The Long Arm of Chinese Labor Law [View All]

[camero]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=680_0_1_0_C

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More than 1,200 workers from the Tieshu Textile Factory in the Chinese city of Suizhou peacefully blocked railroad tracks this February to protest corruption among factory managers that had cost them nearly $25 million in pay, pensions and investments.

Hundreds of police broke up the demonstration, beating many and arresting six for “disturbing social order.” It’s not unusual: Employers increasingly refuse to pay workers what they’re owed—nearly $40 billion in 2002.

The violation of labor rights is the dark side of China’s economic boom. But it’s not just a problem for Chinese workers. It’s also a problem for Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, and Mexican workers in the maquiladora assembly plants along the country’s northern border, as hundreds of factories have moved to China.

In a global economy, an injury to Chinese workers becomes an injury to workers from Wisconsin to Ciudad Juarez. That’s the argument of a groundbreaking trade initiative filed by the AFL-CIO in March. By asking the president to impose tariffs on Chinese products, to negotiate a binding agreement with China to enforce labor rights, and to insist on labor rights protections in all trade agreements under the World Trade Organization, the labor federation is the first to employ a 1988 provision in U.S. trade law that defines systematic denial of worker rights as an unreasonable trade practice.

This sort of practice is what we used to call dumping which is exactly what it is. Of course I don't think anyone will actually do this since the corps invest too much money in politicians. Violations of labor laws are unfair trade practices. Welcome to serfdom.