L S A I B A O N UPDATE UR - Asia Monitor Resource Centre · AsiAn lAbour uPdAte (Alu) is a quarterly news bulletin on labour issues in southern and eastern Asia. it is prepared and

ASIAN LABOUR UPDATE 1 JANUARY - MARCH 2010

Published by AsiA Monitor resource centre ltd hong Kong issue 74 JAn 2010–MArch 2010

LABOUR UPDATENAIA S

ASIAN LABOUR UPDATE2

UPDATEISSN 1815-9389

Issue Number 74Jan - March 2010

© copyright 2010 Asian labour update; all rights reserved

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editoriAl teAMApo leong, sanjiv Pandita,

omana george, sri Wulandari, hilde van regenmortel, sally choi

AsiAn lAbour uPdAte (Alu) is a quarterly news bulletin on labour issues in southern and eastern Asia. it is prepared and published by the Asia Monitor re-source Centre Ltd (AMRC), a non-profit, pro-labour, non-governmental organisa-tion based in hong Kong.

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LABOURNASIA Contents

theme: AgriculturAl Workers’ struggle in AsiA

guest Writers in this issueManginar Situmorang is the research coordinator of KPS (Kelompok Pelita

Sejahtera-Group Striving for People’s Welfare). KPS is an NGO working for workers’ advocacy and organizing in North Sumatra. Email: [email protected]

Noy Natividad is the Executive Director of the Ecumenical Institute for Labour Education and Research Inc. (EILER). EILER is a labour research organization based in the Philippines. Email: [email protected]

Sumeth Panchamlong is from Thailand Alternative Agriculture Network (AAN). AAN works with community - farmers’ groups throughout northeastern Thailand (the Esan region) to develop sustainable agriculture techniques based on the local ecology and expand their positive impacts by training and educating other members of their communities. Website: http://aanesan.wordpress.com

Areewan Kusanthia (Thai translator) is from Local Action Links in Thailand. Email : [email protected].

Mohit Gupta is the Coordinator of Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI). Email: [email protected].

Editorial ................................................................................................ 3Regional Roundup Cambodia ........................................................................................ 5 Indonesia ......................................................................................... 6 China ............................................................................................... 7 Korea ............................................................................................... 9 Sri Lanka ......................................................................................... 10 Bangladesh ...................................................................................... 11

Thailand, the Supermarket of Asia / Contract Farming and Riverine Aquaculture: The Realities of the ‘Slave Contract’ and the Risks that Farmers Must Bear ................................................................. Sumeth Panchamlong, Thailand Alternative Agriculture Network, translated by Areewan Kusanthia, Local Action Links 12

Struggle of Tea Plantation Workers in North East India .......... AMRC 16

Pineapple Giant Moves to Unseat Militant Union ....... Noy Natividad 21

Strengthening the Peasant and Plantation Workers’ Movement in North Sumatra ..............................................Manginar Situmorang 24

Gender and Labour Column: Women’s Committees and Alliance Building for the Labour Movement .................................................................... 30

OSH Column: Pesticide Poisoning in India .....................Mohit Gupta 32

Reviews/Resources .............................................................................. 35

Cover Photo: Dole Philippines workers in the pineapple fields, in long-time struggle for workers’ rights. See article on page 21.

JANUARY - MARCH 2010 3

Asia holds the large majority – about 70% - of the world total of agricultural workers. This amounts to 700 million agricultural workers.

Their working conditions are far from homogeneous, but most often they work in precarious conditions, and unlike the norm in urban workplaces, the labour is often family labour, involving children as well as women and men, and their living is subsidized by their own labour – i.e., the wages alone are not enough for subsistence. Millions of these workers are among the world’s billion chronically hungry. Moreover, labour laws in many countries in Asia often do not give agricultural workers the rights and protections of other industrial workers; nor are there anywhere near adequate labour inspec-tions in the agriculture sector.Rather, on plantations, a large number of workers are casual workers, who suffer the greatest poverty and job instability, and often enter into starvation.

Are unions reaching these workers? When they have been drawn by poverty and land-grabbing out of a subsistence economy into the globalized market-based economy, what forms of organizing are serving them so that they can come out of poverty and have a greater share of the wealth they contribute to?

In this issue the theme is workers in the agricultural sector. In Asia, particularly in tropical areas that were previously colonies, large tracts of land have been the site of slave or indentured labour of local workers, or migrant workers from ‘sister’ colonies, to produce food or other natural resources for the colonizers. For instance in Indonesia, the Dutch colonists had gone to Java and brought workers from there to North Sumatra, to work in the plantations under conditions of virtual slavery due to forced indebtedness. In India, it was the British which began the establishment of tea plantations in the country. In all these colonial establishments, land was grabbed by the colonists, for the purpose of cultivating agricultural products for export to the home countries – typically, sugar, tea, coffee, rubber and tobacco. As the period of slavery passed, production on plantations grew to use migrant workers, particularly indentured migrant workers whose subjugation came mainly from imposed debt as well as physical isolation of the plan-tations. Until now, this very situation is still widely persisting in plantations in Asia; with Malaysia being a prime example of systematic employment of migrant workers. In other countries, plantations are more likely to employ workers who are indigenous or lower caste, as in India – the most marginalized of society.

Globalized agricultural workers: feeding theworld, uncertain of their own next meals

Editorial

A New Look to Asian Labour Update!

in this issue, we have changed the appearance – we have added colour and given a more prominent but more focused role to regional roundup, before the features, which continue to be there. We will continue to seek readers’ views to make Asian labour update relevant and useful. if you have comments or feedback for us, please write to the editor at [email protected].


Editorial

In India, tea plantations are one of the major exports of the nation, and one which has been rife with cases of mass starvations, just since 1998. The article in this issue reveals some efforts to stem the tragic starvations and exploitative situation of the workers; yet also finds a complicated background behind this persistent problem of starvation among workers and their families.

Development policies favor large-scale commercial agriculture to the detriment of small-scale food pro-ducers. Agriculture is more dominated by large agro-industrial corporations that control crops, livestock and fishery as well as necessary inputs like seed, fertilizer and pesticides. We see this to be the case in this issue’s article from Thailand. That article also shows how the system of contract farming, in farming fish as well as crops, ends up drawing local farmers into a global supply chain and into a trap they can’t escape from: a trap of investment, debt and market and other risks borne by the contract farmer – quite similar to what is often borne by home-based workers. Rather, entry to agro-business is a path with no return – farmers lose their capacity to do subsistence farming, and bear the risks that come with being absorbed into a global sup-ply chain. Upon failure, they end up providing excess labour for factories.

TNCs are taking over millions of hectares of land in development countries for the purpose of converting them to monoculture of industrial biofuels – fuels made from biomass to make a renewable source of energy. Yet while the reduction of need for fossil fuels is laudable, the production of biofuels on a large scale in response to global market pressure for them undermines the claims that they contribute to sustainable development; rather it completely follows the dictates of agribusiness corporations, bankers and money managers. Plantation workers work at or even below subsistence level wages, and are virtually captive and helpless against abuses by the employer or local police or military; while peasants also get forced off the land, which large plantation own-ers buy up to invest in the biofuel production. In the article from Indonesia, a peasant movement NGO called KPS describes the efforts of palm oil plantation workers and other workers in the local community to overcome the different interests that tend to pit them against each

other, in order to be strong enough to stand up against the domination of the plantation owners.

We can see that the issues of agricultural workers may have some similarity of features with industrial workers, but that often, their way of being paid, and the isolation of their workplaces together with the cor-responding urge for complete control by the plantation owner, contribute to severe handicaps to organizing them. Moreover, peasants and other casual workers who are indirectly forced to contribute to the plantation need to be recognized as well. We hope that through this issue, we can bring more readers to recognize that workers in the agricultural sector face dynamics of labour exploita-tion as bad as or even worse than in formal industrial workplaces, and to see how other groups of workers or community could work in solidarity to assert collective bargaining rights in these settings.

Regional Roundup


Cambodia

Not surprisingly, Cambodia has been hit severely by the economic crisis, given its dependency on the export of garments. Being one of Asia’s fastest growing economies, Cambodia all of a sudden had to face an economic contraction, especially in garments, construction and tourism, with hundreds of thousands of job losses. In the first 11 months of 2009, 93 garments and shoe factories shut down their operations, while another 60 suspended production temporarily, causing over 70,000 job losses1. An estimated 100,000 jobs vanished in construction,2 while employment in tourism dropped by 2.3%.3

Early April 2010, the World Bank released a report indicating that the number of informal workers is increasing, while male garment workers saw their real wages decline to an average of 1050 riel per hour in 2009, compared to 1580 in 2007. Female workers earned but a mere 900 riel, or about 30 US cents for every hour worked in 2009.

The World Bank forecasts an economic growth of over 4% in 2010, thanks to a number of policy measures that would encourage investors to choose Cambodia for their operations. As the competition for global markets will only increase, for workers this will surely mean working longer and harder for the same wages.

So the workers’ organizations face multiple challenges. On one hand they must step up their efforts to maintain and increase their bargaining power in the formal economy. A company that thinks that the crisis is a pretext for not enforcing the labour law, should be stopped by all possible

means. This is the case, for instance, for the workers in Nagaworld, where the crisis was used as an excuse to get rid of the unions.

On the other hand, the unions and other civil society groups need to place the needs and rights of the informal sector workers at the heart of their concerns. And so they did, at the occasion of the International Women’s Day last 8 March where over 1,500 women workers gathered to make their voices heard.

The repression of a strong union in Cambodia’s flagship casino, Nagaworld, continues

The Trade Union in Nagaworld had a fruitful record of collective bargaining with the management since its very start. But rather than opting for good industrial relations, Nagaworld decided to get rid of 14 union leaders and activists, now more than a year ago.

Ever since that day on 26th of February 2009, the workers and their union (CTSWF) kept firm and continued to demand for their leaders to be reinstated. They gathered in front of the casino, went to the Arbitration Council, organized petitions, spread the news in the media and across the borders, and even engaged with the Prime Minister in trying to resolve the case peacefully.

It only resulted in Nagaworld filing a complaint against the 14, accusing them of defamation, perjury and incitement against the company. The very threat of imprisonment frightened some of the union leaders and some of them refrained from any further action against the casino. But four of them did not give in, and luckily, the local court dismissed the complaint.

More importantly, the leaders never lost the support of the workers. The Union decided to continue their fight, this time at the Arbitration Council. While at first the Council refused to classify the dismissal as illegal, on 16 February, nearly one year after it happened, the council reviewed their decision thanks to new information, and urged the company to take back the workers.

If one would think this would settle the case, one underestimates the fierceness of a fast money-making business (still US$25.5 million profit in 20094). More action was needed: exact one year after the dismissal of the union leaders 100 workers rallied in front of the Royal Palace and ‘prayed’ symbolically for the reinstatement.

Yet, Nagaworld refused to accept the demands of the union, even when they offered different options such as reinstatement without back pay. Meeting of Nagaworld workers Source: CTSWF

Regional Roundup


On 8 March, all 1,500 workers, except 24, walked off from work, exercising their rights provided by the Constitution and Labour Law.

To their surprise, the next morning the management collected all their names and started to advertise the recruitment of hundreds of new workers. The intimidation did not stop here. On 7 April, the company called for the help of the Ministry of Tourism, who came to question the workers about their so-called irresponsible acts that made the company lose money. Workers who dared to speak out, saw their names and words registered. They were all given a warning not to repeat such action, especially not during the upcoming Cambodian New Year. A strange role for a Ministry indeed.

Vice president Sok Narith clarified that this simply is yet another move of the management to avoid implementation of the Arbitration Council’s ruling, which is unfortunately not binding. In spite of the pressure from all sides, the workers simply won’t give up, so he says.

More information about the struggle can he obtained from the Tourism Federation at: [email protected]

A remarkable International Women’s Day in Phnom Penh

A coalition of 32 national and international organizations in Cambodia have managed to bring together over 1,500 women workers for the celebration of the International Women’s Day in Phnom Penh and to attract the attention of all major media. The event did not go unnoticed at all.

The main purpose was to put the demands for decent working conditions for women workers in the spotlight. A joint statement was handed over to the government and other stakeholders, demanding the inclusion of all non-protected workers in the labour law, a better enforcement of occupational health and safety regulations, 14 weeks of maternity leave at full wage compensation, demands for the improvement of the working environment of street vendors, and better protection of women workers, especially sex and entertainment workers.

At the same time the event aimed to be a forum for debate, exchange and .. fun! Most participants were garment workers, but firm delegations of tourism workers, sex and entertainment workers, civil servants, and informal economy workers marked their presence.

Besides the usual speeches and formalities, the women were invited to participate in panel discussions on matters of their immediate concern; exploitation of domestic

workers, sex workers and entertainment workers, the role of the Arbitration Council, short term contracts, and women workers’ issues in the workplace.

Radio programmes all over the country broadcasted interviews with women workers, highlighting the limited employment opportunities for women. It caught the attention of over a million listeners.

The day was concluded with lots of singing and a free

concert; and for those who did not know yet: Cambodian hip hop does exist.

Endnotes

Phnom Penh Post, 15 December 20091. Sothirak Pou, ‘How Cambodia Can Recover From the Global 2. Financial Crisis’, Cambodia Daily, 25 December 2009Cambodia Economic Watch 2009b3. www.nagaworld.com4.

Indonesia

The right to unionize is still under threat

SPCI (Indonesia Carrefour Union) has been striving for the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. For years, 5,000 Carrefour contract workers have been underpaid as they only earned minimum wages. Three-year lengths of contract have put workers on precarious working conditions. Moreover Carrefour denies its responsibility to pay the severance payment when the contract is terminated. Carrefour also employs On Job Training (OJT) workers as cheap labour. OJT workers only earn 500,000 IDR (US$50) per month. Now there are 1,000 OJT workers working at Carrefour outlets. Many OJT workers were dismissed after a six-month working period. Carrefour argued that they did not pass the training. Yet, this is only employer’s justification to recruit cheap labour – while 2,000 permanent workers including managerial level workers earn minimum wages with several benefits and allowances.

Worker shares her problems at the workplace at IWD event.Source: CTSWF

Regional Roundup


Carrefour has also breached Labour Law 13/2003, article 110, by excluding the union when formulating the Company Regulation, and the company also clearly discriminates against union activists, harassing them to discourage union activities. Since 2005, SPCI has proposed for a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to be negotiated with the employer. SPCI took up a mass action on 9 November 2009 calling for a CBA negotiation. The mass action was very fruitful in that the company agreed to negotiate with workers on the condition that 50% of the Carrefour workers plus one would support the CBA negotiation.

A ballot to vote for either the CBA or the Company Regulation (PP) then was carried out at 50 Carrefour outlets in Indonesia on 10 February 2010. Nevertheless the process was manipulative as the management set up its own ‘rule of the game’. The management intimidated workers to abstain from the vote. The workers abstaining from the vote then were considered to have filled in blank votes that later converted into votes in favor of PP, contributing to the mounting votes of ‘not giving SPCI mandate to represent workers in negotiating the CBA’. Nevertheless the struggle of SPCI striving for CBA negotiation has not ended here. SPCI will take up a broader campaign to strive for workers’ rights at Carrefour.

Meanwhile at PT Dawee Electronic Indonesia (DEI) producing PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) for Korean brands Samsung and LG, 400 workers have been on struggle demanding their basic rights. This company of South Korean origin has run its operation in Jakabeka Industrial Zone, Bekasi, since 2002. For seven years, workers have undergone severe treatment. PT DEI is a PCB supplier for Samsung (60%), LG (30%) and Polytron (10%). Eighty-five percent of the workers are contract workers.

On 22 January, workers decided to wage a strike to demand that the company recognize the union and fulfill other basic rights such as social insurance and annual leave. The management often forces workers to work overtime (more than 10 hours overtime per week) whenever there are some quality defects on some products. Workers are often forced to work on public holidays.

During the strike the company intimidated workers by calling military troops and police to ‘guard’ the strike. Union leaders were unfairly dismissed after the strike. They were re-instated again as a resolution of tripartite negotiation mediated by manpower officials on 1 February 2010; nevertheless PT DEI has breached the agreement.

Source: KASBI leaflets and publication, February and March 2010

China

With the arrival of the Year of the Tiger, the talk of the town in the Pearl River Delta is the outcry of ‘labour shortage’. This is a complete contrast to the picture of 2009, when 20 million migrant workers were unemployed and unable to find jobs after the Chinese New Year.

The employers are blaming the second generation of migrant workers as being ‘too choosy’ for their jobs. They were brought up with no or little real farming experience, which means they are not used to hard work; and most of them would prefer to stay in the city areas, not like their fathers or mothers, who preferred to return to their home village after working in industrial areas for a couple of years.

In fact, the truth is: workers are fighting back against the injustice and bad working conditions in these factories by boycotting this kind of work, particularly in the Pearl River Delta.

Here are a few examples:

1. Huizhou – the continuation of the GP workers struggle showed that the employer was reluctant to make improvements. Last December, the Huizhou plant of GP struck for better wages (See ALU 73). But the management summarily dismissed four ‘trouble-makers’ and put them under administrative detention for 10 days. One of them, Wang, is a cadmium poisoned worker who had a long history of seeking compensation from the management. She came to HK to protest with the support of local labour organizations. Still, the management refused to meet her. On 22 February 2010, local labour activists stormed a shareholders’ meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Hong Kong, demanding justice.

2. Huizhou - On 26 February 2010, 300 women workers in Huizhou Li Feng Switch Company demanded higher wage and nine other items for improvement. They complained that they were only paid 550 RMB and 2 RMB for every hour of overtime. They stopped work for one day. The Labour Bureau and police intervened and compelled the management to give workers an answer within one week.

3. Suzhou in the Yangtze Delta Area – 62 workers were confirmed with over-exposure to toxic chemicals. They worked for a Taiwanese company, United Win Technology which is owned by the Wintek Corporation (Taiwan) that produces iPod and other famous brands. 2,000 workers launched a protest on 15 January and smashed vehicles and facilities of the

Regional Roundup


plant over the deduction of year-end bonuses and poor OSH conditions. Subsequently, some senior managers were dismissed to pacify the workers. However, workers said that the actual figure of workers suffering from occupational disease should be much higher, because some were discharged and sent back home. Wintek’s factory in the Pearl River Delty was also reported to have labour problems.

4. Shenzhen – explosion at the Xianda Electronics Company in Xi Li district injured seven workers. It occurred on the first day of work after the Chinese New Year holiday. Workers were told to wash the ultrasound machine and the chemicals suddenly exploded. Two female injured workers had come from Sichuan. They had stopped further education to earn money to support their family members who were either sick or needed to continue their education. It is a very common story for the migrant workers.

5. Shenzhen – a 20-year old migrant worker was sentenced to 18 months in jail for his subversive activity against the state. Xue Mingkai joined an illegal opposition party, the China Democracy Party, and tried to convince others to join too. He said, ‘Since I was young I did not like the abuses of the one-party dictatorship and I wanted to establish a party to participate in politics and change the Chinese Communist Party’s way of governing.’

6. Shenzhen – the silicosis struggle of the subway construction workers. There are hundreds of migrant workers from Hunan who got pneumoconiosis while working in Shenzhen doing pile-blasting and drilling on the city’s construction sites. Since early December of last year, they have been fighting for their rights to live,

to get medical care and to be compensated according to law, by filing an administrative lawsuit against the city’s Health Bureau for failing to adequately supervise heath and safety laws. Their campaigns aroused huge public debate on the prevention and regulation of occupational diseases. In order to calm down the public concern towards these issues, the Shenzhen city government advanced part of the compensation to these workers before Chinese New Year, to provide incentives for them to return home.

All these cases clearly demonstrate that the workers are not happy with their situation. In fact, the real growth of wages in the Pearl River Delta has fallen behind other regions, much less than the national average, but the growth of the profits is much higher.

In 2008 and 2009, the local government had put a brake on the adjustment of minimum wage. Employers tried every means to cut down wages, paying less or no social security and unfairly deducting bonuses and welfare in times of crisis.

Added to this, the high cost of living in the Pearl River Delta and the discriminative measures discourage the rural migrant workers. Worst still, when they try to organize to fight back, they get labelled as a ‘hostile force’ against the state. It is hoped that 2010 is a year of workers fighting back collectively.

Update about the Lucky Gems and Jewellery factory workers –

Although the Huizhou factory workers who contracted silicosis through their gem polishing work got a court’s judgment in their favour, their employer still has been refusing to pay since 2007. Two victims went to Geneva, lodged their complaint to the ILO and to local Swiss unions and NGOs, 25-26 March. Finally, however, the workers gained a large measure of justice, as Lucky Gems and Jewellery Factory, one of the largest processors of semi-precious stones in Asia with plants on the mainland, was barred from exhibiting at the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show from 18 to 25 March and the Hong Kong International Jewellery Show between 5 and 9 March. They were banned for causing silicosis to employees in China and not complying with the rulings of the mainland judiciary to compensate the workers. This is the first time a Hong Kong-owned company has been rejected to participate in international trade exhibitions for violations of legal labour rights in China.

GP worker Ms. Wang overcome with emotion as she demandsmeeting with GP CEO and compensation for her illness

Source: Globalization Monitor

Regional Roundup


Korea

The Lee Myung-bak government in South Korea continues to intensively narrow the space of workers to organize into unions and conduct union activities, particularly government workers. As part of the Korean government’s repression of dissent and criticism, even research institutes relating to labour are sharply restricted, through withholding contracts.

Oppression against the Korean Railway Workers’ Union for their strike last year is still ongoing. Despite the withdrawal of the strike which was conducted legally according to current laws regarding ‘essential services’ of government bodies, the employer Korea Railroad (Korail) announced disciplinary measures against around 11,000 strike participants within March 2010. As of late February, 193 union officials and other members were fired and dismissed. In addition, a total of some 7,400 were punished (suspension from the office: 435, wage cuts: some 6,000, rebukes: some 800). Korail filed a lawsuit against the trade union and union members for damages equivalent to US$765 million.

The Labor Ministry has been refusing to accept the registration of the Korean Government Employees’ Union, prompting the union to indict the Labor Minister for abuse of authority on 9 March. KGEU had changed its provisions according to the Labour Ministry’s requirements after the first rejection (based on grounds such as retention of dismissed members in the union), yet the Labour Ministry found new grounds to still reject the registration.

The Korean Labour Institute, a government-affiliated research institute on labour issues that has been experiencing heavy labour-management conflicts over the past year, stands at a crossroads because the Lee Myung-bak administration has decided not to draw up any contracts for their research service. As a result, the institute is slated to run out of money to fund operating costs starting in August of this year. Korea Workplace Innovation Center is another affiliated institute that has had funding withheld from it by the Labour Ministry, severely impacting its operation.

The Korean Women’s Trade Union, which has grown from 400 members to 7,000 members and recently celebrated 10 years of existence, continues to fight, demanding rights not only for female workers but stable employment, reform of the minimum wage. Currently it has joined other civil groups including women’s movement, student, labour and religious groups, in demanding an immediate raise of the minimum wage to 5,180 Korean won (approx. per hour. On grounds of the economic crisis the minimum wage was raised by only 2.75% last year, but due the rise in prices of goods, it effectively means reduction in wages. Thus the coalition demands raise in the minimum wage, protection of low-income workers, and an end to privileges for big business conglomerates.

Groups around the world are increasing their voices of criticism against the huge conglomerate Samsung; yet in Korea, the notoriously anti-union company maintains its stranglehold over media and influence in government and business circles. In December, the government granted amnesty to Lee Gun-hee for tax fraud, and in March 2010, Samsung Electronics even reinstated Lee Gun-hee to the position of chairman.

SHARPS Memorial week - demonstration outside the Samsung Seoul headquarters, March 2010Source: SHARPS

Regional Roundup


Workers attempting to form independent trade unions in Samsung have faced union-busting and punitive measures of all kinds for decades. Samsung General Union leader Kim Seong-hwan is one victim; he was jailed for nearly two years for libel against the company, and currently has several cases of libel against him pending. More recently, a strong campaign has been developing in Korea, on behalf of workers in Samsung semiconductor factories who have become sick at the workplace. Currently 22 workers either have died or are sick. From 2 to 5 March 2010, labour and occupational safety and health groups from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the US visited Korea, to join a Memorial Week of Occupational Deaths of Semiconductor Workers. With strong support from ANROAV, a Samsung Accountability Campaign launched, with an online petition to demand accountability from Samsung, still open for signatures of supporters worldwide:

Sadly, one more worker has just lost her life at a very young age – on 31 March 2010, Park Ji-yeon, died of leukaemia at the age of only 23. She had begun working at the Samsung Semiconductor factory at Onyang at the age of 17, and had worked there less than three years, when she became very ill. She was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 21.

Despite these tragic deaths happening which are so clearly linked to the job at Samsung, the workers and victims face great difficulty in making the Korean public aware of it and join in calling for Samsung to be held responsible. In recent months, some workers at the broadcasting station MBC protested against being stopped from producing a show about the Samsung leukaemia victims. Also, a book was published called ‘Thinking of Samsung’, which is a stinging expose of Samsung´s internal systematic and corrupt practices to stop workers´ organizing, by the lawyer Kim Yong-chul who previously

Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan Government continues and abuses the state of emergency and fails to keep wages promises to the garment sector

The current state of emergency has been in force in Sri Lanka since August 2005. President Rajapakse, who won the November 2005 presidential election, continued the emergency regulations using his renewed war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as justification. In November 2005, Rajapakse for the first time issued an essential services order under the emergency regulations to ban industrial action by workers at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Ceylon Electricity Board, Water Board and the ports, seeking a pay increase. Trade unions could not succeed in resisting it. During the war, striking workers were accused of undermining national security and aiding the ‘terrorists’.

President Rajapakse wanted to renew the state of Emergency which the country is in before the parliament

worked in a key position in the company; but despite its explosive content, it could not be advertised in any major newspaper and even some progressive online news sites in Korea. The power and influence of Samsung in Korea is so great that no one dares to confront the giant and risk losing advertising revenue or facing costly legal charges such as libel. Yet groups in Asia including ANROAV and ATNC Monitoring Network have committed to fighting Samsung’s fatal work conditions and its no-union policy.

Source: KCTU, March 4 2010 Newsletter; KWTU website; SHARPS and Samsung General Union

Another cancer death at Samsung but Korean government arrests activists who mourn the victims and seek justice

On 31 March 2010, Park Ji-yeon – a young worker from Samsung’s Onyang semiconductor factory – died of leukemia at age 23. Her tragic death came less than one month after Samsung workers, their families, and community supporters participated in the 1st Memorial Week of occupational deaths of semiconductor workers to honor the memory of the many other workers who gave their lives working at Samsung. There are now 23 documented cases of Samsung workers who have suffered from blood cancers like leukemia or lymphoma, and 9 workers among them have already died. A petition to support the workers can be read and signed here: http://www.petitiononline.com/s4m5ung/petition-sign.html.

We express our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of all who lost their lives after working at Samsung. (Samsung is now one of the world’s most powerful corporations – they enjoyed record sales of $120.48 billion in 2009, and now rank No. 1 in flat screen TV sales and No. 2 in mobile phone sales globally).

Regional Roundup


Bangladesh

Factory fire a recurring theme in the garment industry of Bangladesh

Bangladesh has been focus of factory fires in the garment industry time and time again. This fire was in a

factory supplying for H&M, called the Garib and Garib sweater factory, on 25 February at Gazipur, north of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka where at least 21 workers, including 14 women, were killed and about 30 others injured. This time round the culprit is an electrical short-circuit, but locked exits were the main reason for the high casualties.

The fire broke out on the first floor of the seven-storey factory around 9.30 p.m. It quickly spread to the other floors filled with inflammable materials such as wool threads and other goods. Lasting nearly two hours, the fire created a thick black smoke and consumed the oxygen in the air, suffocating the workers. The smoke could not escape because of poor ventilation and the presence of unauthorized sheet metal structures that were being used for storage of highly inflammable materials on the roof of the building. Workers could not escape because exits were locked and materials blocked the stairways. The factory’s fire-fighting equipment was ‘virtually useless’, according to the Dhaka Fire Service and Civil Defence, and reportedly none of the security guards on duty knew how to operate fire extinguishers and hydrants.

On 7 March, families of the deceased workers received 200,000 taka (US$2,900) in compensation. The injured workers have been admitted to several hospitals in the Dhaka area. There is no news yet about whether these first steps will be followed by further compensation measures, as 200,000 taka is not sufficient. Further compensation is needed in the longer term for both the seriously injured workers and the families of the deceased workers. The factory will remain closed for the month of March. As of 10 March, the Garib workers have received full payment of wages for the month of February (including the days after the fire broke out), but are awaiting further payment of wages for the remaining period the factory stays closed.

Though the fire was not only preventable, but predictable, to date neither the government, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) nor the international buyers have taken sufficient steps to address the structural and systemic problems in the garment industry.

The present government, like its predecessors, responds to industrial action over wages and conditions with police repression. In January, the government vehemently opposed a demand by the labour rights organization, Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad, for a minimum monthly wage for workers of 5,000 takas or US$72.

Sources from Wimal Perera, 4 March 2010, World Socialist Website; Maquila Solidarity Network

on March 9 for ratification. In the event, the parliamentary election was concluded, with the expected result of a strong majority for the ruling party.

The Sri Lankan Government has also failed in its promise to the garment industry and its worker representatives, who have been calling on it to fulfil election promises of a wage increase. During its election campaign, the Ministry of Labour promised a blanket increase of Rs 2,500 (about US$20). ‘These promises should be kept,’ said Palitha Athukorala, President of the Progress Union.’ We are going to put pressure on the government for promised wage increases through private sector trade unions and other worker representative groups. Apparel is the biggest employing-sector in the manufacturing arena in Sri Lanka with around 270,000 workers. This large vote base is a magnet for political promises. ‘The government may have made promises of wage increases as an election gimmick. But workers are holding them to it, because living conditions have become more difficult.’ But until now, the promises have still not materialized.

Individual wages of the nearly 80% female workforce in the garment industry, are very small, compared to management and even staff grade salaries. On an average, management grades salaries are around Rs 150,000 (US$1,315) per month, while a garment factory worker’s basic wage ranges from Rs 6,750 to about Rs 7,500 (US$60-65) per month. To earn more than this workers have to do over time or qualify for other incentives.

Garment factories maintain that they follow all national labour laws and are ethical employers, yet also say that international markets have become more competitive and that their profit margins are now next-to-nothing because of recession cuts in export demand. Large scale salary increases under these circumstances are seen as commercially not viable, given the large number of workers in garment factories. So in the end workers in the factories bear the ugly brunt of recession and cut in orders of the factories as they are the most dispensable.

Sources: World Socialist website by the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka); Dilshani Samaraweera, The Sunday Times, 6 March 2010

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Thailand, the supermarket of AsiaThe idyllic image of small-scale Thai farmers producing the most exotic foods for colourful local markets is but a tourist

promotion prop. Already since the 1960s, the Thai government started adopting economic policies that promoted Thailand as ‘the Supermarket of Asia’. And indeed, agriculture - and especially agro-industry - saw a huge increase in production and export. As a result, Thailand became one of the world’s largest exporters of rice, shrimp and other products. Nowadays, exports of agricultural and food products account for approximately 30% of the total export of Thailand. But for most farmers who have been drawn into this capitalist mode of production, the results look rather grim.

Because the growth of the agriculture sector entailed a scarcity of land, and because the government kept crop prices low, farmers had no other choice than to increase their productivity. The so-called Green Revolution in the central plains of Thailand is an exponent of this trend. Farmers started practicing double and triple rice cropping, supported by massive use of fertilizers and modern technologies, thereby destroying their own livelihoods.

Another structural shift could be observed, namely the industrialization of the agricultural sector. Farm production began to be vertically integrated with factory processing and agri-business management. Farmers would receive credit, the required inputs as well as the technical instructions to produce directly for an agri-business firm. In exchange they have to sell the harvest to that same company at a fixed price, usually below the market price. This form of production is now widely known as ‘Contract Farming’ (CF). For Thailand this was a logical development, given that most agricultural land was occupied by small-scale farmers.

This shift can be explained by the expanding role of the private sector and the growing foreign direct investment (FDI), following the government’s push for an export-oriented economy in the late 1980s. The state started playing an important role in linking up farmers, agri-businesses and the financial institutions. Hence, the production system proliferated rapidly into a wide range of products: poultry, pigs, sugarcane, soy beans, corn, fish, shrimp, rice, vegetables, tobacco, … and began providing all necessary raw materials for the food processing industries.

Thus, CF became an important pillar of the ‘private-led integrated agricultural development policy’ of the Thai government. Thailand became a pioneer in Asia and gained extensive experience with different models of contract farming. Nowadays, over 7,000 food processing plants are active in Thailand and half of their production is meant for export. They are supplied by approximately 400,000 contract farmers. The promotional role of the government has declined, while the agricultural extension services started to play a more regulatory role. Yet, CF practices are often left at the discretion of local actors, leaving the farmers to operate in unprotected conditions.

Meanwhile, criticism of the system has started to rise as more and more case studies reveal the possible risks and traps that contract farmers are confronted with.

Already in 1996, Burch concluded that there is considerable evidence to show that the benefits of CF are not sustainable. Many social and environmental consequences have been particularly serious. Although Thai-owned companies have become global players, farmers have not benefited.’ An ASEAN publication in 2005 mentions that ‘firms provided poor and over-priced extension services, favoured larger farmers, delayed payments, passed on the risks to the producers, offered low prices, did not provide compensation for calamity loss, did not explain the pricing method. The firms tend to move on to new growers and lands after exhausting the natural potential of the local resources or when productivity declines due to some other reason.’

A research of Focus on the Global South investigated the situation of livestock farmers (poultry and pigs) being contracted by Charoen Pokphand Foods, one of the biggest agri-businesses in Thailand. Besides livestock, they also process fish and shrimp.

Focus concludes: CF provides a very flexible supply system for the companies. In practice, contract farmers are effectively workers for the company. They work full-time and they depend entirely on the company for the inputs, the technology and the marketing of their whole production. The company makes all the decisions and the workers’ job is to raise animals. However, contract farmers are not protected the same way as factory workers are. CF has been used to extend the corporations’ control over resources and to impose industrial ways of production.’ As an FAO report puts it: CF offers access to crop production from land that would otherwise not be available to the company, with the additional advantage that it does not have to purchase it.

It is worth-while to have a closer look at the working conditions of such farmers. The case study below, from the Thailand Alternative Agriculture Network, describes in detail how fish farmers in the North Eastern Province of Mahasarakham became virtually ‘slave labourers’ under the CF system. While it seems difficult to organize these farmers (the only place where they meet is at meetings organized by the companies), contract farmers’ networks have sprung up all over the country, pushing jointly for more protection and policy changes. More and more also, they form cooperatives to increase their bargaining power with the companies. - Hilde van Regenmortel, AMRC

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T he promotion of Contract Farming in riverine aquaculture, with companies promising farmers guaranteed prices, financial support

and convenient technologies, started in 1997. In the case of riverine aquaculture, local stores selling agricultural and aquaculture products often act as representatives of companies. Instead of directly employing the farmers , they sub-contract the production to individual farmers. Thus farmers become themselves responsible to invest in setting up the farm and to bear all the risks associated with the production.

A recent assessment8 showed that contract farming agreements in the riverine aquaculture sector are very unfair. Most contracts show a lot of flaws or are only verbal. Prices that will be paid for the produce are not guaranteed, the cost of the production inputs is determined solely by the companies in question, and farmers have no right to negotiate for better prices. Furthermore, in order to get the assistance promised by the local stores and investors, the local farmers have to use their assets (usually their land or their homes) as collateral. If problems occur and additional funds are required, the farmers do not have much bargaining power because they risk their assets being seized.

These types of agreements are simply a way for the stores and groups of investors to avoid direct liability under the law. For this reason, this new form of trade known as ‘contract farming’ has come to be called ‘slave contracts’ by the local farmers.

Case Study: Khwao Yai Sub-district

Khwao Yai sub-district is located in the Chi River area in Mahasarakham Province in Thailand. One farmer started to practice aquaculture (fish farming in cages placed in the river, usually tilapia and tabtim species) after he learned the skills from his friend. He started in 1997 with 40 cages and by 2001 he had expanded his fish farm to 52 cages. A local store in the centre of Mahasarakham provided him with a loan for fish stocks and fish food as well as with market access. Additionally, the Bank of Agriculture

and Cooperatives (BOAC) provided him with a loan for other equipment, e.g. the metal frames needed to construct aquaculture cages. Such assistance, both from private investors and the bank, resulted in 150 families practicing aquaculture in this particular community, or over 80% of the village. In 2001 each family had an average of 6 aquaculture cages, with a total of 900 aquaculture cages in the entire community. The fish is processed into canned food, mostly for the local market, but also for export, by a Thai agri-business company.

People turn to aquaculture for various reasons. First, aquaculture investment does not require any significant assets. Any family can use their farming land or other assets as collateral in order to borrow funds. Further, it is possible to generate income quickly in the early stages. Already after 3 months a farmer can earn 4 to 5,000 Baht per cage. Moreover, there is something like a social pressure because most of the villagers are engaged in aquaculture. The company arranges a seminar and party each year for those who are engaged in aquaculture, and those families who are not, therefore feel left out.

After a high of 150 famil ies in 2001, the number of people engaged in aquaculture dropped to only 40 families. A villager testified that the cost of fingerlings, fish food and other materials has increased over the last 8 years, while the price at

Contract Farming and Riverine AquacultureThe Realities of the ‘Slave Contract’ and the Risks that Farmers Must Bear

Sumeth Panchamlong, Thailand Alternative Agriculture Network, translated by Areewan Kusanthia, Local Action Links

Riverine aquaculture in Khwao Yai Sub-district, Kantarawichai District, Mahasarakham Province

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Dead fish in aquaculture cages resulting from waste water problems – February 2006.

Villagers devastated because their fish have died, leaving them with massive debts

which the company buys the fish has remained at its original value of 40 Baht per kg. Only the local stores which sell fish food are able to make any profit from this. Those who have already invested in aquaculture, whether or nor profitable, are forced to continue with aquaculture because they have signed agreements and borrowed money from the companies and local stores. So basically, investing in CF does not yield the expected returns.

The villagers, however, cannot start without investing. They need to buy all the materials and equipment for aquaculture, which moreover need to be replaced after 5 to 8 years. The BOAC provided loans at an interest rate of 9%. The amount of money each villager is able to borrow depends on their needs and also on the value of the assets they are able to use as collateral. On average farmers pay 5,760 Baht in interests over the lifetime of each cage. This substantially lowers the income that can potentially be made from each cage.

When comparing investment costs for aquaculture in the years 1997 to 2001 with those in the period 2001 to 2006, there is an increase of 75% due to increasing costs for new equipment. Villagers therefore have an increasing debt burden. Yet the companies consider this necessary to maintain quality production standards. Farmers have – once again – no other choice.

Another issue is the possibility of water pollution, resulting in fish mortality. In each production cycle, taking into account costs, reimbursements and income from sales, the villagers lose about 4,300 Baht per cage. This does not even include the cost of labour or any other management costs. The only possibility for farmers to make a profit is if the fish mortality rate is less than 20% of the overall fish stock. As soon as farmers begin to incur financial losses, they cannot reimburse their loans and risk

losing their valuable assets to their benefactors. The study found that the majority of farmers who stop raising fish have made losses or incurred a debt of minimum 200,000 Baht per household.

Risks for the Chi River Environment

Each cage produces 3 kg of fish excrement and waste every day. With 40 families currently engaged in aquaculture with a total of approximately 240 cages, every day around 7.2 tons of waste flows into the Chi River. This affects the quality of the water in the river, on which the community depends for household consumption and agricultural production.

Because aquaculture in the Chi River area is strongly-market driven, the production continues to increase, and so does the impact on the water quality. Native fish which cannot adapt to the declining water quality die in large numbers and possibly even become extinct, impacting upon the natural balance of the Chi River. Once the natural balance of the river is affected, this in turn impacts upon other riverine plants and animals.

The companies maintain that this situation is the villagers’ own doing. Yet, all profits from exploiting this natural resource go to these companies. A fair solution would be that companies take responsibility to rehabilitate the natural environment.

Risk to Farmers’ Health

Farmers’ debts are a huge problem to them, causing stress and worry about the possibility of losing their land, and thus their only other source of income and welfare. While formal sector workers are protected by laws, regulations and a welfare system, this is not the case for contract farmers. Compensation payments for occupational illness,

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natural or manmade disasters such as chemical pollutions, are not meant for them.

Recommendations and Alternatives of Small-scale Aquaculture Farmers

Recommendations for the Small-scale Aquaculture Farmers Themselves

The key problem is that farmers have no power in negotiating with the companies and the local stores because they are afraid to lose their fish-selling quotas. If they lose their quotas, it will lead to financial losses and to debts. Therefore it is important for the small-scale aquaculture farmers to come together in groups and to create the power they need to negotiate good prices for selling fish, and cheap prices for the production inputs. At the same time the farmers should also investigate alternative production methods such as raising fish in earth ponds, as this will help to reduce the high production costs associated with aquaculture.

Recommendations for Companies and Local Stores

The crucial problem is the unfairness of the contracts. While local stores promise assistance, in reality they charge much higher prices for fingerlings or fish food than what has to be paid in the prevailing markets. If farmers are considered as subcontractors of the company, the responsibility for price increases or any other financial risk should be shared by both farmers and the company.

Recommendations Regarding Policy and Government Agencies

In the past, contract farming was a tripartite type agreement between companies, farmers and, importantly, the government. Nowadays the contracts are agreed bilaterally between farmers and companies. But the companies and their representatives are using legal loopholes and shift the investment risks completely to the farmers. This is a clever trick to increase their own profit at the expense of the local farmers. The contracts are highly unfair and there is a lack of welfare provision to the farmers. The government needs to develop a strategy and legal measures to better control these matters. At the same time a compensation fund should be created to protect farmers in case of calamities and to rehabilitate the natural environment, to which the companies should contribute. There should also be measures to protect small-scale farmers who wish

to move to new production methods.. For example, in taking up aquaculture, farmers could seek out their own funds from alternative, sufficient and sustainable sources so as not to be dependent on the companies and local stores.

Additionally, the government should set up welfare schemes for small-scale farmers who enter into contract farming, and make this part of a specific legislation for people in the informal labour sector. All small-scale farmers should have access to government welfare systems.

All of the above issues are genuine examples of the real problems faced by small-scale aquaculture farmers in Thailand. The question that these small-scale farmers continue to ask themselves is – when will Thai society give importance to resolving all of these issues?

The full study can be obtained from:

Local Action Links, Areewan Kusanthia 801/21 Ngamwongwan 27 Yeak 6, Bangkrasor, Mueang, Nonthaburi 11000 Thailand.Personal cell phone : +66(0)84-3335758Email : [email protected] , [email protected]

Endnotes Vitoon Reunglertpanyakul, Greennet Cooperative and Earth Net 1.

Foundation, Bangkok. National Study on Organic Farming UNES-CAP 2002.

Peter D. Little and Michael J. Watts (eds.), Living under Contract, 2. Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1994, pp. 52-54.

David Glover, Contract farming in Southeast Asia: Three country 3. studies. Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 1992.

D. Burch, ‘Globalised Agriculture and Agri-food Restructuring in 4. Southeast Asia: The Thai Experience’, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia, 1996.

Sukhpal Singh, ASEAN Economic Bulletin, August 2005.5. I. Delforge, ‘Contract Farming in Thailand, a view from the farm.’ 6.

Focus On the Global South, Occasional Papers No. 2, 2006. C. Eaton and A.W. Shepherd, Contract Farming. Partnership for 7.

growth, FAO, 2001. A study carried out by the ‘Project to Improve the Quality of Life 8.

of Agricultural Labourers – Contract Farming and Hiring in four Ecosystems in North-eastern Thailand’.

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Tea workers in Darjeeling, North BengalSource: Indian Tea Board


Struggle of Tea Plantation Workers in North East India

Malnutrition and Starvation Deaths

‘Due to malnutrition people started falling sick, in the last five years more than 200 people have died on this (Tea) estate alone.’

‘They do not have any rice, they are hungry and they have to work on empty stomach- so they fall ill and die. All of them died due to hunger and malnutrition. This is how my husband died, he worked without enough food and he died because the tea garden was shut down.’

These are the words of community leader Prahlad Sharma and former tea plantation worker Lakshmi Gosain. It appeared in a British Broadcast Corporation report in 2007, speaking from the tea estates of Ramjhora in the northern part of the Indian state of West Bengal in 2007. It seems like a tale from the medieval times. Though the inequalities of wealth in India are well-known and pictures of abject poverty are shown regularly, starvation deaths are something that is normally associated with Africa, not India, and India rather is often trying to portray a strong image of prosperity inspired by double digit GDP growth and increase in consumption. The conditions of workers in the tea estates of eastern India show the dark side of the ‘Indian growth’, considering the fact that Indian tea production is one of the largest in the world, second only to China. Why are then the workers dying of hunger? And who is benefiting from the multi-million dollar tea industry? To understand this one needs to dig deeper.

Indian Tea Industry – Rise to Major Global Producer

Tea is one of the oldest industries in India with a his tory dat ing back more than 150 years. Its cultivation started during the colonial period thanks to the discovery of tea leaves

in the Brahmputra valley in the northeast of India by Robert Bruce in 1823, and in 1838 the first tea leaves from Assam were sent for sale to the United Kingdom. India soon became a major tea-producing nation, with tea being grown mainly in four states: the northeastern states of West Bengal and Assam and the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. India attained the unique position of being the largest producer of tea in the world for nearly 100 years, until it was overtaken by China in 2005. India continues to maintain the position of the second largest producer. Apart from China and India, Sri Lanka and Kenya are the other major tea-producing nations, and the four of them together they produce three quarters of the world’s tea. In 2008, India produced about 980 million kilograms of tea.

As of December 2009 the total turnover of the Indian tea industry stood at about 90 billion rupees, or about US$2 billion. However due to huge domestic demand for the tea in both India and China, the majority, about 80% of the production, is consumed domestically and rest is exported. Thus, Kenya and Sri Lanka, despite producing less than half quantity of tea compared to India, are the leading exporters of tea.

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Most of the tea is sold – loose unbranded in the Indian market. However, recently there is steady increase in the sale of packaged branded tea with global players active in India also. In the year 2000 the Indian Tata tea company procured the leading UK brand – Tetley - and Tata-Tetley has become a leading global brand. Within India, Unilever (manufacturer of the popular global brand Lipton) and Tata Tea are the leading brands. The brands, irrespective of the horrifying conditions of workers, have been posting steady profits over the years. Tata Tea has recently overtaken

Unilever to become the leading brand in India and has become an over US$ 1 billion company.

Plantation Workers – Century of Bondage

There is no agreement on the number of workers employed in the tea industry and different sources give different figures, roughly between 1 to 1.5 million employed directly and another 10 million that are employed indirectly. It remains one of the largest employers of workers in India. It is estimated that almost 50% of the workers are women. The majority of the workers work as wage labourers on the plantations, also known as estates; there are also farmers who produce tea leaves on small pieces of land. The majority of tea estates are in the northeast of India. Tea plantations inherently have been exploitative right from their inception in the colonial times. Like other plantations cultivating rubber, sugar, etc. they were created to extract the maximum from the workers, as the part of the colonial economy. The situation has not changed even after more than 60 years of Indian independence. The majority of workers working on the plantations in the northeast are third or fourth generation migrants that were brought by the British from the central part of India, and the majority of them are either lower caste or tribal peoples belonging to the lowest social strata. Workers have always lived inside the plantations and housing has been used as an effective means of enslavement of generations of workers by the plantation owners. The wages they receive are among the lowest in the world, lower than Kenya and Sri Lanka, at about US$1 – 1.5 a day, this in spite of the fact that the industry is global in nature and has quite capital-intensive operations. The industry has continued to maintain a feudal/semi-feudal structure in its pre-marketing production phase so as to maximize its profits.

Tea pluckers, who are almost exclusively women, work six days a week from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. They have an hour for lunch which they bring with them, or to go home to eat, if working in a nearby tea field. Men mainly work as field supervisors, carry out weeding and spraying, or work in the tea factory. Tea workers’ wages are set by tripartite negotiations between the government, employer associations, and trade unions.

Their social status has ensured that their plight has been continuously ignored for generations. These workers have very low literacy rates and non-availability of any other livelihood in the region ensures that the children of the plantation workers are left with no other option than to

Source : Tea Board of India (http://www.teaboard.gov.in/pdf/stat/Global%20Scenario07.pdf )

Source : Tea Board of India (http://www.teaboard.gov.in/pdf/stat/Global%20Scenario07.pdf )

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work on the plantations under abysmal conditions. There is no escape from the vicious circle of the highest level of exploitation. The plantation workers also do not enjoy even basic amenities like safe drinking water, and often workers suffer from diarrhoea, cholera and other waterborne diseases. Malaria and tuberculosis are also rampant. The infant mortality rate is much higher than the national average. It is estimated that only one percent of the workers is active after attaining the age of 60.

The tea plantation workers in India are covered by the Plantation Labour Act (PLA), 1951, which regulates the working and living conditions of these workers. As well as prescribing standards for housing, healthcare and education, the PLA regulates working conditions including maximum working hours, overtime payments, child labour, paid leave, and sickness and maternity benefits.

However, it seems that even though the act has been there for more than 50 years, the majority of workers are deprived of the basic minimal necessities in their lives. Their wages have not seen any real increase for so many years. Women who are a major workforce in the industry continue to face increased discrimination. Plucking the leaves from the plants is a very hard and tiring job. The women have been often denied the maternity and related benefits they should have under the Plantation Act. For a long time their wages were much lower than their male counterparts.

Ironically, the tea industry is considered one of the most organized industry in India, with the first union being recognised by the industry as early as 1948. There are more than 50 recognized unions in West Bengal alone. However, the industry associations have been denying the benefits that workers should receive under the Plantation Labour Act. Most of the workers have been classified as unskilled workers and are paid daily wages and the majority do not receive any wages for Sunday.

Crisis, Closure of the Estates and Starvation Deaths

As if the conditions of the plantation workers were not bad enough, the late 1990s saw brewing of one of the worst crises in the Indian tea industry. Due to many reasons, the auction price of the tea saw steady decline. According to World Bank the tea prices fell by estimated 44% in real terms from 1970s to 1992. In India, the crisis is also attributed to the reason that all the profits from the tea estates were siphoned off and there was never any real reinvestment in improving quality. All the factors combined led to a major crisis in the Indian tea industry, which responded by closing

the tea gardens and the first of the closures began in late 1990s in West Bengal. Industry and plantation owners have often blamed rising labour costs, decline of market and even trade union activism for the crisis. Whatever the reason, the spate of closures that started in late 1990s and continued in the 2000s caused havoc on the lives of the workers. With no other livelihood and no land to grow food, thousands of workers faced hunger and starvation. By 2007 media from India and all round the world started reporting about the starvation deaths and the plight of the workers. A detailed study about the impact of crisis on Bengal released by the India’s premier university, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), depicts that more than one million workers lost their jobs in West Bengal alone and found that more than 1,600 persons had died in the region due to starvation and other related diseases in the region since the closure of the tea gardens. As per the study the first tea factory at Dooars tea garden was closed down in 2000. In the next two years, 13 more tea gardens were closed, affecting more than three million people in the region.

‘So many deaths in one period from chronic malnutrition has not been seen in any other organized sector before,’ Anuradha Talwar, of West Bengal Network for Right to Food and Work, told Reuters after conducting an investigation into the deaths in West Bengal state. The network also found workers were eating wild grass, leaves and even rats to survive.

Worker and his child, facing starvation

Tea company shows deep concern about nutrient deficiencysymptoms in tea leaves, more than in its workers

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Operative Management Committee (OMC) in the Closed Tea Gardens

Some of the ‘officially closed’ tea gardens are run on an ad hoc basis by Operative Management Committees which is formed by the trade unions and the local government officials. Though a noble idea, OMC is facing lots of problems and practical issues starting from the lack of expertise to run the tea estates. The effective wages earned by the workers are much lower than the basic minimum wages and as reported by Nagrik Manch in its recent survey in February 2010 workers can earn between 35 to 45 rupees a day. Though it is better than having no work and income, it cannot be the final solution as workers are also not getting other benefits as stipulated under the PLA.

Workers’ Struggle -

Ever since the closure of the tea estates, workers and their organizations have been engaged in a struggle of epic proportions against the owners of the tea gardens, government and the multinational brands.

In the year 2001, the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (Rajasthan) filed a case in the Supreme Court of India (Writ Petition 196/2001). It sought the court’s intervention in a situation, where, on the one hand, India had overflowing stocks of food grains, while on the other hand, people were suffering from chronic hunger, with reports of starvation deaths in the country. The Supreme Court gave interim orders on the steps that the Government must take to prevent such situations of hunger and starvation. In the process, the Right to Food and in a more limited way, the Right to Work, has become the statutory right of the people of India.

Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS), an agriculture workers union affiliated to the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, Plantation and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), has therefore been actively organizing movements to see that the Supreme Court’s orders are actually implemented on the ground. PBKMS is also a member of the West Bengal Network on the Right to Food and Work. Anuradha Talwar, President of PBKMS, was appointed as the West Bengal Advisor to the Commissioners of the Supreme Court in this particular court case. As the study by the West Bengal Network on the Right to Food and Work found starvation and hunger in the closed tea gardens, there were cases of stripping the plantations of their assets before the management fled secretly. Employers had

not deposited even the workers’ dues with the Provident Fund Commissioner, sometimes from 1997 onwards, let alone their own contributions. Large arrears in revenue payment to the Government were also detected. Supreme Court in response acknowledged that the report ‘reveals an alarming state of affairs.’ It asked the State of West Bengal to respond to the report and to, ‘take such action as it may consider appropriate having regard to the various aspects and incidents of malnutrition and other problems highlighted in the report.’ Government of West Bengal denied any starvation deaths and took some actions in terms of providing relief to the workers. However, according to the IUF even after nine years of the Supreme Court instructions, workers continue to suffer even as recent as August-September 2009, when over 100 workers were hospitalized in North Bengal as their bodies were too ‘weak’ to tolerate the unsafe drinking water they were provided with.

Stolen Wages and struggle of IUF and its affiliates

In the study of 2005 by the IUF and the PBKMS it was found that workers have been generally denied their rights under the PLA. However, most revealing finding was a figure of 370 million rupees that has been pending as outstanding wages, salaries, provident fund (P.F.), gratuity etc. of workers and employees in 18 gardens. IUF estimates that more than a million tea workers in India have been suffering because of the failure of employers to pay these wages allowances under the PLA. IUF also estimates that the amount owed to tea workers in India is well over 1.6 billion rupees. In such a situation the IUF in 2008 decided that it would support the filing of writ

The supposedly ‘threatening’ posters by the Nowera Nuddy Workers Action Committee, which state: ‘Withdraw the suspension of the 8 workers immediately’, ‘Give Arti Oraon compensation immediately’ and ‘Pay all wages and rations to workers for the period of the lock out’.

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petition before the Honorable Supreme Court against the defaulting owners and the governments, who were supposed to look after the proper implementation of the PLA. The Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), based in Delhi agreed to file the petition on behalf of IUF, the Paschim Banga Khet Majur Samiti (PBKMS), The Estates Staffs’ Union of South India (ESUSI), the Indian National Plantation Workers Federation (INTUC) and the Nilgiri District Estate Workers’ Union (NDEWU). The petition includes a proposal of utilizing Central Government’s Special Purpose Tea Fund (SPTF) for clearing the legitimate dues of the workers and employees as a top priority and for the development of the tea industry as a whole, instead of doling out the fund among the owners, who may again merely misuse and divert it.

IUF Campaign against the Tata’s Collective Punishment of Tea workers in India

Workers at the Tata Tea controlled Nowera Nuddy plantation in West Bengal in India have been threatened with collective punishment and starvation, this time directly by the general manager of the garden, Ipsit Gohain. Tata Tea, part of the transnational Tata conglomerate who control the Nowera Nuddy garden through ownership of Amalgamated Plantations.

The entire workforce at the garden was twice locked out and endured a total of almost four months without wages and rations in 2009. This was company’s response to a workers’ protest following the gross mistreatment of pregnant tea worker Arti Oraon, who was denied maternity leave and forced to work while 8 months pregnant.

Since the garden was reopened in mid-December 2009, the Nowera Nuddy Workers’ Action Committee, which formed in November 2009 to protect workers rights and enjoys majority support amongst the garden’s workers, has continued to campaign for the basic demands it first elaborated during the lock out. These demands include: the withdrawal of the suspension of 8 workers who have been victimized for their activism, the payment of wages and rations to workers for the period of the second lockout, compensation and an apology to Arti Oraon and an agreement on maternity and sick leave.

On 15 February two members of the Workers’ Action Committee (one a suspended worker) were called to the General Manager’s office. During the meeting the General Manager told the workers: ‘if you continue this type of movement, I will declare a lockout and it will not be like

last time. It will be two, three…five years. Because I am feeling insecure due to your activities.’

Conclusion

There is no doubt that tea workers in India are facing one of the worst form of exploitation in the modern times, especially in Industry which is milking billions of dollars in profits. It is also evident from the financial reports of the Tea brands like Tata tea that are published online. In 2008 Tata Tea paid its top manager Percy T. Siganporia earns a yearly salary that includes benefits and bonus in the tune of US$ two to six million which is easily 1,000 times more than the daily meager earnings of the tea workers. Tea brands that control the majority of the packaged tea market are benefiting hugely by the present work organization which ensures maximum profits for them. However, workers are not going to take this injustice for long and this extreme form of exploitation is already giving rise to many ‘extreme’ struggles like Maoist struggle in many parts of India, where workers and communities are left with no other option as there is no difference between living and dying. Workers are always living on the edge and any loss of wages means imminent starvation. Government and industry needs to do more than keep on sustaining this tea industry that is based on modern slavery.

Endnotes

1. India’s malnourished tea workers , October 2 2007, BBC, can be accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7022794.stm

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Pineapple Giant Moves to Unseat Militant Union*

Noy Natividad

Foreign investment in agricultural production is not a recent phenomenon in the Philippines; even in 1985, there were 124 transnational agribusiness firms operating in the country.1 Dole Foods has had a presence in the agriculture sector in the Philippines since the 1980s, when it began producing pineapples and bananas there. Dole Foods is now a Fortune 500 company that netted an average US$45.4 million in profits annually over the last ten years. It has just done an initial public offering (IPO) of its common stock in October 2009, releasing US$330 milllion in net proceeds. Yet a majority of the Dole workers in the Philippines are contractual workers, earning on average US$1.86 per day, which is nearly three times below the minimum wage. The company has for several years been harassing the democratically elected union, including allowing the Armed Forces of the Philippines to threaten them, and conducting the IPO has not lessened the company’s audacity and intention to break the established democratic union. Based on several interviews with union members at Dole-Philippines, this article shares the latest situation and poses serious challenges to the operationalization of CSR schemes such as SAI. Rather, we have the reasonable fear that Dole will follow the footsteps of Nestlé, Kraft and Unilever, in slashing jobs and sacrificing workers’ interests, rights and job stability, at the altar of ‘shareholder value’.2

I n a renewed surge of trade union repression in US agricultural transnational corporation (ATNC) Dole-Philippines (Dole-Phils), officers of the

legitimate union have been ‘impeached’ through a trumped up ‘general membership assembly’ held by a company-sponsored faction that wants to take over the union leadership.

C a l l i n g i t s e l f U R - D o l e ( o r s o m e t i m e s disingenuously going by AK, without the NAFLU-KMU appendage) and led by its chairman Francis Gales, the rival, pro-management group used the long-resolved issue of rice encashment allocation to hold an illegal union assembly last 13 February to kick out the all 31 duly-recognized officers of Amado-Kadena-NAFLU-KMU (AK), from its president Jose Teruel down to the shop stewards. This move comes in the wake of other attacks by management to cripple the militant AK and have it replaced by a docile union, in violation of the workers’ basic right to freedom of association.

The fund in question is an economic concession in the current CBA by management for rice subsidy to union members. Based on the terms of the existing

CBA and as ordered by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the monthly rice subsidy to each union member was to be administered by the union and its officers, and not by management. When members later chose encashment of the subsidy rather than rice in kind, this was interpreted by management as a decision that automatically gives it authority to administer the rice funds. Toeing this line, Gales and his group filed a petition at the Region XII (the local) DOLE office to assert the prerogative of management to administer the rice encashment fund’s allocation, something which the AK believes is part of Dole-Phils’ machinations to deprive the union of much needed liquidity.

Dismissed twice by the Region XII DOLE Director Gloria Tangco, the petition was eventually referred by Mediator-Arbiter Geraldine Jamora to the AK-NAFLU Executive Board, instructing it to resolve the issue by referring the matter of allocation back to the union membership through a general assembly.

The AK leadership protested this move by filing a petition to the DOLE National Office, asserting

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that its Region XII office has no jurisdiction over an issue that has already been decided with finality by the DOLE National Secretary himsel f. While wait ing for the result of this legal intervention, Gales and his group took matters in the i r own hands by holding a bogus assembly on 13 February within the company premise s and using vehicles owned by its managers, and attended by some 1,000 union members coopted and mobi l i zed by management. There, they were made to sign an impeachment complaint drawn up by Gales. The document also contained provisions ‘disaffiliating’ AK from NAFLU-KMU and ‘authorizing’ the Dole-Phils management to administer the rice encashment fund.

According to AK President ‘JT’ Teruel, UR-Dole’s (and management’s) intervention was patently illegal and in violation of both local and international labour standards. It did not conform with requisites for the holding of a union general assembly, much less an impeachment process and election of new officers (which Gales and his group also did that very day). Under the Philippine Labor Code, a union general assembly can only be considered valid on two counts: it has to be initiated by the union’s Executive Board, or by the union membership after filing a petition signed by at least 30% of the total membership. In the 13 February incident, none of these requisites were present, as neither Gales nor anyone from his group was an officer of the union, and there was no petition filed by the union membership.

Similary, the election of new officers cannot be considered valid as less than ¼ of the union member sh ip were p re s ent . UR-Dole and the management were able to generate a fake attendance sheet to show that some 3,000 (or majority) of the union’s 4,224 members were present and signed the impeachment document, when in fact this attendance

sheet was that of a seminar (the Industrial Security Focus or ISF, which a lso contains red-bait ing propaganda against the KMU) previously held by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the company premises, and in cooperation with Gales’s group and the management.

The ‘election’ of new officers to replace the ‘impeached’ 31 officers of AK was also riddled with irregularities. There was no commission on elections (COMELEC) constituted to supervise it, and there was no representative from DOLE (the labour agency, not the company). Furthermore, the impeachment proceedings was not even in the agenda which had to be distributed prior to the assembly. Despite all these glaring violations, the Dole-Phils management quickly recognized the new set of officers and validated the illegitimate assembly.

In a counter-move, the AK through its lawyers filed a petition to the Bureau of Labor Relations (BLR) office in Manila calling for a status quo order, which BLR Director Rebecca Chato immediately granted and issued last 18 March. However, Dole-Phils and UR-Dole appears to ignore this order as it even issued calls for the forcible ejection of the 31 AK officers from the union office. Right now, AK members and officers are on 24-hour watch to

Workers in the pineapple fields. Source: Dole Philippines workers

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prevent Gales and his group from illegally taking over the office.

Prior to this recent spate of union-busting attacks, the Dole-Phils management had already filed trumped up charges against Teruel and maneuvered to remove some of AK’s officers from employment. Some 20 criminal cases are still pending before a local court against Teruel for forgery in connection with a union special assessment, all filed by Gales and his supporters.

The company i s a l so tr y ing to cr ipple AK financially by arbitrarily refusing to release the union dues it collects beginning last January till now (March 2010). Since AK normally receives approximately P250,000 in monthly dues from its members, the company currently owes it around P750,000 in receivables. The union plans to file an estafa (swindling) case against the company this coming 5 April to force Dole-Phils to release its funds.

Dole Food Company, Inc., of which Dole-Phils is a subsidiary, is currently under audit from the Social Accountability International (SAI) for compliance with SA 8000. The company is a Signatory Member of SAI, and is bound by the principles of SA 8000, an internationally recognized standard based on the ILO conventions, the United Nations’ Universal

Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on Rights of the Child, focuses on child labour, forced labour, health and safety, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary practices, working hours, compensation and the implementation of an efficient management system.

Dole-Phils’s move to have the mil i tant AK replaced with a more pliant company union such as UR-Dole is seen as part of a long-term corporate strategy to ‘window-dress’ its violations of core labour standards in its Third World subsidiaries, and to continue benefitting from accreditation by SAI as a ‘socially-responsible’ TNC. In 2009, Dole-Phils CEO Kevin Davis explicitly asked AK president Teruel to disaffiliate from KMU and become an independent union, as a ‘personal favor’. When Teruel refused, a string of harassment cases and other union-busting actions by management followed soon after, and has gone unabated since.

Endnotes

* A version of this article is available also on EILER website: www.eiler.ph

1 The Country Program, US Library of Congress.2 See Hidayat Greenfield, ‘Feeding the Financial Markets’, International

Journal of Labour Research, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2009.

Workers lack protection while handling chemicals; they need a union to defend their rights but company repression against unions is relentless.

Source: Dole Philippines workers

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Strengthening the Peasant and Plantation Workers’ Movement in North Sumatra

Manginar Situmorang

I ndonesia currently has a total of 7.2 million hectares (ha) of planted area of palm oil. In line with the government plan to make Indonesia the world’s

largest palm oil producer (see Table 1 showing Indonesia’s portion of world palm oil production), Indonesia is projected to convert 6-20 million hectares land into palm oil plantations.1 Palm oil plantations in North Sumatra have become a new agro-industry since 1911. Recently the Indonesia government approved the conversion of 26.7 million hectares of land and forest into palm oil plantations.2 Sawit Watch, an association of NGOs working on oil palm issues, recorded that the land clearing to be converted into oil palm plantation has caused 630 land disputes. The most recent land dispute is the 6,140 hectares land clearing in Tapanuli Tengah regency, North Sumatra.3

Table 1

Source: http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/highlights/2007/12/Indonesia_palmoil/

KPS (Kelompok Pelita Sejahtera), as an NGO working on palm oil issues, has been trying to link up workers’ and

peasants’ movements in North Sumatra province. This article is based on the experience of KPS in organizing peasants and plantation workers in three regencies (Langkat, Sergei and Asahan) in North Sumatra Province.

Industrial relations and workers’ rights within the plantation

Historically in the 1950 to 1960s, plantation workers in North Sumatra joined a very strong union, Sarbupri, in large numbers. By joining the union, they used to have their basic rights fulfilled including 13 incentives (benefits) like basic food, clothing, housing, etc. The strength of the workers was broken down once the ‘New Order’4 militaristic regime took power in the late 1960s. Most of the Sarbupri members were imprisoned and accused of being communists. This, then, de-linked workers from the historical past of having a strong plantation worker union. At present, there is only one union recognized by plantation employers, that is, SPSI (Serikan Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia – the All-Indonesia Labour Union), which acts more like a company partner.5 Casualization has been an employment trend in the plantation industry since the 1970s; workers that previously were mostly permanent with benefits, have now become mostly contract workers with little or not benefits. One of the casual workers’ jobs is to clean up the areas around the trees. They call it ‘making plates’, that is, to clean up a plate-shaped area.

Workers on the plantation are composed of casual workers and permanent workers. Casual workers earn 500,000-760,000 IDR (US$50-83) per month, which is insufficient to cover their monthly basic needs. On the other hand, most of the permanent workers are the third generation of plantation ‘coolies’, workers who were forced to migrate from Java Island to work at the newly opened plantation during Dutch colonization. All permanent workers live inside the plantation as they are provided with some poor housing facilities.

For hundreds of years, the plantation has been maintained as a colony where permanent workers and their families live under 24-hour surveillance from plantation

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guards. Regarding rights to occupational safety and health, KPS’s finding, in five plantation estates in North Sumatra (PT Lonsum Turangi Estate, Socfindo Mata Pao, PTPN II Langkat, PT BSP and PT Anglo Eastern Plantation in Asahan) shows that in 2008 there were 47 occupational accidents in a year. 32 workers (68.08%) were lightly injured, 11 workers (23.40%) were blinded by latex and resin and two workers (4.25%) passed away. Two tables

below show the wages and violations of workers’ rights to unionize in these five plantation estates.

Table 2: Wages 6

Despite the centrality of North Sumatra oil palm industry in leading Indonesia oil palm production, the workers, especially casual workers, are severely low paid.

Name of Plantation Working Status and average of Percentage of basic needs covered take-home pay by wages (1 USD = 9,130 Indonesian rupiah, or IDR)

PT Buana Estate Permanent Workers: Sufficiently covered Average wages are 2,352,000 IDR

(US$258) per month. This includes a basic wage for daily attendance, of 800,000 IDR and also a harvesting premium - FFB (Fresh Fruit Bunch) bonus - of 20-25IDR/kg, which is paid during the harvesting period. There are other incentive wages such as for working on Sundays.

Casual Workers (Buruh Harian Lepas, or BHL): The average wages are 600,000-700,000 IDR per month.

The wages of casual workers are based on the minimum wage. The minimum monthly wage in North Sumatra is 886,000 IDR so their daily wage is about 886,000/25, i.e., around 35,000 IDR. Due to the number of actual working days which is unstable and often lower than 25, casual workers on average earn below the minimum monthly wage, per month.

Permanent workers at PT Buana Estate are covered by social insurance (‘Jamsostek’). The insurance covers healthcare, retirement, occupational accident and death. The employer claims that casual workers are also covered by insurance for occupational accident and death. Yet the employer does not give them the insurance card which allows them to draw the benefits of the insurance.

PT Soeloeng Laoet Permanent Workers (SKU): Around 60%SInah Kasih Wages are around 2,300,000 IDR per month.

This includes a basic wage of 890,000 IDR and harvesting premium bonus of 20 IDR/kg, with 30 IDR/kg if the amount harvested is above 1,600 kg and 40 IDR/kg for harvesting on a holiday.

50-60% covered

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Casual workersWages are around 600,000 IDR per month—basic wages x 25 working days, but usually they are only employed for 18 days

Plantations in Aek In these plantations there are no Loba Asahan permanent workers. PT Graha Dura For casual workers, the average wage is Surely the wage is not enough 32,000 IDR per day, but they have to to cover their needs of food so spend money for gasoline, lunch and food, workers have to work in many so usually the take-home pay is 12,000-15,000 places as casual workers per day. They work 3-4 days per week.

RGM (Raja Garuda For casual workers the wage is 20,000 IDR Mas) now Asian Agri per day. But they have to pay the truck that takes them to worksite; that is 5,000 IDR per day, so their take- home pay is 15,000 IDR per day.

Socfindo 40,000-50,000 IDR per day for a family - usually three people, as the male worker usually brings his wife and child to work as casual workers and the wage is paid to the family.

Table 3: Industrial disputes in 2007-9 7 Palm Oil Plantation Area Situation Strategy

PT Sri Agung Rahayu 37 workers were demoted from the Workers organized by KPS built plantation to a factory owned by plantation. relations with the community They were demoted because of trying to surrounding the plantation. Now organize workers. There is also a case where there are two peasant groups and workers tried to organize but then the one workers’ group in Sri Agung police arrested workers. Among employers Rahayu Plantation working with in Indonesia, it is commonly the case that each other. This organizing strategy employers involve police or low-ranking is very useful to back up the military officers to handle industrial disputes workers’ struggle inside the and strikes. plantation.

PT Soeloeng Laoet In 2001, permanent workers tried to form As an organizing strategy, workers and an independent union. The employer busted KPS formed community schooling the union with violence and dismissed several for the children living in the workers. In Sergei, the area where this plantation and its surrounding area. plantation is located, the foremen are sexually By doing that, organizers can abusive against male workers’ wives. approach and organize the parents. The manager also forces workers to join a particular political party.

PT Indah Pontjan 20 casual woman workers who had worked for KPS advocated their case legally. 20 years (as casual workers) were ‘dismissed’ Now the case has reached the (they were no longer employed). Supreme Court. They are still waiting for the court decision. Nevertheless this has been a very inspiring experience for other casual workers.

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The impact of the plantation industry on peasants and community

Land disputes, changing cultivation patterns and disputes over water

Land disputes still remain the source of protracted conflicts between plantation and peasants in North Sumatra. In Langkat regency alone there are 47 protracted land disputes involving 3,000 families. PT Buana Estate has been in conflict with the peasant group KTMIM (Kelompok Tani Masyarakat Ingin Makmur – Peasant-Society Group for Welfare) since 1985. In 1985, PT Buana Estate grabbed 70.3 ha land and converted it into palm oil plantation. PT Buana Estate also called in state military to repress the peasants’ movement.8 In June 2007, KTMIM reclaimed the land and started cultivating it. Yet, one year later, the plantation along with military police attacked the peasants and their families, arrested 47 peasants and left one peasant woman in coma.9 Up to 2009, there have been 238 cases of land occupation and reclamation by the peasants; of these, 226 cases are land disputes between state-owned Plantations and peasants, and the rest are between private plantation estates and peasants. The involvement of military, police and local militia is still prominent in plantation estates. The peasants who become landless by eviction then are absorbed into the plantation industry as casual workers.

Another well-known impact of monoculture tree planting in the plantation industry is the competition between plantation trees and agriculture crops, and proliferation of pests. In the Bahorok sub-district, for instance, the narrowing agricultural land for subsistence due to plantation expansion has caused pest proliferation, concentrated in small rice fields. Surely, this leads to another issue - food scarcity.

The plantation has also changed the value system of the community. There has been a potential of horizontal conflicts in the society. Small peasants maintaining their agricultural land for subsistence crops must compete with farmers converting their land into small plantations, in the distribution of the water from the irrigation system. Moreover, the industrialization in rural areas has eroded solidarity values among the people.

Informalization, and how the community is forced to contribute to the plantation production system

Furthermore, the plantation has become a centre pushing communities to be part of its production process. Families of plantation workers are forced to earn additional income by becoming casual workers, especially during the harvesting season. Meanwhile, landless peasants are forced to become casual workers who must work in more than one plantation to survive. Other informal work that benefits

the plantation is, for example, the small-scale home-based industry producing brooms using the midrib of palm oil leaves as the raw material. This industry somehow benefits the plantation, as it ‘helps’ the company to dispose of and use up the waste.

There are two dimension of informalization triggered by the plantation industry. The first dimension is the marginalization of peasants as they become landless and are forced to sell their labour to plantations. The second dimension is the casualization of work. The majority of the workforce, or the formally employed (contractually employed) workforce is mainly men; other family members who are women and children also must work but their labour is not paid. The contract system is also an issue inside the plantation. Most of contract workers have worked for 15-20 years. Similar working periods also apply to many casual workers.

The question that therefore arises is: when the plantation has become a central element of the community in which all people are forced to contribute their labour, then how can the people improve their bargaining power against the excessive authority of plantation over their lives?

Organizing initiatives developed in bridging community and workers

So far, several initiatives have been developed by KPS. In terms of organizing workers, in early 2000 there was an attempt to set up an independent union at PT Soeloeng Laoet Sindang Kasih, Sergei. The attempt ended with the violent attack from the company and military police troops. A similar attempt was conducted in Asahan and the plantation mobilized militia to attack the peasants-workers meeting. KPS so far has developed two main organizing initiatives which involve peasants groups, workers groups and the community. Those initiatives are:

1. Setting up informal schooling activities for children living in plantation area in Serdang Bedagei regency. The involvement of parents becomes the entry point of organizing work.

Union sign next to paramilitary sign. Source: Sri Wulandari

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2. Facilitating regular meetings between peasant groups and workers, as in the four plantation communities Langkat (Buana Estate Plantation and London Sumatra Plantation), Asahan (Grahadura and Socfindo), and Serdang Bedagei (Soeloeng Laoet Sindang Kasih Plantation and Sriagung Rahayu Plantation). So far, five peasant-workers groups have been formed. The groups have regular meeting activities including capacity building training, paralegal training and action.

To sum up, activities like these are conducted regularly with peasant-workers groups with the expectation that they will improve the political bargaining power of people. Here are some steps experimentally tried in the organizing work:

First, changing the spontaneous action into an action based on critical awareness. Spontaneous action as a form of resistance is very common for landless peasants who have been deprived of their by the plantation. The main task of organizing work is to change the spontaneous action into critical consciousness.

Second, critical education is undertaken among the peasants and workers, to raise their critical consciousness such that they can perceive the social, political, and economic repression and take action against the oppressive elements of the society. This requires identifying and elaborating the power relations within the society. So, the initial step of the critical education is to identify oppressive elements within plantation community. The next process will be ‘inward looking’ process that is to assess the ‘power within’, power generated from peasant-workers alliance. The assessment should see how the ‘power within’ can be a weapon against the oppressive elements.

Third, another issue regarding plantation industry is a CSR-driven international initiative, the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). RSPO is a multi-stakeholder initiative set up in 2003 between private companies and civil

society organizations, striving to advance the production procurement and use of sustainable palm oil through the development, implementation and verification of credible global standards and, the engagement of stakeholders along the supply chain.

The RSPO involves seven sectors: 1) oil palm growers, 2) palm oil processors and/or traders, 3) consumer goods manufacturers, 4) retailers, 5) banks and investors, 6) environmental/nature conservation NGOs, and 7) social/developmental NGOs. Although governments are not members of RSPO, they have helped at the early stages to establish the RSPO, and are engaged through the national producer organizations.10 RSPO contains several social criteria regarding industrial relationships in the plantation, such as open and transparent methods for communication and consultation between growers and/or millers, local communities and other affected or interested parties (Criteria 6.2). Pay and conditions for employees and for employees of contractors always must meet at least legal or industry minimum standards and be sufficient to meet the basic needs of personnel and to provide some discretionary income (Criteria 6.5), and the employer must respect the right of all personnel to form and join trade unions of their choice and to bargain collectively. Where the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining are restricted under law, the employer is to facilitate parallel means of independent and free association and bargaining for all such personnel (Criteria 6.6). Indonesia itself has completed its country interpretation of the RSPO Principles and Criteria and started the certification of voluntary sustainable production of palm oil in December 2007.

Currently among 11 plantations certified by RSPO in the world, three of them are in Indonesia. Those plantations are PT Musim Mas in Sorek (Riau), PT Hindoli in South Sumatra and PT PP London Sumatra in North Sumatra. Yet, according to Sawit Watch, these three plantations are

Companies with RSPO certification 11

PT Musim Mas

The company was founded in 1972 by Anwar Karim and is now owned by Bachtiar Karim. Musim Mas currently owns 180,000 ha plantations in Riau, North Sumatra, Jambi and Kalimantan.

A huge labour dispute took place in 2005 as workers demanded rights to unionize. Over 700 workers were sacked. The dispute then was settled in Industrial Dispute Court with the final decision in favor of the plantation.12

In Central Kalimantan, two subsidiaries of Musim Mas, PT Sukajadi Sawit Mekar (SSM) and Maju Aneka Sawit (MAS), have been engaged in conflicts with local communities in Kotawaringin Timur district since 2004, in Sebabi, Tanah Puti and Kenyala villages. The conflict was triggered by one-sided land clearances to expand the plantations. The land was cultivated with rubber trees, jelutung gum trees, and rattan. The land clearing was conducted without the communities’ consent.13

Musim Mas was also among the companies whose licenses were suspended by the Forestry Department in 1997 when devastating forest fires swept through Indonesia’s forests. Many of the fires were deliberately set by oil palm companies to clear the forest area for planting. The fires created a choking smog across the region, leading to health impacts, as well as destroying countless livelihoods, wildlife habitats and resulting in massive CO2 emissions.14

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fulfill the interests of the international market. Indeed, on the ground level this can be useful to demand the plantation to fulfill the rights of workers and resolve the land dispute. Nevertheless, the backbone of people’s bargaining power always relies on the strength of the social movement.

EndnotesWulandari, Sri The impact of increasing food price on palm oil 1. workers in North Sumatra, Oxfam Novib Research, 2008.http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2010/03/09/03492985/sawit.2. rawan.pelanggaran.hamA regency is a political sub-division of a province in Indonesia. 3. ‘New Order’ is terms coined by Soeharto as he came into power in 4. 1966, to differentiate his regime from the old regime later referred to as the old order regime.Wulandari, Sri, The impact of increasing food price on palm oil 5. workers in North Sumatra, Oxfam Novib Research, 2008.Wulandari, Sri, The impact of increasing food price on palm oil 6. workers in North Sumatra, Oxfam Novib Research, 2008Wulandari, Sri The impact of increasing food price on palm oil 7. workers in North Sumatra, Oxfam Novib Research, 2008. http://www.binadesa.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&task8. =view&id=67&Itemid=217http://asianfarmers.org/?p=s219. Mapping of Labour Issues and Advocacy Works in Palm Oil Produc-10. tion, Oxfam Novib 2008.Data from Sawit Watch published in Down to Earth (DTE) 80-81/11. June 2009. Issues of DTE can be found at: http://dte.gn.apc.org/news.htm.From www.KapanLagi.com, 8 June 2006 12. nordin-journal.blogspot.com/2008/12/konflik-pt-ssm-musim-mas-13. group-dan.htmlSee DTE (Down To Earth) 35, supplement page 814. DTE 4215. nasrilbahar.blogspot.com/2007/10/akuisisi-pt-lonsum-diminta-jadi-16. momen.html DTE 4217. DTE 4218. DTE 59 19.

PT Hindoli

This company is a subsidiary of the Cargill Group, which owns five palm oil plantation companies in Indonesia and New Guinea. PT Hildoli is still engaged in protracted land dispute with the local indigenous community as reported by DTE and Walhi (Indonesia Environment Group) Kalimantan.

PT PP London Sumatera Indonesia Tbk

This more than century-old company was founded in 1906 as a British-owned company pioneering rubber, coffee, cacao and tea plantations in the pre-war era, before shifting into palm oil. The company was a subsidiary of British palm oil traders Harrison and Crossfield. They sold out the company shares in the mid-1990s. Since then PT Lonsum has been listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange.15

The company has been involved in several social conflicts with local communities in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi. Most of them are land disputes and the company has used violence to repress the local communities.16 In 2009, Lonsum sent national police troops to repress Dayak (an indigenous Indonesian tribe of people) villagers occupying the company base camp in protest against land grabbing.17 The police opened the fire shooting the villagers. Some villagers were arrested and accused of committing terrorist action.18 In Sulawesi 2003, three farmers were killed by mobile brigade police and several others were seriously wounded in a long-running land dispute.19

still engaged in conflicts with workers and community. (See Box for some details of these conflicts.)

Conclusion

Currently there are 71 palm oil plantations including three state-owned plantations in Indonesia registered as RSPO members. Despite the voluntary nature of RSPO certification and membership, the world CPO (Crude Palm Oil) market in principle prioritizes so-called sustain-able products. Meanwhile in Indonesia, there is a growing concern since three certified companies only produced 1.7 million tones of CPO out of 20 million annual total products. While domestic consumption remains at five mil-lion tones per year, it means there is around 13.3 million tones of CPO produced by palm oil companies that are non-sustainable and therefore less competitive in the world market. Many plantations nowadays including state-owned plantations are accelerating the companies’ improvement so they will be eligible for the certification.

Again, the question remains here is whether RSPO brings positive impacts for workers and communi-ties? The critical education should also touches the supply chain issue from local to international level. Workers and peasants must have comprehensive under-standing on production and distribution process in the plantation industry. This is important to counter bal-ance CSR-driven initiative that can subtly put out the struggle. The certification of plantation is obviously to

PT London Sumatra Head Office in Medan

Source: Sri Wulandari

Gender and Labour


L ast issue, the interviews with women’s committees in trade unions of three countries (South Korea, India and Cambodia) reflected common problems

faced by women workers, particularly the informalization of work, which in turn adversely affects women workers unionizing. This issue, we focus more on what women committees do to strengthen their influence inside the trade union and internal cooperation, as well as how they face the new challenges of a global economy and informalization of labour through external cooperation and alliances. We draw from the answers of the three women committees of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Korean Con-federation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and The Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation (CTSWF).

‘Fewer women than men are in paid work in every country in the region……In South Asian countries like In-dia and Pakistan, fewer than 35 per cent of women do paid work,’ an Asia-Pacific Human Development report 2010 sponsored by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found. Despite laws guaranteeing equal pay for equal work, women in this region still earn considerably less than men, with the pay gap ranging from 54 to 90 percent. (See Table 1)

Table 1 Women employment and income figure of three countries

India South Korea Cambodia

Women labour 35% 50% 75% participation 2007 (ILO 2009)

Ratio of Female-to- 32% 52% 68%Male Estimated Income 2007 (UNDP 2009)

Source: Asia-Pacific Human Development report 2010 sponsored by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

It is not only women workers who are being exploited, but the whole working class that has been suffering. The number of workers in formal industrial relations is constant-ly being reduced. They are replaced by workers who operate in all sorts of informal working relations. For example, the share of informal employment in India exceeds 90% of total employment. In India, nine out of every ten women

working outside agriculture hold informal sector jobs. In China, from 1990 to 2002, urban employment grew by 81 million, but 80 million of that growth was in irregular employment – casual-wage or self-employment.

How do trade unions organize the unorganized in in-formal sector? T.A. Latha, secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the women committees has given two examples to explain how they work. For instance, there was a Thai-invested factory which had hired a lot of male workers in the production line. When these men lost their jobs, their families also lost income and thus their families who are mostly women came and joined the struggle of the workers. They went on a hunger strike together. This action not only affected the factory but also pressured the government to pay attention to the issue of job security. Women at home are being organized for labour struggles through these joint actions. Another example happened in a Nokia plant called Sriperambaturi. Around 75 per cent of the workers in this plant are women. After starting a trade union, some union leaders who were men were dismissed by the company. Other union members and workers, no matter men or women, stood together with the dismissed leaders and went on strike together.

Getting women workers organized in solidarity with their counterparts through collective actions is one way to enhance women participation in the labour movement. In addition, women are being discriminated and restricted in various ways by patriarchal social norms and unfair social system, which should be addressed actively. As mentioned in the previous Gender Column, the women’s committee of CITU have been fighting against the ‘Sumangali Scheme’ (Marriage Assistance Scheme), under which thousands of teenage women workers have been lured to work as virtual slaves in textile mills for years. The women’s committee takes part in a ‘vigilance committee’ which consists of em-ployers as well as worker’ representatives of the trade union as well as youth unions and other unions, to jointly press the government to restrict this practice in the textile industry. The women’s committee also actively supports workers in the closely related garment industry, roughly 80 per cent of garment workers are women between the ages of 21 and 25, and most are semi-skilled migrant workers and the sole earning members in their families. According to the Shop and Establishment Act, which is formulated by the govern-ment of N.C.T. (National Capital Territory) of Delhi of

Gender and Labour Column

Women’s Committees and Alliance Building for the Labour Movement

Gender and Labour


India, the working and employment conditions of workers employed in shops and establishments including commer-cial establishments, are regulated; however, as this act is not being used and is rather ignored, according to Latha, the women’s committee also focuses on this issue and has been trying to push for better enforcement of the law.

In comparison, women’s employment and income in East Asian countries like South Korea seem better than in India. However, in South Korea, female workers still repre-sent a higher proportion of temporary and daily workers as well as self-employed and unpaid family workers. One study reflected a trend that the proportion of male temporary employees decreased while female temporary employees increased from 51 (1989) per cent to 56.47 (2003) per cent despite the steady rise in the overall proportion of irregular workers from 26.73 per cent to 33.29 per cent. The resegmentation of labour markets in conjunction with neoliberal labour flexibility have been stunting and damaging the democratic labour movement. Mijeong Kim of the women’s committee of KCTU has recognized the importance of challenging the flexible and irregular work. However, she finds this problem not just for women but for all, so they do not make it a solely women committee’s issue. For issues affecting irregular workers, for example the campaign to raise the minimum wage, KCTU, including the women’s committee, often joins in a coalition with women’s, labour, religious, human rights and other groups to answer needs of more than just unionized regular work-ers. Meanwhile, recruiting fresh members and training up new leadership in the women’s committee remains a chal-lenge, in part because of the difficulty of making women’s issues the focus of a sustained attention from society. Mi-jeong admits, ‘We are still struggling, to see what we can do to make women’s committee hot, and answer women’s needs and attract them’.

As for the women committee of the Cambodian Tour-ism and Service Workers Federation (CTSWF), their presi-dent Dalin Vong is also very well aware of the difficulties of women workers in getting formal and permanent positions in the tourist industry. They are very eager to empower women workers to protect their labour rights. However, the global challenges are too big for them to make changes by themselves with limited resources. ‘As you know our difficulty, I am working for a hotel and I don’t have much time to make much changes, and I did not have good train-ing. The importance thing is, Phnom Penh is so far from Siem Reap [the two cities where the coordinating women committees of various unions are], that they don’t have any training and meeting becauce nobody help me to organize it. The knowledge of the members is limited and we don’t have any fees to support our activities. We just do it like volunteers,’ mentioned Dalin in an email interview. The committee and the union are not working alone but work

together with other organizations. Since 2006, CTSWF and other five trade union federations have been joinning together to form the Cambodia Women’s Movement

Organization (CWMO) to promote women union leadership as well as to provide women workers with a forum to discuss the problems specific to them. The female members of the different federations brought together within the CWMO also want to break the taboo surround-ing the abuse suffered by women workers on their way home, late in the evening, after a long day’s work. Recently, CTSWF and other 31 international and local unions and institutions have been working on a joint programme of the 99th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) with the theme of: ‘Together to Promote Decent Work for Women in Cambodia’.

Apparently, the root problem of informalization of la-bour and the gender division of work have not been tackled by clear strategies, although all of them have been striving for improvement of working conditions of women workers and more women workers being unionized. Considering the role and resources given to these women committees in the union, they are just parts of union federations as a focal point. They will function the best when there is strong support from the leaders of the federations or they take up leading roles. It should be the responsibilities of the whole union to challenge informalization of work and to give more voices to women workers through whatever ways and forms the task requires.

Endnotes

UNDP 2010, Power, voice and rights, a turning point for gender 1. equality in Asia and the Pacific, p. 61. Ajit K. Ghose, ‘Employment in China’, International Labour 2. Organization, Employment Analysis Unit, Employment Strategy Papers, 2005, p. 27. For more details of Sumangali Scheme, please refer to Sindhu 3. Menon’s article entitled: “Adolescent Dreams Shattered in the Lure of Marriage”: Sumangali System: A New Form of Bondage in Tamil Nadu” posted on the website of Labour File: http://labourfile.org/ArticleMore.aspx?Id=826Suhasini Singh (2009), India Cheap Labor Garment Export 4. Industry Fashionable and famous -- at the garment worker’s cost!, Global Research, 7 May 2009, InfoChange News & Features Centre for Research on Globalization, online resource: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13530. Retrieved on 6 April 2010.Jihye Jennifer Chun, ‘The contested politics of gender and irregular 5. employment: revitalizing the South Korean democratic labour movement’, Chapter 2 of Andreas Bieler, Ingemar Lindbery and Devan Pillay, eds., Labour and the Challenges of Globalization: What Prospects for Transnational Solidarity?, University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2008, p.32.ITUC 2007, Union View, September 2007, http://www.ituc-csi.6. org/IMG/pdf/CambodgeEN.pdf

Occupational Safety and Health

Occupational Safety and Health Column


Overview

Sammaiah was an agricultural worker in Andhra Pradesh. One day in 2001, after having sprayed pesticides all day, he collapsed and died instantly. The post-mortem report stated that he had died of acute pesticide poisoning; the doctor said that the chemical had seeped into his skin from a towel that was wet with the pesticide he was spraying. He was spraying a mixture of endosulphan and bavistin. For a daily wage of Rs 30, he lost his life.

In India, agriculture is the backbone of the economy and contributes 18% to the GDP. Nearly 65% of the workforce derives livelihood from agriculture and are therefore exposed to chemical pesticides. A huge loss of nearly a fifth of the produce is estimated to be due to pest attacks on standing crops and storage.1 However, the Ministry of Health and Agriculture in India does not have any clear position on pesticide use or any common ground concerning pesticides, probably because of the fear of displeasing big multinationals in India that are engaged in the production of pesticides.

Overproduction and Exports

India is the fourth largest pesticide producer in the world after the US, Japan and China. Domestic consumption is around 39 thousand metric tonnes (TMT). In addition, exports are estimated at 110.7 TMT in FY 2007, valued at Rs 28.77 billion. Exports of pesticides increased by 17.2% during the FY 2007. The increased export of pesticides in recent years is primarily because of the reduction in production in developed countries and the shift in pesticide production to developing countries. This is another example of shifting dirty industries to the south.

Issues with Use of Pesticides

India’s history with the production and use of chemical pesticides has been laced with disasters and controversies- the most notorious being the Bhopal tragedy at the Union Carbide pesticide production plant. Continued plunder of natural biodiversity in the name of pest control and increased mono-cultural or bi-cultural yields is rapidly affecting the sustenance of Indian agriculture.

Pesticides are often used indiscriminately and the security instructions and safety measures are not strictly followed. Exposure to pesticides both occupationally and environmentally cause a range of health problems by different routes of exposure such as inhalation, ingestion and dermal contact. These range from temporary acute effects like irritation of eyes, excessive salivation to chronic diseases like cancer, reproductive and developmental disorders etc. Often, instructions are not available in local languages and is more serious in the case of farmers who are illiterate.

Acute food contamination is a major public health problem. According to one study, more than 80% of milk samples tested were found to contain residue of DDT and HCH (hexachlorocyclohexanes). Another study shows

The estimate by a World Health Organization task group in the early 1990s indicates that there maybe 1 million serious unintentional poisonings each year due to pesticide exposure. This necessarily reflects only a fraction of the real problem. On the basis of a survey of self-reported minor poisoning carried out in the Asian region, it is estimated that there could be as many as 25 million agricultural workers in the developing world suffering an episode of poisoning each year. Source: World Health Statistics Quarterly

The guest writer of this column shares about the harmful impacts of pesticides on agricultural workers and communities in India, and the government role in promoting rather that restricting the pesticide industry, at the cost of workers’ lives.

Pesticide Poisoning in India Mohit Gupta



residue of DDT and BHC (both known carcinogens) in breast milk samples of mothers. The amount of residue was very high and babies were ingesting 21 times the amount of these chemicals considered acceptable. Pesticide residue has often been detected in most parts of the country in food grains, vegetables, fruits, oil, fibres, fodder, etc.2

Green Revolution and its Impacts

The ‘Green Revolution’ started in 1966. According to the Central Crop Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, after the Green Revolution, farmers began to use pesticides in large doses to increase the productivity, causing unimaginable damage to the fertility of the soil and destroying the micro nutrients in it. The hybrid variety of crops intended to boost productivity could not resist pests. Only a few varieties of seed were promoted leading to the loss of variety in crops. Excessive pesticides resulted in the pests developing immunity and more powerful pesticides being used, which polluted the land and water even more.

The case cannot be highlighted more than in the case of Punjab, once the land of abundance, affluence, prosperity - it is now one of the worst affected, ecologically devastated, economically crumbled and fractured part of the globe. The Green Revolution had brought prosperity and materialistic development, but taken away the age-old ecological equilibrium, the civil society systems of sustainability, and livelihood. Occupational exposure to pesticides and pesticide poisoning is routine among farmers and farm workers. Most victims, who are daily wagers (mostly migrant laborers from other parts of the country), hush the matter up for fear of medico-legal implications. For families facing a fatal case of poisoning, the loss of a breadwinner in the family is irreplaceable.

Cancer cases are rampant in the villages of Punjab. The Community Medicine Department of PGIMER, Chandigarh, in a study found prevalence of confirmed cancer cases at 103 per lakh (100,000) at Talwandi Sabo,

a high figure by any standards. While it was almost impossible to pinpoint the cause of number of deaths, the study deduced ‘the cancer cases and deaths are higher in Talwandi Sabo probably due to more use of pesticides and alcohol’. In most of the other villages story is the same, the dance of death by cancer. The death count starts from 4-5 and goes up to 60 or even more in a single village and one can find many patients too. There are diseases related to reproductive health. The numbers of childless couples in villages is also extremely high. Interestingly a passenger train running between Bhatinda and Bikaner is also known as the ‘Cancer Train’ as almost 50% of its passengers head to Jaipur for cancer treatment.

Forty years after the advent of the Green Revolution, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, accepts the mistake in promoting pesticides in Asia for rice. In the case of cotton, agricultural scientists have compounded the problem by increasing the number of hostile insect types. There were only six or seven pests that worried the cotton farmers in the 1960s, but they have now multiplied to over 60.

However, the establishment is not open to the idea of agriculture without pesticides. They are still in the Green Revolution mindset and insulated from alternative means for sustainable agriculture, environment and development. Punjab Agricultural University continues to push pesticides knowing that these are not required. Even after numerous deaths, the Indian government and the health department does not have any concrete health action plan. In fact, blame is placed on the farmers for their ignorance and negligence in wrongly handling the pesticides. Medical facilities and treatment are not provided to people and there are no efforts from the industry or the government to clean the mess. Multinational corporations take advantage of legal loopholes and manufacture even more potent pesticides.

Some More Examples

The first report of poisoning due to pesticides in India came from Kerala in 1958, over 100 people died after consuming wheat flour contaminated with parathion.

Farmers spraying pesticide – no protectionSource:http://www.outlookindia.com/images/farmers_pesticide_20071224.jpg

Deformities in endosulfan-use areas. Source: India Together



In 2003 ‘Greenpeace India’ (along with Kheti Virasat Mission) conducted a study concentrated on pesticides impact on children’s mental health and development. The study in six states showed that ‘the problem of pesticides affecting the health of children was not limited to accidents. Pesticides are affecting the health of children every day in every part of the country. In agricultural communities seemingly normal children were victims of chronic exposure to pesticides.’

Another study conducted in Andhra Pradesh on the reproductive performance, statistical analysis gave the following incidence rates between the pesticide sprayers and a control group respectively after taking smoking habits into consideration: abortion 26% versus 15%; stillbirths 8.7% versus 2.6%; neonatal deaths 9.2% versus 2.2%; and congenital defects 3.0% versus 0.1%.3

A number of villages in Kasargod, Kerala have been severely affected by endosulfan, a dangerous insecticide also known as a silent killer. For over three decades since the early 1970s, the state-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK) carried aerial spraying of endosulfan thrice a year to check tea-mosquito attacks. Farmers of the villages noted that the cattle population had developed serious health problems due to water contamination. Women and children also showed signs of serious ailments. Although the use of this chemical has been temporarily banned in the state, India is still the world’s largest producer of endosulfan. At the Rotterdam Convention in October 2008, Indian Government successfully blocked the addition of endosulfan to the Rotterdam Convention which had been recommended for inclusion by its own scientific Chemical Review Committee. Importantly, the delegate from the Indian government was flanked by representatives of the Indian Chemical Council and government-owned Hindustan Insecticides Limited, which makes endosulfan. It seems the government is not ready to learn any lessons and just want to become a pawn in the hands of the manufacturers.

Conclusion

It is estimated that around 800,000 people in developing countries may have died due to pesticides since the onset of the Green Revolution. The World Health Organization has calculated that 20,000 people in developing countries die each year of pesticide consumption through their food - multiply that by 40 years. Who is to blame for the deaths? Agriculture scientists, pesticide companies and government agencies have to shoulder the blame equally. Will agricultural output fall drastically if India were to stop using pesticides? No, farming without chemical pesticides is possible and viable. This was demonstrated under a unique

programme called Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture, on 10 lakh (1,00,000) acres of land in 2008, when farmers used ecological practices and principles to grow their crops. The programme was supported by Andhra Pradesh’s rural development department.

The reality is that toxic pesticides made by companies who are giants in the agricultural industry, with the support of the government, are being ruthlessly promoted even though it has been proven time and again that with education and practicing traditional farming techniques, farming is possible without using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. It seems that the the main aim of intensive plantation is to have the corporate control on the manner food is produced, and seed and pesticide companies work in unison to get that control – in the process poisoning thousands of workers and communities.

The pesticide industry claims that if pesticides are used as per instructions, there will be no harm to either the user or the environment. Cases of pesticide exposure and death are a result of the victim’s ignorance and negligence, not because of poor regulation or accountability, say the industry, government, and even the medical and media communities. There are no campaigns worth their name being taken up either by the government (agriculture or health department) or the pesticide industry to educate farmers about the dangers of pesticides. The images put out in the mass media, including government-sponsored television programmes, are those of sprayers using pesticides with ease and without any protective gear. The fact that there are a lot of images and messages assuring people about the ‘safe’ nature of pesticides, and not enough about the dangers of using them, is worth noting.

In the face of safer alternatives, to continue arguing in favour of chemical pesticides, and using extremely toxic pesticides that endanger hapless agricultural workers, is unacceptable. The government bodies should acknowledge these alternatives and provided proactive support to farmers so that they may shift to ecological, sustainable and healthy ways of farming.4

Endnotes

india.gov.in/allimpfrms/alldocs/10027.pdf1. The Indian Pesticides Industry 2008, ICRA Limited (An associate 2. of Moody’s Investors Service)Rupa DS, Reddy PP, Reddi OS. Frequencies of chromosomal 3. aberrations in smokers exposed to pesticides in cotton fields. Mut Res 1989; 222:37-41. http://infochangeindia.org/Agenda/Occupational-safety-and-4. health/Poisoned-by-pesticides.html

Reviews / Resources

Reviews / Resources


STRIKE (DVD, 2006)DIREcToR: VolKER SchlonDoRff

The film portrays the events leading up to ‘Solidarnosc’, the workers’ solidarity movement that changed the history of a nation, from the perspective of a woman worker, Agnieszka Kowalska (played by Katherine Talbach). Poland had been a satellite of the USSR ruled by one communist party. Just like other stories of Eastern European nations before the fall of Berlin Wall and Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika, people in Poland lived under the surveillance of state officials. Workers were banned from organizing independent unions, as the State only recognized a single union affiliated to the ruling party.

This film is not a strict historical re-enactment, but indeed based on history, showing us three stages of workers’ struggle at Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland leading toward the ‘Solidarnosc’ movement. The first stage was the 1970 fire tragedy that killed 21 workers. It was Agnieszka Kowalska, a crane operator and receiver of the Labour Heroine Award from the Polish Communist Government, who tried to persuade the union to compensate widows of 21 workers killed in the tragedy. The worsening economic situation in the 1970s added to the miserable lives of workers as they were forced to work overtime with low pay, while the only existing union affiliated to Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) played ignorant to workers issues.

Then, the ‘June 1976’ strike resulting in the death of some workers was a wake-up call for a broader workers’ movement in Poland. Prominent organizers at Lenin shipyard were arrested and severely tortured including Lech Walesa (played by Andrezj Chira) who at that time was an electrician at Lenin shipyard and Agnieszka Kowalska. Lech Walesa then was fired and he started a clandestine movement in Poland. Later in the late 1970s, Agnieszka joined the clandestine group. She wrote leaflets using common and simple language explaining the political situation and workers’ issues. Later in 1980, Agnieszka was accused of instigating unstable situation at the workplace. When she was dismissed, workers declared their solidarity for her. The movement later became a snowball that reformed the country as a whole. The communist government had agreed to fulfill the economic demands of the striking workers

at Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk. Yet, workers decided to continue the strike until all workers in Poland were entitled to their rights including the political rights to organize. The movement soon turned into a snowball breaking down the hard-line ruling party, the PZPR. Eventually in 1990 Lech Walesa was elected as Polish President, fully backed up by a ‘solidarity’ cabinet.

Dialog between Lech Walesa (only called ‘Leszek’ in the movie) and Agnieszka Kowalska in the film on how to take up the economic demands into political demands to broaden solidarity action is worth noting. The portrayal of Agnieszka’s life as a single parent and her up-and-down life as a woman worker who used to belong to the Women Brigade (women’s wing of the government union) and receiver of Labour Heroine Award also paint a moving picture, and remind viewers that the contribution of women like Agnieszka to mass movements are often quickly forgotten in the shadow of ‘great men’ who arise as leaders. Agnieszka position in woman brigade was dismantled before ‘June 1976’ strike.

In general, the history portrayed in the film is still relevant today, most especially for workers living in a country ruled by one single party where all political and economic rights of people are deprived.

2006, PROVOBIS.Polish with English subtitles.104 min. Enquiries: www.dokumentfilms.com

fugITIVE DEnIm: A moVIng SToRy of PEoPlE AnD PAnTS In ThE BoRDERlESS WoRlD of gloBAl TRADE

By RAchEl louISE SnyDER

What happens when two experienced designers decide to create a clothing brand that defies market pressures and tries to balance high-end fashion with social and environmental concerns? The author Rachel Louise Snyder begins this book about the people and business in the global garment industry, by starting with that question, and looking at all the complex challenges New York designers Scott and Rogan face on the production side alone of their organic clothing brand, which

Reviews / Resources


include: negotiating the complexities of sourcing inputs from a number of different countries, and having cutting, sewing and finishing done in yet other countries; the correct tariffs; and the changes expected in the global garment trade regime, from the end of the Multi-Fibre Agreement in 2005.

The facts come along the way but the stories are told through observing people’s lives. Looking at how Scott and Logan grew up, their thoughts on mixing activism with fashion... the story then moves on to other people in different parts of the global garment trade – cotton classifier Mehman in Azerbaijan, denim designers of Legler, Pascal and Ariana (false name) in Italy, factory workers Nat and Ry in Cambodia...engulfed in changes that bring both ‘progress’ and loss of jobs and security, yet charting their own courses forward.

Through Pascal, we see how Italy, a country for which textiles are a deep part of the cultural psyche, is quickly being hollowed out in terms of manufacturing, and going through the uncomfortable process of downsizing its garment industry workforce in a culture where people tend to keep jobs for life...the industry in Italy had already been shaken by the news the Armani, Gucci and Prada were moving their manufacturing to Asia, and still seemed to be traumatized by it. We sense the misgivings and bafflement, as well as helplessness of the designers who work in a company that started out nearly two centuries ago, in 1834.

A major section of the book is devoted by the author to a country that she lives in – Cambodia. She interviews factory workers in Cambodia, finding out their working conditions, and the living conditions in the countryside they came from. She also takes a hard look at the ILO and NGOs that have made of Cambodia a sort of model of decent working conditions and progressive labour standards. With strong support of the ILO, the Cambodian government had made a labour law with overtime pay, vacation days and sick leave, onsite daycare, and other laws, based on the French model. It introduced a “Better Factories” programme, which eventually Gap, Disney, Levi’s, the World Bank and others invested in also, and apparently did show factory owners that good working conditions leads to better productivity and profits. Garments are now 80% of the country exports. It seems that the experiment worked. Yet the author also explains the vagueness in some parts of the labour law, making them hard to use for workers’ interests – and more interestingly, the workings of the Arbitration Council, which can be binding or non-binding in the final award, depending on the agreement of the parties. She also notes that the brands for whom the factory produces, may not even be known by the parties involved, and might be as ‘relevant to a hearing... as a hot dog vendor in the East Village is to

a polar expedition’. More critically, she shows that for all the apparent monitoring and nice labour laws, ultimately a strike and troublesome union leaders can be violently repressed. The popular leader of the country’s biggest union, Chea Vichea, had been murdered in broad daylight in early 2004. He had been aligned with the Sam Rainsy party, the only significant political opposition party. His murder is still unsolved, while two men who nobody believes to be really guilty, have been arrested, tried and given long prison sentences for that death. In sum, Cambodia’s only selling point is really ‘social responsibility’, especially for the big international buyers, as costs of setting up shop are relatively expensive there. Yet what Chea Vichea’s murder and the experiences of many other workers like Ry who have striked or protested against employers have shown, is that violence is always around the corner, keeping workers under threat.

She also visits a factory in China, a supplier to Gap and one of its model factories, and gets an inside look at the world of monitoring factories, seeing the detail and effort required to get a true picture of workers’ work conditions. Yet even Michael Kobori, the officer at Levi’s in charge of responsible sourcing, admitted: ‘If there’s one thing that we’ve learned over 15 years it’s the fact that unless there are business consequences to the behavior you’re asking ‘to change’ it won’t happen.’

The author closes with a sense of mixed optimism – while writing the book, many people she talked to responded with awareness of sweatshops, and an interest in shopping ‘responsibly’ to avoid contributing to them. She found a growing thoughtfulness among consumers, who could be holding the real power, not only government and businesses. Yet she also raise the problem of over-consumption; the demand for ethical consumption might not be touching that at all; ‘people involved in the industry often discussed environmental and economic issues… focused on how to meet our apparently endless desires, rather than how to tailor those desire to what the world has the reasonable ability to offer’.

We see from the book how not only garment manufacturing workers are pressured, but cotton producers, dyers and retail designers as well. They are being pulled in directions not always of their own choosing, and making true free choices not dictated by economic pressures is quite difficult. With a fuller picture of all involved in global garment production, it is easier to see that only addressing labour conditions at workplaces will only ever be limited and transitory in its rewards.

Price: USA$26.95 / Can $32.50Enquiries: www.wwnorton.com or Rachel Louise Snyder’s website at www.globalgrit.com.

Documents

L S A I B A O N UPDATE UR - Asia Monitor Resource Centre · AsiAn lAbour uPdAte (Alu) is a quarterly news bulletin on labour issues in southern and eastern Asia. it is prepared and