Slave labour
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http://theconversation.com/business-friendly-slavery-bill-puts-profit-before-human-rights-28123
This is an interesting account of a bill before Parliament that it looks like the government will suffocat in bureaucracy and undersupport. Clearly, as with the bribery bill, those at the very top worry about it being used against their businesses and their plausible deniability of corrupt and represive practices. Formally, the british state will decry slavery, but it won't energetically pursue the slav masters and use supply chain power to combat it. lord, make us slave free: but not yet.
Found this today while checking my email.http://www.mydaily.co.uk/2014/06/23/primark-shopper-left-in-shock-after-discovering-cry-for-help-found-in-label/?ncid=webmail2Primark once more at the centre of lave labour accusations, this time from the workers in the slave factories.
Quote:Bargain hunters' favourite high street store Primark has come under fire after a shopper discovered the words, "Forced to work exhausting hours" hand-stitched on the label of a £10 floral dress.
"To be honest I've never really thought much about how the clothes are made. But this really made me think about how we get our cheap fashion," she explained.The primark story is causing a flap on Facebook. All sorts of socially conscious snobs coming out of the woodwork to condemn The poor people who have little choice but to shop at a primark whilst ignoring the fact that the big name clothing companies use exactly the same factories and exactly the same contracts and conditions, yet charge 10x to 100x the price that primark does.those who shop at Primark are instructed to 'buy second hand' or from 'small stores and businesses' and the fact that the worker who serves them in the (usually overpriced) charity store is likely to be on a workfare assignment, or in a (usually overpriced) small store is likely to be severely underpaid and over exploited and unable to gain union support and representation.
I think the tale of the label will eventually end up being a hoax. I have read many similar stories previously but the moral of the story is true enough. And it applies to many products, not just clothes but food and toys all manner of things that are produced by sweated labour. Some stories are also exaggerated by over-zealous NGOs looking for funding …West african child labour and cocoa/chocolate being one and sex trade trafficking in SE Asia another but it doesn't make it and the actual victims any less tragic though. We shouldn't try to create a hierarchy of victims as the SOYMB blog tried to point out concerning the recent war rape conference …it doesn't work.
As a follow-on, i just read this demand for higher food prices to end rural poverty in the developing world.http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/higher-food-prices-can-help-to-end-hunger-malnutrition-and-food-waste/
Interesting they quote the Slow Food movement, this was a central actor in the early 2000s complaining about low food, and especially meat prices, as this made meat easily access able to all, and thus less "special", higher food prices= food banks.there is a union backed campaign for the living wage at tesco, which doesn't make the false claim that a higher price means better wages for the workers, but instead points to the profits of the company
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