Safeguarding the rights of journalists, trade unionists, and captured soldiers will strengthen Ukraine’s war effort.
In Ukraine’s Just War of Self-Defense, Zelensky Must Still Respect Rights
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Labor Rights
China’s Stock Market Crash Is the Latest Crisis of Global Capitalism
Alongside rising protests from farmers and workers, China now confronts a middle class anxious about a slowdown in growth and burned by the stock market bust. It’s a volatile brew.
Where the TPP Could Lose
Activists in Chile have made their government draw red lines on the corporate-friendly investment deal. North Americans could take a lesson.
Dubai’s Skyline Is a Monument to Oppression, Not Prosperity
Visual artist Arko Datto combines satellite images and text to paint a picture of migrant workers’ lives in the Arabian Peninsula — and his findings aren’t pretty.
Belarus Brings Back Forced Labor for ‘Social Parasites’
Even as the U.S. and Europe reach out to Belarus amid tensions with Russia, the country is resurrecting controversial Soviet-era policies.
Bangladeshi Workers Organize to Protect Their Most Valuable Export: Themselves
Migrant domestic workers from Bangladesh enjoy little protection from their government, but they’re not alone.
Toxic Tech
Apple and other big manufacturers must swap less-deadly chemicals for the cancerous ones poisoning their Chinese workers.
Hunger Striking for Labor Rights in Colombia
Minutes before he started to sew his mouth shut, Jorge Alberto Parra Andrade explained his rationale to me: “Essentially GM gave us a choice: to die of hunger or to die waiting for them to solve this problem.” Parra is one of 68 injured workers fired by General Motors Colombia who started a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá one year ago, on August 1st, 2011.
Apple’s iEconomy a Veritable Labor Dystopia
Thanks to Mike Daisey’s appearance on “This American Life,” denial about Apple’s labor abuses has become impossible.
The Apple Connection
Ever since the beginning of the current global economic crisis, the focus of both critical analysis and public odium has been speculative capital. In the populist narrative, it was the breathtaking shenanigans of the banks in an atmosphere of deregulation that led to the economic collapse. The “financial economy,” characterized as parasitic and bad, was contrasted to the “real economy,” which was said to produce real goods and real value. Resources flowed into speculative activities in finance, resulting in a loss of dynamism in the real economy and eventually leading to credit cutoff at the height of the crisis, causing bankruptcies and massive layoffs.