Channel: Corporate Greed
250,000 Sign Petition to Apple to End Slave Conditions at Its Suppliers
Outraged at the inhumane treatment of workers in China who make iPads, iPhones and other Apple products, protesters visited a half-dozen Apple stores around the world yesterday to deliver petitions calling for reforms in the working conditions at factories run by Apple’s suppliers, accroding to Democracy Now!
A demonstration at Apple’s Grand Central Terminal store in New York City drew a dozen people, who peacefully handed over a petition with 250,000 signatures to an Apple store manager. Shelby Knox, the director for Change.org, led the effort to collect the signatures.
Knox and New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, who helped break the story about the horrific conditions involved in producing the world’s most popular products, spoke today with Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman. Also on the show: Mike Daisey, whose one-man play, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” is based partly on his visits to Apple’s Chinese factories and his interviews with the workers there. Daisey pointed out one of the key reasons the ability of Apple suppliers like Foxconn to institute slave-like working conditions–lack of a free labor movement. Read the rest of this entry »
Live Tweeting from Occupy CPAC
UPDATE: Metro DC Communications Director Chris Garlock send us this more detailed report from this afternoon’s actions.
Chanting “Whose America? Our America!” as many as 700 labor and community activists turned out in force earlier this afternoon outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), shutting down Woodley Rd. with an impromptu sit in and brief takeover take-over of the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel driveway.
Well-heeled CPAC attendees gawked as the huge crowd turned Woodley Road into a multi-hued street festival of “the 99%” The spirited demonstration (click here for a slideshow) lasted over two hours, with many planning to stay on through the afternoon for the second round, dubbed Occupy CPAC: Scott Walker and the Union Busters, planned to start at 5 p.m. focusing on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who’s scheduled to address CPAC tonight.
Union and progressive activists are staging some unique events today at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting in Washington, D.C., the annual gathering of the Who’s Who of the 1 percent, including Mitt Romney, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Ann Coulter and Grover Norquist.
You can keep up with today’s Occupy CPAC actions with this live Twitter feed from the Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council AFL-CIO and with the hashtag #OccupyCPAC.
Actions are set for noon and 5 p.m. (EST). If you are in the D.C. area and want to jin, head over to the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (2600 Woodley Rd. at Connecticut Ave. N.W.). The nearest Metro stop is the Woodley Park station.
Occupy CPAC, Summit of the 1%
 |
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will get a warm labor union, progressive welcome tomorrow at its annual conference in Washington. D.C., and we will keep you updated with a live Twitter feed ( hashtag #OccupyCPAC ) courtesy of Metropolitan Washington [D.C.] Council AFL-CIO.
The Who’s Who of the 1 percent–like Mitt Romney, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, Ann Coulter, Grover Norquist and other stars of the extremist rogue’s gallery–will be on hand. But so will representatives of the rest of us, the 99 percent, with big puppets, inflatables, chants, songs and of course tents to Occupy CPAC.
If you happen to be in the D.C. area tomorrow and want to join in the fun, events are set for noon and 5 p.m. (EST) at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (2600 Woodley Rd. at Connecticut Ave. N.W.). The nearest Metro stop is the Woodley Park station.
iSlaves: Forced Labor Key to Apple Profits
 |
||||
|
||||
More horrors out now from the Chinese serf-labor system involved in creating Apple products like iPads, iPhones and Kindles. It turns out many of the workers churning out millions of the devices in unendurable conditions at Foxconn and other factories are also forced laborers as young as 16.
The Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) says, “Legions of vocational and university students, some as young as 16, are forced to take months-long “internships” in Foxconn’s mainland China factories assembling Apple products,” according to Alternet. One study found in some Foxconn factories, which employ 1.3 million people in China, up to 50 percent of the workforce were students.
SACOM and others report that schools teaching journalism, hotel management and nursing threatened students with failure if they did not take a factory position. The Chinese government-owned Global Times noted that “automotive majors at a vocational school in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, were also forced to serve as interns for Foxconn before they were given their diplomas.
Apple’s formula for mammoth profits, which topped $13 billion last quarter, depends upon a steady supply of forced laborers who are put through a torturous training to accustom them to the factory working conditions. Read the rest of this entry »
Trumka: Foreclosure Settlement ‘First Step’ to Housing Crisis Solution
The $25 billion foreclosure settlement with five of the nation’s biggest banks, announced this morning by federal and state officials, is a “step in addressing the housing and foreclosure crisis that plagues our country,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
The banks broke the law by railroading homeowners through the foreclosure process. Today’s settlement provides compensation for foreclosure victims without requiring individuals to waive their legal claims. While banks must be made to pay more to help homeowners, the settlement includes needed principal write-downs so homeowners can stay in their homes.
The deal with the five banks settles potential charges against the banks for fraudulent practices, including improper foreclosures by “robo-signing” foreclosure documents. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says the settlement moves toward “righting the wrongs that led to our nation’s housing-market collapse and economic crisis.” Read the rest of this entry »
Pledge Your Support for Workers at American Airlines
|
|
Last week, American Airlines announced plans to eliminate the jobs of 13,000 workers and dump pension plans for nearly 90,000 workers pensions as part of its bankruptcy plan.
You can show you support for American Airlines employees by going to www.isupportamericanjobs.com and pledging to support the workers by telling public officials, the news media and community leaders that employees at American Airlines and regional carrier American Eagle and all workers dependent on these airlines must be treated fairly.
In the day since the pledge has been posted more than 10,000 people have signed. Click here add your name.
Transport Workers (TWU) President James Little—about 9,000 TWU members work at American—says the “plan is wrong for American and wrong for America.”
The same management team that took hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while the airline was losing money now wants workers to pay a high price for their mistakes.
Read more from Little here.
Bill Would End Island Vacations for Corporate Taxes
 |
A Senate bill introduced this week would prevent some of the worst tax dodging tactics by corporations that use offshore tax havens and also raise about $155 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.
Chief sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) says, “Overwhelmingly, Americans tell us: Close those loopholes down.”
Among other provisions, the bill (S. 2075), known as the CUT Loopholes Act, would:
- Give the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to combat tax haven banks and jurisdictions that help U.S. clients hide assets and dodge U.S. taxes;
- Crack down on offshore corporations that are managed from the United States from claiming foreign status to dodge taxes; and
- Eliminate tax incentives for moving U.S. jobs overseas or for transferring intellectual property offshore. Read the rest of this entry »
State Dept. Cracks Down on Abuse of Foreign Students by Hershey and Others
 |
In response to protests by foreign students exploited in a factory subcontracted by the Hershey Company and advocacy by the AFL-CIO and our allies, this week the U.S. State Department announced that it will make major revisions to a guest-worker and cultural exchange visa program and barred participation by a major player in the program, the Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA).
Harika Duygu Ozer, one of the students involved in the protest, told the New York Times:
I hope this sends a clear message to other recruiters like CETUSA, that we will not be your captive workers.
As we reported last summer, students recruited for a cultural exchange program found themselves instead all but indentured to a factory in Palmyra, Penn., where they were made to perform dangerous work loading Hershey products with no safety protection for less than the minimum wage. In addition, the students stayed in housing provided by the Hershey contractor, for which it overcharged. Rents were deducted from the students’ pay. Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Tops Developed World in Income Inequality
 |
There’s income inequality, and then there’s the United States. New research shows that within the developed world, no nation has seen the income share of the top 1 percent grow faster over the past three decades than the United States.
To qualify for the elite status of 1 percent in annual income, an individual makes somewhere in the mid-$300,000s per year (or way more, like Mitt!).
(H/t to the Institute for Policy Studies.)
282 Cablevision Workers Join CWA
 |
Yesterday, 282 Cablevision technicians and dispatchers in Brooklyn voted to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1109 in a union election administered by the National Labor Relations Board, overcoming a vigorous anti-union campaign led by Cablevision. They are the first Cablevision workers to join a union. Cable TV is an overwhelmingly nonunion industry while the traditional telecommunications industry remains highly unionized.
“I’ve waited 13 years for this,” said Cablevision technician Clarence Adams. “United, as members of Communications Workers of America, we now have the power to negotiate a fair contract that will give us the dignity and respect on the job we deserve.”
Cablevision workers are currently subject to arbitrary discipline and favoritism by managers, their health care coverage is inadequate, their workload is unreasonable and they have insufficient 401(k) retirement plans. Cablevision workers also make at least one-third less than Verizon workers, who are represented by CWA.
