Turmoil in Tunisia: Rebellion Challenges Neoliberalism

Curfew covered Tunis, deployed troops, reported death of at least 66 protesters, demonstrators setting fire on government offices, mass protests, sacking of ministers have unmasked neoliberalism and its limits of power in seemingly politically stagnant Tunisia. Five suicides protesting unemployment and poverty have unplugged mass anger pent for decades against President Zine el Abindine’s corruption-ridden iron rule for over two decades.

The protests and demonstrations against the repressive regime spread out all over the country, from Kasserine, a remote farming area, to Gafsa, Regueb, El-Kef, to the city of Thala, to the capital city of Tunis, turned to a mass revolt against the repressive regime indulging with neoliberalism. As the demonstrations spread to the Mediterranean resort of Hammamet demonstrators smashed up a police station and holiday villas there, a town popular with the country's ruling class and Europeans. A villa owned by a member of the president’s inner circle was destroyed, with graffiti scrawled on a wall: “Death to Ben Ali” [the Tunisian president]. Vehicles and buildings were set alight. The dictatorship tried to desist journalists covering the protests. Demonstrations by thousands of workers were attacked in Tunis. Police also tried to stop a demonstration by workers.

Artists’ demonstration in the capital condemning excessive use of force was dispersed by police.
Security forces beat two actresses. Sana Daoud, one of them, shouted: “Shame on you!” Another was shoved to the ground. Jalila Baccar, actress, protested: “It’s our right to demonstrate.” Protesting bloggers hacking and blocking government websites were arrested. Government interfered with internet. Cyber warriors managed to shut down the government’s website, the national stock exchange site, and other sites. Their other steps include ensuring citizens’ scope to connect each other anonymously to the Internet and access information that the government restricts.

The protests began in Sidi Bouzid town, last December, after Mohamed Bouazizi, a young unemployed graduate, committed suicide on December 17. His protest triggered the country-wide protests and clashes with the police, touched off a wave of unrest rattling the government. Thousands of people vowing revenge attended the funeral of Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid. Bouazizi has become the symbol of the rejection and contempt. The funeral marchers chanted: “Farewell. We weep for you today, we will make those who caused your death weep.”

Despite his education Bouazizi found no employment. He used to sell fruits and vegetables on the street in the Sidi Bouzid to earn a living. Police confiscated his produce as he did not have a permit. As a protest he set fire to himself. To Bouazizi, it appeared that “there was no future for him or his family.” He found all paths blocked. Bouazizi died in hospital last week. Another suicide was reported in the same area: Allaa Hidouri, unemployed university student, climbed up an electricity pylon and electrocuted himself saying “No unemployment, no misery”. It was second of five suicides linked to the protests.

The suicides unequivocally tell the deep sense of frustration, desperation and anger, the hatred against the corrupt ruling elite that has amassed huge wealth. The US that supports the dictatorship described the family of President Zine el Abindine, according to a Wikileaks released cable, a “quasi mafia” and the Tunisian regime as a “police state”. The demonstrations were initially against the increasing unemployment, with the unemployment rate currently standing at around 15%, but rising food prices and frustrations with the ruling elite have since become major issues.

Students, workers, teachers, lawyers, artists, actors, hospital workers, journalists and other professional groups joined the unemployed, the demonstrating masses. Violent protests spread to the capital city after sweeping towns and villages. Thousands of people took to the streets, torched the local headquarters of the National Guard. The Guards’ gunshots killed an 18-year-old protestor.

The demonstrations spread to the suburbs of the capital city. For the first time troops have been deployed in the capital since unrest broke out in the south of the country in mid-December, 2010. Armored vehicles rumbled through the capital streets. All schools and universities have been closed for indefinite period.

Students have called for mass protests. The Tunisian Bar Association has called for a “general strike” to protest police brutalities. A call has been made for a protest demonstration in Tunis on January 26 and for solidarity protests in front of Tunisian embassies.

The demonstrations and wave of violent and unrest, almost rare in 23 years, have rocked Zine al-Abidine’s rule. Showing clear signs of retreat and compromise the shaken regime, “pledged” to create 300,000 new jobs on top of 50,000 already “pledged”. But the regime has already lost credibility after engineered elections over the years that produced the believe-it-or-not-votes: 97-99%. A number of ministers and the regional governors of Sidi Bouzid and of other regions have been sacked. But the president branded the demonstrating masses “gangs of thugs”. The world witnessed that a president actually tried to make comprise with the “thugs” by making new promises of jobs, etc.

The percentage of unemployed graduates is about double of the unemployed percentage. An estimated 55% of the population is under the age of 25. With Internet and Facebook, the Tunisian young generation today is more aware of the state of the society: increasing unemployment, ruthless privatization, withdrawal of subsidies for food.

Vigorous drive to liberalize the economy was a mark of the mid-’80s. More than 150 state enterprises were, fully or partially, sold out. Privatization has taken its social costs; unemployment and poverty levels rose. Despite the promising diverse economy with agriculture, mining, tourism, and manufacturing sectors poverty in Tunisia overwhelmed people as all the benefits accumulated in the pockets of a handful of elites.

Neoliberalism has been imposed by an alliance of army, business and civilian politicians that benefits the rich, part of the dominant pattern in this world system. Its politics is despotism and economy is the rich-poor great divide, and the two have produced an absolute failure in the society. The poor, farmers and workers pass days in poverty. In the “Tunisian Miracle”, as with other miracles, the masses dwell in well-designed impoverishment while the absolute minority – the rich – live in small islands named indulgence with theft and luxury. The wealthy minority with their links to the president and his family form a class-network that survives on loot, and gets patronization from their western friends, especially France, Italy and Spain. A significant portion of the youth’s only path to survival is the opposite shore of the Mediterranean. They make their journey by the so-called “death boats”.

Tunisians were dictated to forget political freedom in the sterile dead-democracy. Liberals, leftists, nationalists, all political dissidents, student activists, civil society were either put behind bars or dissolved. Organizations of all forms, even cultural and sports associations have been turned constituents of the rulers. Journalists were one of the worst victims of the rule. No other Arab country has imprisoned more journalists since 2000 than Tunisia. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has declared the regime as one of the world’s 10 worst enemies of the press. Media rights watchdog Reporters without Borders ranks Tunisia 164th out of 178 countries in its press freedom index.

But high unemployment, rising food prices, high inflation, decreasing public sector, debt, social marginalization, hard-pressed middle class, outrageous level of censorship, restrictions on civil liberties, lack of transparency, particularly in the judicial system, and poverty have produced power that has pushed the masses to democratic actions in the country propagated as “an economic success story”. The dead stability has been made unstable by the masses demanding job, bread, better living conditions and a living democracy. Demonstrating masses are calling for radical reforms.

The clash is now with labor, students, youth, the unemployed. The government, a reliable US ally, is not now getting overt US support. Washington, as Hillary Clinton said, has not taken any side. It has called for a peaceful solution and expressed its deep concern at “the use of excessive force by the government of Tunisia.” The European Union, France and the UN have called for restraint.

The tyranny has finally produced nothing but an apparent political vacuum and a corrupt economy on the one hand, and seeds of turmoil on the other, a normal process of dead-democracy. The situation in the distort-democracy with narrowed down space for public participation and encroached public space is full with factors of explosion as the regime is losing control.

With a matured leadership this can usher in a new age of democracy for the people. An absence of matured leadership can produce chaos, and then, there will be a flow of old wine with new brand names. A matured leadership, not only rebellious acts and students’ role as vanguard, can challenge the ruling rich and bring significant change in the socioeconomy of Tunisia. Even, absence of a matured leadership and well developed organization will not make the rebellion a total failure. The flame of rebellion will light the future path, teach people, and will be remembered as the harbinger of transformation in the region.

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 14^th January, 2011

Toilers’ Torturous Time: A Glimpse Only

Part 1

Labor, symbolized by the Chilean miners, stood as ever unvanquished in the days just left behind. Labor also paid high prices during the period, symbolized by the Bangladesh garments workers, who died in a fire incident. Labor the world over is passing days with declining wage in actual terms, facing persecution for demanding implementation of rights essential for its survival.

Wages, a converted form of the value of labor power, actually decreased in many countries. The Great Financial Crisis has cut the growth of workers’ salaries by one half. Workers’ purchasing power has declined steadily. In actual terms, it is not also good news for capital.

Declining Wage

Global Wage Report 2010/2011-Wage policies in times of crisis, recently released by the International Labour Organisation, said: “the overall short-term impact of the crisis on wages should be looked at within the context of a long-term decline in the share of wages in total income, a growing disconnect between productivity growth and wages, as well as widespread and growing wage inequality.” “The largest part of this increase in inequality is due to top earners ‘flying away’, but another part was due to the ‘collapsing bottom’, where the gap between median and low-paid [defined as less than two-thirds of median wages] workers increased.” Data for the report was gathered from around 115 countries that represent 94% of the estimated 1.4 billion wage earners worldwide.

Global wage growth, the report said, slowed from 2.2% in 2007 to only 0.8% in 2008 and 0.7 percent in 2009. While Germany, Japan, Korea, the UK and other large economies have been experiencing significant decline in actual wage growth it is striking in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Latin America and the Caribbean, wages are beginning to rise.

Declining real wages is a part of class war that capital is waging against labor for long. Maximizing profit is the motive behind this onslaught by capital.

A pilot survey in China found that annual average wage growth in the private sector was 6.6% in 2009. China’s private sector workers earned lower wages and experienced slower wage growth compared to state sector employees. The state sector workers earned an average annual income of US$4,000 in 2009 while the private sector workers made US$2,800. About 30% of China’s urban workers and more than 60% of migrant workers remained low-income. In the new economic power, income has been declining against its GDP, and the gap between wages and productivity has continued to widen.

“Growth in average monthly real wages in Asia fell from 7.2 percent in 2007 to 7.1 percent in 2008,” the ILO report said. Japan’s real wages fell nearly 2% in both 2008 and 2009 while it fell by 4% in 2008 in Malaysia. In Thailand, it fell by almost 2% in 2009. In the Philippines, workers’ wages suffered one of the biggest cuts in Asia, with a 4% decline in real wages. This indicates a widening of the gap between workers’ productivity and their wages. In the last 15 years, low-wage employment has increased in many countries. These include Australia, China (among non-migrant workers), Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines. In Korea, 25% of full-time workers were in low wage employment and in the Philippines it was 15 percent.

Uneven Employment Recovery

Jobs Recovery: A Global Overview of Employment Trends and Working Conditions by Economic Activity, another ILO report, shows that employment was recovering unevenly across sectors in the first half of 2010. It said: while construction and manufacturing lost more than 5 million jobs in the first quarter of 2010 (compared to 2009), the health sector added almost 2.8 million jobs during the same period, compared to 2008. The report tracked 13 job sectors in 51 developed and developing countries.

Capital’s recovery path is uneven. This adds additional pressure on competing capitals, and capital, in turn, tries to transfer this pressure on labor.

Working Women: Hard Hit

Global Employment Trends for Women, ILO’s report in March, said that the financial crisis could be harder on working women than their counterparts as unemployment rates among women in marginalized and vulnerable jobs was increasing. Women’s employment rate is lower, their control over property and resources is weaker, they are concentrated in informal and vulnerable sectors, their earnings are lower and they have less social protection. These put women in a weaker position than men. To cop with the deteriorating situation women are engaging in longer working hours and taking multiple low-income jobs.

Women in Labour Markets: Measuring Progress and Identifying Challenges, an ILO report, found a continuing gender disparity in terms of both opportunities and quality of employment. In general, the circumstances of female employment, i.e., the sectors women work, the types of their work, the relationship between women and job, their wages, bring fewer gains to women than are brought to the typical working male. In almost all regions the rate of increase in female participation has slowed in recent years.

At the Women’s International Democratic Federation’s panel discussion on “The Economic Crisis and Women’s Access to Work” at the UN on March 10, 2010 it was informed that Filipino women are migrant workers in 145 countries, most often as low-paid domestic servants with no rights.

Working women, the weakest of the weak, always are bearing the hardest and heaviest burden: a sharp contradiction “mercifully” created by capital. Declining real wages force them to work longer hours. They sacrifice most in households also.

[Part 2]

Capital does not spare children in its drive for profit. Widespread poverty fuels the machine that exploits child labor. The time that passed witnessed exploitation of child labor that even establishment failed to ignore.

Child Labor: Increased Exploitation

The crisis has increased the exploitation of child labor. Around 215 million child laborers are there in factories, on farms, in households.

The US Labor Department identified 128 goods from 70 countries, from coffee grown in El Salvador to sapphires mined in Madagascar, where child labor, forced labor or both are used. Other countries include Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tonga, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and many others. India employs the highest number of child laborers, followed by China. Smaller countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a much higher proportion of child worker: up to one-third of children under 14 work instead of attending to schools.

Child labor or forced labor produced products include diamonds, gold, coffee, sugar cane, coal, cotton, tobacco, bricks, and many more. In Uzbekistan, officials require children to pick cotton. In Myanmar, forced child labor helps produce everything, from sugar to teak to rubber to rubies. The US was not free from the “contribution” of child labor. Last year children, even 6 year old, were found working on blueberry farms in Michigan. Eight farms were fined.

Child labor is cheaper and easier to subdue that in turn makes profit making easier. Many luxury commodities carry toils of these tender hands.

Agricultural Workers

In Promotion of Rural Employment for Poverty Reduction, report (2008) ILO estimated that more than one billion people were employed in agriculture. Asia had the largest share, about 70% of the total, followed by sub-Saharan Africa with about 20%. In many countries agriculture still employs more women than any other sector.

Agriculture, along with mining and construction, is one of the most dangerous industries. Agriculture workers, Sue Longley wrote in Agricultural Workers Still Struggle for Their Rights, with wages below poverty line fail to ensure food security of their families and often live in very precarious conditions. The hazards they face include: dangerous machinery, livestock, extremes of temperature and inclement weather, dehydration due to lack of access to potable water, and exposure to biological hazards arising from pesticides and other agro-chemicals. The number of fatal accidents is not less in the industry, the single biggest user of child labor: 70% of all child workers. About 130 million girls and boys under 15 work in agriculture. With work for long hours their health, safety and education are at risk.

Dedicating songs of affection to the persons engaged with agriculture turns out an act of deception if a brutal arrangement of dangerous agriculture is kept intact.

Migrant Workers

Tales of migrant workers, in overwhelming ratio, go closer to those of slaves. Amnesty International has focused on migrant rights in Malaysia and Thailand, the two main receiving countries of migrant workers in Southeast Asia. Migrant workers suffer from a wide range of abuses in both countries, from their employers, recruiting agents, and the security forces. In Thailand, more than 2 million registered migrant workers make up about 5-10% of the workforce. In Malaysia, the figure is about 2.2 million or about 20% of the workforce. In both countries, they live in poor conditions and work for long hours. Conditions in detention centers in a Southeast Asian country remain very poor, with reports of extreme overcrowding and lack of regular access to clean water, medical care and sufficient food. (Donna Guest, “Migrant Workers and Human Rights in Southeast Asia”, Oct. 14, 2010)

Migrant workers, broadly, have similar experience in other parts of world, irrespective of political system. Whether it is a modern, capitalist democracy or a medieval clan system, migrant workers’ experiences fundamentally changes to nothing. Over 100 migrant farm workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados employed at an Ontario plant had to stage a wildcat strike in November, 2010 to realize thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Most of them were deported. Their living condition was deplorable.

In an oil-rich country, it was reported, “migrant workers continue to commit suicide at an alarming rate …, as a close examination of [newspapers of that country] for the month of April 2010 shows. During [the] period, there [were] 12 reported cases of suicide and suicide attempt by migrant workers … [D]uring 35 surveyed days in late February-March, a migrant worker committed suicide every two days there. Workers are often driven to suicide by harsh living and working conditions, abuse and non-payment of wages. During the same month, the local police uncovered several cases of rape, torture and human trafficking of migrant domestic workers.” On April 4, a Jordanian man “fell” from the fourth floor of a building. On April 6, a Bangladeshi ended his life by hanging himself off a tree. On the next day an Asian maid jumped to her death from the 3rd floor of a building and an Asian maid attempted suicide by slitting her wrists. On the next day, an Egyptian worker was admitted to the hospital after drinking insecticide in a bid to end his life. On April 12, an Indian shepherd killed himself by hanging outside his sponsor’s tent. On the next day, an Indian worker “fell” from the roof of a building and sustained injuries and an Egyptian worker fell to his death. On the next day, an Asian man hanged himself to death in a labor camp. On April 25, a Nepalese maid committed suicide. On the next day another Nepalese maid hung herself to death and a Sri Lankan man attempted to end his life by drinking a cleaning liquid. On April 10, a local newspaper reported about the kidnapping and rape of an Indonesian maid by policemen. On April 15, a housemaid reported to police for beating by her sponsor after she refused to sleep with him. On April 27, an Asian couple was arrested for forcing six runaway maids into prostitution. The report said: The local press, “like most regional papers, mention suicides by workers in just a few sentences, never bothering to find out the names of the victims, sometimes mentioning the nationality. The reports are hidden in the least-read pages and often hint that the cause of suicide was mental illness of the victim ...” (Migrant rights)

Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights 2010 (ASVUR), the report by International Trade Union Confederation, informed: In Saudi Arabia, 23 Chinese workers were arrested and repatriated after a strike to protest against low salaries. In Kuwait, there were 13 cases of suicide or attempted suicide in November alone.

The situation led one to write the following comment:

The people who really built the city [city of an oil-rich state was named] can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes.

When they [migrant workers] arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside [the city], where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

I met so many men in this position I stopped counting, just as the embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the [nationals of a south Asian country was named] alone. (Johann Hari, “A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour” The Independent, Nov. 27, 2009)

[Part 3]

Truck Drivers and Hunger Strikers

Lands of dream, present and past, are full of inconsistencies between pronouncements and realities. The following reports fail to hide the fact:

The Big Rig: Poverty, Pollution, and the Misclassification of Truck Drivers at America’s Ports, a report examining working conditions and employment status of 110,000 US port truckers, found: Thousands of the truck drivers are being denied basic civil and human rights due to companies illegally hiring them as “independent contractors” rather than employees.

The above news is mentioned here only as a symbol that highlights the state of labor in the US and tactics capital resorts to. Even white collar employees in the US stood in protest lines.

In October 2009, workers along with homeowners, renters, farmers and retirees joined together in protest in Chicago at the American Bankers’ Association’s annual meeting. Thousands of people joined the protest named “Showdown in Chicago.” The protesters entered the lobby of the hotel where the ABA delegates gathered.

A press report said: In August 2010, around 10 workers in Kirov, a Russia city, went on a hunger strike. Their demand was to cut the price of utilities to the city average, to take over the privately owned dormitory, privatized in the 1990s, by the municipal authorities and installation of an elevator and mains hot water. The average price of a room in the dormitory was 2-3 times higher than average rent in the city. The head of the city administration and the regional governor declined to get involved in the dispute between a private company and residents.

In the US and Russia, incidents of strikes by labor are many. Labor had to resort to strike finding no other alternative. Europe witnessed strikes and demonstrations by labor. In Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France labor’s protests and strikes took at times near-unprecedented appearance. In many poor countries labor stood in the same way. Burden of crisis was put on labor in the name of austerity burden.

Deaths and Killings

Capital resorts to brutal ways as its capacity to absorb contradictions dwindles. Annihilating elements asking for only a breathing space is one of those ways. Trade Unionists, vocal for labor, are part of those elements.

The number of trade unionists murdered in 2009 increased to 101, 10 attempted murders and 35 serious death threats, ASVUR mentioned. Killings of trade unionists increased by 30% compared to the previous year. The deadliest country was Colombia: 22 trade union leaders and five women were killed. The climate of extreme violence took the lives of 89 trade unionists including at least seven women. This again made the Americas the deadliest continent in the world. Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had the high tolls, 48, 16 and 12 labor activists killed respectively. Mexico had similar six deaths, Brazil had four and the Dominican Republic had three.

In last spring, 29 workers died in a mine in West Virginia, operated by Massey Energy. It was the worst US mining disaster in 40 years. Miners’ and other workers’ death the world over is another long chapter in labor’s life, unprecedented by any account.

Deaths faced by labor the world over are actually innumerable. Hunger and poverty take toll from labor. In industrial plants, in mines, in construction sites, on farms, in transport sector death is virtually the closest neighbor of labor. Miners in New Zealand, China, in Africa and Latin America had to face death while they were engaged to produce wealth for the rich.

Part IV

Rights Denied Rights Restricted

About half of the world’s economically active population is not covered by the ILO Convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining, 1949. About 50% of the global workforce has to get engaged in vulnerable work. This affected workers in export processing zones, especially in South Asia and Central America. Expansion of informal sector and “atypical” forms of employment has put labor into a harsh reality.

Workers in informal sector, ASVUR said, are prevented from joining trade unions (TU). Latin American brands of anti-union tactics include Solidarismo (practiced in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama), protection contracts (Mexico) and direct arrangements with non-unionized workers. In export processing zones (EPZ), particularly in Central America, workers have the same experience. EPZs elsewhere are no exception. Subcontracting workers via third companies is a major obstacle to organizing and collective bargaining.

Working for Scrooge: Worst Companies of 2010 for the Right to Associate, the International Labor Rights Forum’s annual report, names multi-national corporations that violated workers’ right in the previous year. The companies include Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. From the Philippines to Colombia to the US, these companies have adopted many tactics to prevent workers from realizing their rights. Companies including Del Monte and Chiquita have engaged subcontractors and other management schemes to weaken unions. Dole has been involved in forming company-friendly organizations in the Philippines to undermine democratic unions and has been accused of using violence against workers in Colombia. R. J. Reynolds has refused to improve the difficult working conditions of the US tobacco workers.

Nice face of capital’s “social” responsibility cannot hide scrooge faces.

The Middle East, ASVUR said, is one of the parts of the world where union rights are least protected. In Iran, workers celebrating May Day were met with reprisals. About 150 arrests were made and police and plain-clothes intelligence officers beat, abused and fired tear gas at the workers. Teachers were frequently harassed, with some being assaulted, beaten and arrested while observing National Teachers Day. In Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Syria and Yemen, TU is monopoly. In Iran, workers may only elect Islamic Labour Councils or guild societies while labor law in the UAE permits workers to organize only in associations. In Saudi Arabia, TUs and striking are banned. The collective bargaining right is not recognized in Bahrain, Jordan and the UAE. The right to strike also remains limited in Oman, Qatar, Syria and Yemen, and is not extended to the public sector in the UAE, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar.

In Europe, the report said, employers used tactics to obstruct TU activities and retaliate against workers. Dismissals were fairly common in a number of countries including Croatia, Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine. In Russia, 60 unionists were dismissed in 2009. Other anti-union strategies frequently used include transfer, demotion and wage cuts, harassment and manipulation of workers. The right to strike is restricted in numerous European countries. In Serbia, if a strike is declared illegal, the participants and the union calling the strike face extensive penalties. In the Czech Republic, Latvia, Portugal and Turkey, laws leave little scope for bargaining on employment conditions. In Georgia and Croatia, courts either do not apply the laws prohibiting anti-union discrimination or legal proceedings are too long or enforcement is ineffective. More than 700 Balkan workers turned victims of trafficking in Azerbaijan.

Denials of TU rights and brutal abuse took place in the Americas in 2009, the report said. Murders, death threats, disappearances and harassment occurred throughout the region. The government of Costa Rica used the political crisis as a pretext to further weaken workers’ and TU rights. The obstacles to the exercise of TU rights in North America remain numerous, albeit less violent. In numerous cases, police and security forces are even party to violations. Many laws are too restrictive or fail adequately to protect TU rights. In Trinidad and Tobago, employers resisted negotiating collective agreements.

Even, Freedom House, informed readers are aware of its position, in its report The Global State of Workers’ Rights: Free Labor in a Hostile World said: workers have suffered worse violations than in years past. About one-fourth of all countries assessed in the report had, according to the report’s definition, “repressive” or “very repressive” labor rights. The report released in September, 2010 found that the rights of working people and TUs were under serious duress throughout much of the world. The report said: the US did not receive top marks because its overall political environment was “hostile” to unions and labor protests. In China, thousands of workers die each year in factory and mining accidents. Forced or coerced labor is a matter of government policy in a number of repressive societies including Myanmar.

Many trade unionists remained in prison and were joined by around hundred others in 2009. Many others were arrested in Iran, Honduras, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey and Zimbabwe. The general TU rights’ situation has continued to deteriorate in a number of countries, including Egypt, Russia, South Korea and Turkey, said ASVUR.

It said: “Public authorities and companies have continued to use the [financial] crisis as a pretext to weaken and undermine trade union rights.” Many violations, the report said, go unreported, “as working women and men are deprived of the means to have their voices heard, or fear to speak out due to the consequences to their jobs or even to their physical safety.”

Labor, according to the report, faced massacres, abduction, kidnapping, disappearances, beatings, arrest, detention, dispersed demonstrations, assassination attempts, strike-breaking, violent repression of striking workers, order to leave unions, harassment, police raid in union leader’s home, violations of human and trade union rights, dishonored collective bargaining agreement, denial of TU registration, employers’ refusal to recognize TUs, organizing yellow unions by employers, hiring of thugs, mass dismissal, long prison sentences and false charges. Harsh working condition is labor’s integral part of life. These happened, to different extent and forms, in countries after countries that include Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania and many more. Underpaid workers and workers forced to work very long hours turned reality in many countries. In China, while the increasing number of strikes has caused local authorities to adopt a less hostile stance towards unions, striking workers still face harassment and police repression.

European workers, the report said, carrying out TU activities continued to be targeted. “In countries with long traditions of industrial relations, anti-union discrimination and repression took place.” The continent now has thousands of laid off workers. In Russia, a complaint was filed with the ILO “concerning the continuous attacks on TU leaders and anti-union harassment, government interference, the refusal to register and recognize TU and an overall lack of effort in investigating violations of TU rights”. In Belgium, TUs lodged a complaint before the European Committee of Social Rights for “violations of the right to strike.” In Turkey, the number of lawsuits aimed at curtailing union rights increased while Georgia and Ukraine witnessed more than hundred lawsuits filed against TUs and their leaders. In Belarus, TU rights situation deteriorated. In Albania, the government stripped the TUs of their assets. Thus TUs were deprived of the possibility of normal functioning. There was also an alarming trend of targeting union leaders’ family members with dismissals. In the UK, a major blacklisting operation was uncovered.

Public Servants

Millions of workers including public servants in the US, Mexico and Ecuador are deprived of their fundamental rights, said ASVUR. In Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, laws prohibit civil servants from engaging in collective action.

The brief description above is not a happy one. Capital is increasingly adopting sophisticated techniques to subjugate labor as the economic crisis crashes down the impoverished and narrows down labor’s space for rights. Labor is increasingly facing animosity and violence. In the long-term, grinding poverty and the environment of animosity will increase inequality and class hostility with prospect of shaking status quo. 

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 1^th January, 2011

Death Of Those Garments Workers

Thirty-one workers died of fire and smoke in a garments factory near Savar, a few km from Dhaka, as parts of the factory gutted on Dec. 14, 2010.

What’s her name? And, his? His? Her?

What’s the use value with their names? They had names. But those names are useless now. They are nameless. Or, they could be identified with any name. Shefalee, Halima, Rafiqul, Kabirul, Shohaagee. Below-ordinary guys they were. The names were below-ordinary. Humbled and shackled life bears no name. At terminal point, they just turn into number.

They were faceless. Do faceless souls bear any name? No. Even, names with faceless souls carry no name-value. Put on any face on there. Any face will fit in appropriately.

Yes. Those faceless faces smiled. Those faceless faces bore lines of pain, overflowing pains. And, at moments, silent signs of anger played on corners of those faces. But all those, pains, anger and smiles slipped into oblivion at regular intervals, into unknown unconscious universe.

They just embodied labor, a source of resource. They embodied labor-power. They were wage-slaves. And, also were sellers. They sold whatever they had. They had only that labor to sell. No commodity could be produced without their labor-power, and no profit could be pocketed without appropriating their labor. But they had no control on their labor-power.

They had liberty. They had no liberty. They were at liberty not to go to labor market and not to sale their labor. But as hunger was their companion, as uncertainty was their associate, as fear was their yokefellow, as there were dependents on them back at home, they had to turn slave to wage, they had to mortgage their liberty, they had to forget the opportunities liberty offered.

What the fears they carried in their brains?

The same fears all wage-slaves carry. A sense of “perpetual insecurity…. Fear of losing a job. Fear of not finding a job. …Fear of boss’s wrath.” (Michael D. Yates “Class: A Personal Story”) The fear of, as Sweezy wrote, losing face if turned unemployed. Those were ordinary, simple, petty fears, the fears petty guys nourish: the Lilliputian fear of going hungry, going uncared and untreated if turned sick, the petty fear of eviction from rented home, the trivial fear of failure to maintain family of insignificant dependents. Those fears carry neither use value nor exchange value in markets that sale incensed candles and diamond ornaments and skin whitening cream.

Had they no dream?

Probably, they had. Probably, there was no space for dream. Only hunger, only empty stomach, only thirst for survival, only the desire to squelch an antagonistic time overwhelmed their dream. Or, probably, that thirst, that desire to squelch was their dream. Time worked like a wrench on their life, and pulled out whatever dream they had. Or, probably, needles, threads, buttons and hooks, constantly circling smaller wheels, sharp blades cutting cloth, or, bright lights over head, panes separating them from sunlight, or, railroad stripe, sunny side, true blue, winter wheat, sunset pink, pitch black, white, yellow, green and sky blue colors overwhelmed their dreams. Probably, their dream fleeted away towards an absent crimson red. It turned fugitive. Fugitive dreams those were.

What the thoughts they had in their last moments?

What can they think of? The near-to-illiterate or semi-literate folks, almost a nuisance in an honestly crook world, don’t think. They just produce, just consume, they just consume only to produce. A sub-human life bears no power to think of anything. How can a guy think if the guy goes down to the level of machine, if the fellow befriends machine and turns into part of machine? Machine’s rhythm is their rhythm of life. How can a folk think if he sells out all his time to a merchant named mere survival? They join production line, come back to their dingy dens, consume vulgarly and sleep haphazardly only to turn fit for next day’s production. They were miser enough not to allocate any space for reflection. Or, they were not masters of their time that could allow them to think or perceive or reflect. Their last moments probably failed to get separated from that time in cage.

Or, probably, they recollected some hopeless faces waiting for them. Probably, those were the hapless faces of their mothers, of fathers or wives, or of innocent faces of their children, minor, absolutely unaware of powerful tentacles of cruel reality. Probably, they thought of their fate abandoned even by fractions of fortune.

Or, probably, they had no intellectual capacity to think at all. That capacity probably has been forfeited long ago.

How many are they, those perished into flames and smokes in the garments factory there near Savar, Dhaka in mid-December?

The number, one or thirty-one, does not matter. Insignificant persons create no number. They have no power to generate that arithmetical articulation. Number-game doesn’t take them into account. Their produce is calculated only. And, to ensure that produce their consumption is monitored. Their consumption creates markets. That is carefully calculated. They will fail to produce if they don’t consume. Capital cannot be generated if they fail to consume. That consumption-failure will bring in failure in production, in productivity and consequently, in regeneration of capital. Their consumption up to a level is good news.

And, the perished-numbers there in a gutted garments factory near Savar is a mere single incident or accident, a simple addition to the numbers over the years. Taking into account will simply over-burden a sympathetic mind. It is better to forget those numbers. There is nothing to worry as long as there is a huge reserve army of labor in waiting. New numbers will join in the ranks behind machines. Perished-numbers are always gone with memories. Chariots of commodities will circle trade centers. Is not it better to forget those perished despite their strivings to survive? There are lots of Natha, the burned to death fall guy of Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan’s Peepli Live. Forget them. Are not they forgotten? Doesn’t it bring peace to a sound mind if they are forgotten?

But shall they be forgotten?

Difficult question to answer. Probably. Probably, they will not be. The perished are not necessary-numbers. There is a burgeoning reserve army of labor. Rather, some tricky accounting method will find out an extra niche for extra profit with the perish- puzzle.

A thin possibility of have-not-forgotten-you may reside in the fading memories of an old mother, an ailing father, a young widow with unfriendly world around, a sister, a brother, a daughter or a son. But the grieved will not be allowed to shed tears as a very powerful force will push them out from the grave of grief. It is the force of hunger, the force of poverty, a major force that shapes lives of millions, that shapes politics. The certainty of uncertainty will pull them out and will not allow them to keep the memories of the perished-numbers for long. The grieved below-ordinary near ones have to dry down tears as soon as possible as the whip of survival will dictate that way and they have to run and rush for finding out food, for finding shelter. It is like luxury to them to sit idle and shed tears. The competing forces in market economy cannot afford that inefficient use of body-power that creates tears.

But time will tick. Probably, someday somewhere someone will dig out facts of perished garments workers’ last sleep from the pages of newspapers and from online-news sites and calculate the cost labor paid in search of a decent life.

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 15^th December, 2010

A Loud London Day

Student activism and politics in the United Kingdom, both at national level, have shown their close connection. Both, moored in economy, are acting with each other, and pronouncing aloud old questions related to politics, citizens’ rights, state’s role, and education.

Consequently, political problems are raising heads seeds of which were sowed by the orthodox politics of perpetuating disparity and disregarding principles of equity. London tiptoed these problems followed by a day of protest, and a stray incident of anger ventilation. This reflects the mood in general: ready to reject and protest austerity the ruling class is imposing.

Hundreds of coach loads of students and lecturers from across England joined together on November 10, 2010 to protest plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England. A section of the protesters, in the words of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Stephenson, to the “embarrassment for London”, hurled eggs and bottles, and took over Tory headquarters after pushing back outnumbered, and virtually baffled policemen there. Banners set on fire added heat to the scene while a few other acts told intensity of anger. The London police later regained control of the building with smashed windows and protest flags flown from the roof after “moving the crowd back … a meter every minute”. Demonstrators also gathered outside the Liberal Democrat headquarters as the LibDems were wearing a mask of hypocrisy.

The National Union of Students has threatened to try to unseat LibDem MPs who go back on pre-election pledges they made to oppose any rise in tuition fees. All the LibDem MPs including the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Business Secretary Vince Cable signed pre-election promises to oppose any increase in fees. In June, Nick said the coalition would bring in a right for voters to re-call their MP and force a by-election if the MP was found to have been engaged in “serious wrong-doing”. Now, students’ first target is Nick. Nick is now also repentant for his election-pledge to oppose increase in tuition fees. But still now there is no law to make “re-call” possible. That may assure the pledge-bound MPs.

While the massive protest march of more than 50 thousand students was passing off peacefully the Question Time in the Commons witnessed a fiery exchange between the Nick and Labour Party's Harriet Harman over fees. On the London streets, the protesting students shouted: “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts”. Students from many higher seats of education including Oxford, Birmingham and Ulster Universities joined the peaceful protest march. David Barclay, Oxford University Student Union president, said: “This is the day a generation of politicians learns that though they might forget their promises, students won’t.” But, protests do not always help politicians learn. They wait, in most cases, till defeat pushes them down from the stage of politics. But, defeat does not act all the time. Sections of politicians know the trick.

The protesters in the Tory headquarters building released a statement that opposed all cuts, marketization of education, and “the system of helping the rich and attacking the poor”. They stood “in solidarity with public sector workers, and all poor, disabled, elderly and working people”, and called “for direct action to oppose these cuts.” It said: “This is only the beginning of the resistance to the destruction of our education system and public services.” The statement seems universal as education has been and being marketed in most of the countries, as poor, disabled, elderly and working people are suffering in most of the countries.

Protesting students raised the question of disparity. One of the student leaders said: “Politicians don’t seem to care. They should be taking money from people who earn seven-figure salaries, not from students who don’t have any money.” Similarly, the issue of actually making a market with university fees has also been raised. Sections of politicians really do not care; never do they have any intention to put their hands in the pockets of the rich to finance poor men’s welfare program.

A boom for private universities is being apprehended by students. They see the plan as the abandonment of the key principle of state funding for teaching, withdrawal of funding for subjects other than science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and privatization of university teaching. Politics for status quo will not like philosophy, literature and history as these do not ensure profit.

Organized by the National Union of Students and the University and College Union, the march was the biggest student demonstration in generations that told: “We’re in the fight of our lives ... we face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun. They’re proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalize our colleges and universities. This is just the beginning ... the resistance begins here.” Brutalization of educational institutions in many countries has been initiated many years ago as corporate capital made those serve corporate interests, as sections of educational institutions were made part of military-industrial complex. One of the student leaders said that the “miserable vision” would be resisted, and students would take their protests to their constituencies. Probably, this November will witness more student protests.

The government plan, an incomplete compromise, has failed to mask its pro-rich face in a reality of disparity. According to the NUS, “The number of black students applying to go to university has fallen by 10 per cent since 1997 and the number of applications from men from working-class backgrounds fell by 7 per cent in the same period”. The NUS said that proposals for “top-up fees” – extra tuition charges of up to £5,000 suggested by Vice-Chancellors at some of the top universities – threatened to turn the higher-education system into one based on financial muscle, rather than academic. In many countries, education solely relies on financial muscle; the poor lack that muscle.

Even a section of LibDems protested their party’s position. Students in Northern Ireland apprehended that the same fees increase would be imposed on them. This led them to protests at Stormont.

The flare at the Tory HQ is an indicator of a country ready to rise in protest against pro-rich steps, against job cuts, against making education commodity and making it a domain of the financially powerful. It may be, as an NUS leader claimed, the “beginning of a campaign to run until the General Election to persuade political parties to rule out top up fees.” Goldsmiths students recently took over Deptford Town Hall. There were a few more incidents of student protest in the UK this year. The London student protest carries deeper message, a message against making education mere investment for profit, a message for establishing “link between education and the broader social good.”

There is a possibility that workers under the sword of job cut will also rise in protest. Thousands of council job losses at Sandwell council, Derbyshire County Council, Leeds City Council and Stoke on Trent City Council are waiting for the working persons. The student protest may add encouragement.

The London student march is now part of politics, an initiative by students to safeguard their space, an initiative that requires interacting with politics, an initiative that feels compelled to pull out issues related to politics. The London student march shows, a lesson for many in many countries, student activism should not ignore student problems in the name of getting engaged with lofty-sounding slogans.

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This article was published in www.countercurrents.org, an alternative news site,  November 12, 2010

10.10.10

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made an error on the date of melting away of the Himalayan glaciers. The climate-change sceptics started hysterical propaganda capitalising the error. But the panel has clarified that while it had made an error on the date, it did not make a mistake about the melting away of the Himalayan glaciers. There is no doubt that people depending on the Himalayan waters will be affected as glaciers there recede… We in Bangladesh should be aware of it,
writes Farooque Chowdhury

This handout photo taken on October 6 and released on October 8 by the 350.org shows the safe upper limit for carbon in the atmosphere—350ppm—in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. Environment groups are gearing up for what they say will be the world’s biggest day of climate change action today, hoping their grassroots movement will inspire reluctant world leaders.
— AFP photo

TODAY is 10.10.10, One Day on Earth. People around the planet are carrying on many activities that tell their urge to save mother earth, to consider global realities. Why not we join them, a human endeavour expressing love for life?
   Organisers of this initiative claim: ‘One Day on Earth is committed to nurturing a supportive, vibrant, tolerant, and creative community. We hope to be as open as possible and allow you to celebrate your personal perspectives freely. It is exciting and revolutionary to be able to share perspectives of such quality with people across the world in one place.’ They object to any ‘political’ contribution: ‘[Do not] proselytise your religion or political agenda through messages or comments to people you don’t know. They may find this offensive.’
   On 10.10.10, citizens, students and many from other walks of life including documentary filmmakers will record human experience over a 24-hour period and ‘contribute their voice to the largest participatory media event in history.’ One Day on Earth, formed in 2008, is ‘creating an online community, shared archive, and film to show the diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occur in one day.’ Their plan is to ‘establish a community that not only watches, but participates.’
   Dr Gideon Polya, who teaches science at a major Australian university and has published about 130 works in a five-decade scientific career, wrote (Countercurrents.org, October 8): ‘My personal contribution to the 10.10.10 event has been to put up more than 100 posters in Melbourne setting out the number of people dying avoidably each day from deprivation (60,000), the number of people expected to die daily on average in the 21st century if man-made climate change is not addressed (270,000) and what we can and must do to stop climate catastrophe.’
   He has also sent a letter to Australian and other media that tells of climate catastrophe the planet is facing, and of pains of war, invasion, bombing, etc.
   350.org, an independent, non-profit, international grassroots campaign that aims to mobilise a global climate movement united by a common call to action, is spreading an understanding of the science and a shared vision for a fair policy, we will ensure that the world creates bold and equitable solutions to the climate crisis. It says: ‘350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Scientists measure carbon dioxide in ‘parts per million’ (ppm), so 350ppm is the number humanity needs to get below as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change. To get there, we need a different kind of PPM — a “people powered movement” that is made of people like you in every corner of the planet.’
   350.org states: ‘On 10.10.10, we will celebrate the biggest day of practical action to cut carbon that the world has ever seen. Together, in thousands of communities around the world, we will get to work on projects that will build our clean energy future. But we won’t stop there — we’ll be using the day to pressure our leaders to get to work themselves by passing strong climate policies promoting clean energy and reducing emission.’
   Bill McKibben for the whole 350.org team wrote on October 8 (‘Crazy...In A Good Way’, Countercurrents): ‘When we first announced the Global Work Party’ he was worried as ‘It had been a discouraging year, with the failures in Copenhagen and in the US Congress, and the unwillingness of governments all over the world to take any sort of meaningful climate action.’ But now, he feels ‘I didn’t need to worry’ as ‘it’s clear that we’re on track to shoot past 7,000 events in 188 countries… [T]he entire planet is engaged… [T]his is the first issue that involves the entire planet.’
   Dr James Lovelock FRS and Professor Kevin Anderson have recently estimated that fewer than one billion people will survive this century due to global warming – noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of about 10 billion people this century (a daily average of 270,000 avoidable deaths).
   An Inter Press Service report by Bhuwan Sharma datelined Kathmandu, October 5, said: ‘Snow cover in the Himalayas is decreasing, crevasses are opening up in the glaciers, avalanches have been occurring frequently for the past two years. Small puddles of water even at an altitude of 8,000 meters were observed last year. Dhe, a village near the Tibet border, is now being dubbed as Nepal’s first “climate refugee village”. Efforts are now underway to resettle the entire village to a lower area. The sources of water there are drying up, the flora in and around the area are vanishing fast, which leave the villagers’ cattle herds and other grazing animals with little to eat.’
   The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made an error on the date of melting away of the Himalayan glaciers. The climate-change sceptics started hysterical propaganda capitalising the error. But the panel has clarified that while it had made an error on the date, it did not make a mistake about the melting away of the Himalayan glaciers.
   Quoting Madan Shrestha of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, the IPS report said there was ‘scientific evidence to prove that climate change is causing the Himalayan glaciers to retreat.’ Shrestha, studying Nepal’s glaciers since 1974, was shocked to see a picture taken in October 2009 of the Yala glacier in Nepal: ‘The … glacier’s mass had decreased and there was a significant terminus retreat.’
   There is no doubt that people depending on the Himalayan waters will be affected as glaciers there recede. People will have to pay with their life and livelihood. We in Bangladesh should be aware of it. The climate crisis should not miss our attention.
   People around the world are taking steps. The Obama administration is going to put solar panels on the White House. President Nasheed of the Maldives has installed solar panels. The 10.10.10 reminds us to mobilise the masses on the issue.
   Dr James Hansen, a top US climate scientist and head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Spaces Studies, was asked before the Copenhagen climate summit: ‘Is there any real chance of averting the climate crisis?’ He replied: ‘Absolutely. It is possible… The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach… must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual. …[C]limate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control. Science … reveals what is needed to stabilise atmospheric composition and climate. Geophysical data … show that the problem is solvable, if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale.’
   10.10.10 calls for making this goal possible.

This editorial published at  NewAge, one of the leading English dailies in Bangladesh, October 10, 2010
 

A piglet went to market

A piglet’s journey to market in October, 2010 helped expose the other face of microfinance that promised to make poverty archaic.

A bdnews24.com/Reuters news report, datelined Vladivostok, Oct. 15, said: The seven-month old piglet’s journey to holy market was to pay off a woman’s micro debt of $432 to a bank in Russia, part of former Soviet Union. The ignorant piglet was seized by powerful officers from the unfortunate woman as she failed to pay off her debt within 10 days. It was put up for sale to recuperate a portion of the debt. A court survey assessed that the piglet was her most valuable asset. The commodity, the piglet, was awaiting a buyer at Primorye, a place made famous by a song telling the victorious march of the poor men’s Red Army in 1917, at the time of dispatching the news.

To make the news meaningful, the news agency added the following backgrounder: “Consumer debt in Russia has crippled local economies in some of the country’s poor rural and industrial areas”. (bdnews24.com/lq/2032h)

The piglet-story is not a lone example of microfinance’s “merciful” face.  A vernacular Dhaka daily informed: In late-October in Galachipa, a southern Bangladesh locality, an organisation engaged with micro credit grabbed the house of a poor family and dismantled it. The reason: failure to repay a debt of Tk 12,000 (approximately $172). (The Daily Ittefaq, Oct. 22, 2010, p.2) The full “story” is more illogical and cruel. [Not included here considering word limit of the article].

While one microfinance story originated in Russia, an economy embracing capitalism, the other one was from Bangladesh, claiming to be the cradle of credit micro in size. These two were accompanied by another story from India, an emerging economy with millions of poor in its base.

The Hindu, April 19, 2010 news report said: “Some Collectors sent reports about the harassment of borrowers, intimidation, manhandling, abusing and outraging the modesty of women and extreme punishment like making defaulters stand in the hot sun, tying them to trees and making them run in open grounds.” (http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/19/stories/2010041960410600.htm) It was in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, a southern state.

In a similar situation in Andhra Pradesh in 2005-06, the state government appointed a committee as micro credit debtors caught in the debt trap were committing suicide. The committee recommended “to crack the whip on the [Micro Financing Institutions] for grossly violating the human rights of borrowers in the name of loan recovery…”

These are only three examples of many that show a trend. Committing suicide by thousands of debt-ridden farmers in India made news headlines in the Indian press for a number of times. Bangladesh holds many examples, a few of which were documented/referred by mainstream studies/researches. (Those are not being mentioned here as that may appear singling out organisations and individuals.)

This reality has forced Devinder Sharma, an Indian expert, to ask: The ugly face of microfinance was never in doubt. But now even the dark underbelly is coming out in the open. I wonder how much more evidence is required to put a stop to this barbaric activity that goes on unchecked in the name of empowering the poorest of the poor. (“The Barbaric Ways of Micro-finance”, Countercurrents, April 21, 2010)

A few questions may crop up from these incidents. What is the reason behind that failed the Russian rural lady pay back her debt? What is the perspective that forced the Bangladesh MFI act in the way the news story mentioned? Why the MFIs harass, intimidate, manhandle their debtors in India? Is this the deal a pauper, a poor debtor deserves? Are these simply stray incidents, mere exceptions? Are these news a part of disinformation? Or, are there grains of reality? Are these the symptoms of a disease? Do these questions qualify for a serious enquiry?

There is an easy escape way from these questions, if these haunt a serene “conscience”: just ignore the news and forget the questions.

But, shall that be a matured, as an individual and as a society, posture? History of matured rulers and of arrogant tyrants provides the answer. The British shahibs, the powerful colonial rulers representing a mighty empire, ultimately failed to ignore indigo planters’ acts of torments that brewed up the Indigo Rebellion, a rising made by underfed, apparently subdued and meek Bengal peasants. Dynamics of oppression and protest made the humble victor and compelled the repressors to retreat. Till now, history has denied to revolve in a different way, has denied to take a different path.

This article published as an opinion at bdnews24, Bangladesh's first online newspaper.November 14, 2010

Strong Unions Are The Best Hope Inside Capitalism

The San Jose Mine incident in Chile has again brought forward old questions related to labor and capital. In the backdrop of the San Jose Mine incident, the 33 miners' struggle to win life, Michael D Yates , Associate Editor of Monthly Review , was interviewed by Farooque Chowdhury. Michael D Yates was for many years professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown , USA . He is the author of In and Out of the Working Class (2009), (with Fred Magdoff) The ABCs of the Economic Crisis (2009), Cheap Motels and a Hotplate (2007), Naming the System (2004), Why Unions Matter (1998), Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs (1994), all published by Monthly Review Press. Following are Michael Yates' responses to the questions:

Question : From your writings it stands that miners' life is well known to you. What's your reaction to the episode that the world witnessed in the San Jose Mine in Chile ?

Michael D Yates : There is a special solidarity in mining communities, because of the danger of working underground, where at any time you could die.  People live in constant fear of this.  My reaction was to assume that the owners were lax in terms of safety, and this appears to be the case. Hopefully this episode will fuel more militancy among the miners and their communities.  On a purely human level, I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be trapped like that.  But now the men will be expected to work as always, and the fame they have now will soon enough fade. They will be affected in many negative ways, psychologically not the least.  However, the media won't be around to report on that, and the concern the world has now will disappear.

On the basis of statistics it can be deduced that mining is one of the deadliest occupations. Then, why people enter into mine? What is the hard fact?

People work in mines because they need work.  Their mobility is not great, and if their communities have always sent men into the mines (I don't know if women work in the mines there or not), then it is a natural thing for young men to follow suit.  There may even be notions that mining is a way to win your manhood.  Then too unions are usually strong in mining, so the pay, etc, are usually above average.  Working class life is hard and full of dangers in any event.  It is not as if the average worker has unlimited opportunities.  Quite the contrary.

As one searches the pages of mining history one will find that a lot of changes have entered into mining, and into miners' life. On the contrary, a lot of “things” have not changed. What are those, on both sides, changes and unaltered?

Mining technology has changed considerably, with a good deal of mechanization replacing hand labor.  Much more of this should occur, so as few people as possible have to be miners.  This won't happen under capitalism, however.  What has remained the same in most of the world is the constant danger, the callousness of the owners, and the collusion between the owners and the government.  Where the unions of miners are strong, conditions are always better, but this is a constant struggle that waxes and wanes over time.

What are the reasons behind?

Always the profit motive, the goal of accumulating capital is behind nearly everything that matters in working class life.  You see what happens when capitals is in charge in a country like China , where mining disasters are not at all uncommon, all the roe so as the nation becomes increasingly capitalist.

Is there no way out from the life miners are entrapped into?

Strong unions are the best hope inside capitalism.  Only the abolition of capitalism can liberate miners and all other workers. 

What are the hindrances in improving the working and living conditions of miners?

They are the same as for all workers: the power of capital, the power of the state, divisions of all sorts among the workers.  As miners overcome their divisions and come to see more clearly the root causes of their oppression, they begin to take actions to get out of the trap. 

Is improving working and living conditions for miners costlier than the “cost” for lives? How it affects productivity and, essentially returns?

Of course, a life is always worth more than profits. The owners don't see it this way, and that is why the miners must organize and force the owners to accept a different calculus.  Then the owners will try to keep profits up in the face of higher wages and better conditions, including safety.  The owners always have the upper hand at the workplace since they own the capital.  So miners have to organize politically as well. In purely technical terms, union miners are probably more productive as they will be better trained, etc. But they may not be more profitable.  Hence, there is constant class struggle .

In Capital, Marx refers to a note by Liebig that tells the mine owners compelled the miners to consume bread and bean though the miners disliked beans which was liked by horses. But the owners' choice was dictated by the interest of return as beans provided the power the miners needed to bring up metal load from deep down. Now, it seems, labor is less important than material, the support systems in mines, and the life they have been pushed into, meager wages, ramshackle congested homes without water, sewage system, and proper ventilation system, diseases, etc., constant fear of unemployment, the abject poverty. In many lands, these are not different from the condition of the working class in England Engels described, rather miserable than that. These are now a bit documented. Even the mainstream media sometimes mention this fact. Is it that miners' living condition is now not a factor for capital regeneration as there is a huge reserve army of labor?

This may be true in many parts of the world.  We have to expect owners to calculate costs with no concern for the workers, as they think of the workers as implements of production, no different that the materials and machines used. Whatever lowers costs and raises profits will be done, absent strong class organization.

And, has that intensified the rate of appropriation of surplus labor?

Yes, it always does.

We know legendary John Henry, the “steel-driving man”, who swung a 4.4-kg sledge hammer with each hand for 12 hours a day, pounding steel chisels as deep as 14 ft 4.2 m into solid rock. He is a hero of labor, and a symbol of humanity's determination. How the San Jose miners shall be remembered by the present period that finds deep in the Moon and the Mars being explored, and by posterity?

Unless the miners force the issue by radically strengthening their organization, they will be just another footnote in history.

And, how humanity shall remember this crude, callous capital that called in this cruelty in the San Jose mine?

The answer is the same as for the previous question. As Mother Jones, the legendary miners' angel and organizer, said, Don't mourn, organize.

Thank you.   

You are welcome!  Solidarity ! 
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This article published at Monthly Review, an Independent Socialist Magazine
A different version of the same interview was first published in the 4 November 2010 issue of New Age, one of the leading English dailies in Bangladesh.