Today Slate reports a new and (finally) amusing chapter in Alabama's anti-immigrant efforts. Police arrested and sent to jail a German Mercedes-Benz executive because he didn't have his passport.
The NY Times today describes 'quiet streets' in a small Alabama town in the aftermath of a State judge's ruling to uphold a stern anti-immigrant law. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/us/after-ruling-hispanics-flee-an-alab... Farmers complain that crops are rotting in the fields because there is no one left to pick them. During a time of economic uncertainty, Alabama's lawmakers have chosen to reduce their available labor pool and put local businesses at risk. Sounds like bad policy to me.
First Hershey's, now Amazon. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/us/24iht-currents24.html?_r=4
When companies hire temps, when they outsource hiring to others, they risk exploiting workers and harming their reputations. It's that simple.
Hershey's outsourced packing to a local business, which outsourced hiring to another business. Amazon appears to have done the same thing, coincidentally also in Pennsylvania. The solution is 'Fair Hiring.' We tell companies how in our Toolkit www.verite.org/helpwanted
What’s the relationship between excellence in business and corporate social responsibility? This is the question I’m looking forward to exploring this week in Dalian, where the presence of so many corporate leaders from ‘emerging economies’ makes it a particularly compelling issue.
This Guardian report leads with the awful news that a Chinese worker committed suicide. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/aug/27/disney-factory-sweatshop-suici... The article -- built off allegations by a Hong Kong-based anti-sweatshop organization -- also contains more typical descriptions of a 'non-compliant' Chinese workplace. Wages are excessive, work is underpaid, safety is imperfect, and supervisors are abusive. Sad as it may sound, this profile is neither unusual nor the worst that we see.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has issued new Guidance that to my eyes formally allows compassion in the enforcement of immigration laws. http://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/prosecutorial-discretio...
In an effort to prioritize use of ICE resources in alignment with national immigration priorities, and recognizing that 'the agency is confronted with more administrative violations than its resources can address,' ICE has given new guidance for the use of 'prosecutorial discretion.'
On May 9 we and Philip Morris International released a report on Verite's assessment of labor conditions in tobacco growing in Kazakhstan, which was essentially a response to Human Rights Watch’s investigation of PMI there. We issued the following statement on why Verite undertook the work and what we expected out of it: http://www.verite.org/news/PMI_report_tobacco_kazakhstan
Solving the serious labor problems that result from unethical recruitment won't happen if the main change is renewed calls for licensing of brokers. That's what the Gulf Cooperation Council seems to be proposing. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=182537
For the most part brokers are licensed, And they are still unethical and downright exploitative. What is needed is an ethical regime that brokers must adhere to, and which can be used by employers and their clients to distinguish between good and bad brokers.
Verité China Program Director Wenjuan Yao recently presented an analysis of trends in labor relations in China. An excerpt follows.