single largest social
intervention of its kind".
Late Friday evening, some 110 participants -- mostly former
child-labourers, including 27 from various Asian countries --
trooped into this former Portuguese colony of Goa. They've criss-
crossed through Asia, en route to the UN Palace in Geneva.
Local school-children and poor children compelled to work in Goa
itself greeted the marchers with fresh roses in Panaji's Azad
Maidan ('Freedom Garden').
Shared experiences makes the children realise that the fault is
not theirs. There is pride in Lily's eyes, as this 13-year-old
former flower-vendor from Bangladesh narrates what she went
through, in Bangla, a language nobody can comprehend in this part
of India.
But among the children, the language of solidarity is common.
"Please give your children a chance to study," appeals Makara,
14, a former construction worker from the Philippines.
In the first week of June 1998, marchers will converge in Geneva
to meet representatives of governments, business and unions
drafting a new ILO Convention on Child Labour. Campaigners want a
"strong and radical" agreement, which does not "compromise or
repeal" the existing age limit which defines who is a child.
This march which will cover 80,000 kms in all, entered India on
March 5. Earlier, it started in Manila, and went on to Vietnam,
Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
It has already undertaken a circuitous loop through the large
area of peninsular India. After entering through the eastern
state of Bihar, it went on to West Bengal and Orissa, then went
into South India's Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states before
landing up in Goa on the west coast.
From India, it will go enter neighbouring Pakistan. Via Iran and
Turkey, it will go to Europe. There, the march will break up into
three legs -- heading to the UK, Scandinavia and Italy.
But this organisational nightmare is made more difficult by some
unhelpful official responses. "Children who never understood the
problem of passports, visas, borders and religion are facing
precisely such problems," complains global coordinator for the
march Kailash Satyarthi.
In India, some children got visas for only two weeks. Organisers
went to a court in Delhi to manage to take formerly bonded child-
labour with them to Geneva. In Indonesia, participants got
arrested, organisers said. Others were not allowed to march in
Malaysia.
But, on the other hand, the march got a welcome from governments
and presidents in Brazil, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines and Nepal.
Not-for-profit and voluntary organisations say that fighting
an issue which "governments should be doing". But some
governments seem to fear participation in this march could lead
to heightened awareness over this situation, which they suggest
would affect the Third World economic interests.
"That's a really difficult question to answer," says march
international coordinator Kailash Satyarthi, when asked how many
child labourers India really has. Government statistics put it at
20 million (rpt 20), while non-governmental figures say there are
as many as 120 million (rpt 120), he says.
Perhaps the most credible figures is 60 million, arrived at by
a professional survey group, ORG of Baroda, Satyarthi feels.
Seventy percent of India's child labour is believed to be in the
agricultural field. Rest is in the "unorganised" sector -- in
carpet making, glass and metal work, diamond cutting and
polishing, lock-making, and many kids work as domestic servants.
Recently, the Indian government highlighted its commitment to end
child-labour in "hazardous" industries. Campaigners say this is
"not enough" since it hardly covers 10% of child labour in the
country.
Satyarthi argues that "all child labour" is hazardous when it
