ASIA FLOOR WAGE STATEMENT ON MAY DAY
DATE: May 1, 2013
Stop Union Busting!
Decent Wage Now!
On May 1, 2013, Asia Floor Wage Alliance demands
1) Immediate Stop to Attacks against Workers and Unions!
2) Delivery of Living Wage to Garment Workers
Today is a Global Day of Action and Solidarity among workers worldwide! Today, we celebrate the victories of the labour movement won through bloody struggles of workers in Chicago, USA in 1886 for an 8-hour day.
But, we are also grimly reminded that laws won through such struggles will remain in books if workers do not continue to fight to implement them.
Top fashion Brands and Retailers in North America and Europe subject Asian garment workers every day to forced labour, wage theft, physical violence, poverty, and crippling malnutrition. They profit huge revenues daily as workers manufacturing their goods in the most “modern” supplier factories in Asia, face heinous violations of labour rights and civil rights.
Garment workers in Asia are stopped from organizing a collective voice as they are terrorized, imprisoned, terminated and blacklisted for forming a union.
Garment workers in Asia suffer from severe malnutrition, poverty, deaths and broken families as they cannot earn a decent wage to maintain themselves or their families in dignity.
Garment workers in Asia are treated as disposable workers as they are illegally hired as “contract labour” or on “short-term contracts” for regular jobs that require decent, regular employment.
Today, garment workers across Asia unite to demand an immediate end to such inhuman practices and a living wage for an 8-hour work day!!
In 2009 a large Asian Alliance of unions and labour rights activists defined and calculated a floor wage (a minimum living wage) for Asian garment workers, which would guarantee that workers receive at least enough to meet basic needs for themselves and their families. The Asia Floor Wage (AFW) campaign is a collective demand for a minimum living wage for Asian garment workers who manufacture the majority of the world’s clothing.
The AFW Alliance urges global buyers to clean up their Global Supply Chain. They must make decent work for garment workers a condition for sourcing. They must factor in living wage demands into their price negotiations with suppliers. We urge our government to stand with us, the working people, to ensure that brands and retailers work with our supplier factories to deliver living wage during a standard working day for garment workers and to halt all forms of stacks on unionization, which is a treasured international labour and human rights standard.
Asia Floor Wage secretariats:
International Coordinator, Anannya Bhattacharjee, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Southeast Asia Coordinator, Lee Siew Hwa, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
South Asia Coordinator, Irene Xavier, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
East Asia Coordinator, May Wong, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
*Asia Floor Wage is a minimum floor wage formula for Asian workers in the global garment supply chain – based on a family with food and non-food expenses. It translates into different local currencies through the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) conversion factor for each country. In 2012, the formula was set to be 540 PPP$. Visit www.asiafloorwage.org for more details.
May 1, 2013
(*download the below statement- click on PDF attachment @ the bottom)
*
Area Action Links
NYC Actions
LA Actions/ So. Cal
http://occupylosangeles.org/node/18098
California (North & South) Activities
http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/may_day_2013_schedule_of_events
Walmart, H&M and Gap: Do your part to stop the murders of garment workers in Bangladesh
Written by UWC Staff
Click on the link or image below to sign the petition!
Black Wednesday unfolded in Bangladesh- A letter from Asia Floor Wage Alliance
Written by UWC StaffApril 25, 2013
Dear Asia Floor Wage Alliance Members, Endorsers, Supporters & Discussants:
Black Wednesday unfolded in Bangladesh yesterday, April 24, 2013.
Savar Building, originally an 8-storey high and then illegally extended to 11 stories, housing 5 garment factories, collapsed. 3122 garment workers worked in these factories. Death toll is climbing, workers are still trapped inside and hundreds are seriously injured.
Various sources list 27 main Western buyers such as Primark, JC Penney, Dress Barn, Mango, Benetton, Primark, Matalan, Bonmarche, C&A, Walmart, Cato Fashions, The Children's Place, Loblaw Inc., and Joe Fresh.
The supplier factories are Ether Tex, New Wave Bottoms, New Wave Style, Phantom Apparels and Phantom Tac.
Workers trapped inside are heard screaming for oxygen and asking for their limbs cut off so that they can get out. Rescue operations continue.
Warnings had been issued earlier about the lack building safety but the factory owners forced anxious workers to show up for work with threats of no-pay an termination.
Thousands of garment workers are protesting in all kinds of ways to have their voices heard, across Bangladesh. How many more have to die before the Brands, Bangladeshi government and the Factory owners behave as human beings?
The Asia Floor Wage Alliance directly holds responsible the Brands that continue to ignore the intentional killings of workers in the interest of maintaining their profits and production.
WE DEMAND that ALL Brands sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Memorandum It does not matter who sources from which factory. All Brands source from Bangladesh that is seeing an epidemic of factory fires. The Memorandum is at
http://laborrights.org/sites/
(*Also download the Memorandum- see attached.)
In solidarity,
Anannya Bhattacharjee
On Behalf of AFW Alliance
2013 CIR- Immigration Bill Analysis & Details HERE
Written by UWC StaffThe Senate bill includes important worker protections from the *POWER Act for immigrant workers who blow the whistle on employer abuse. Without these protections, employers use threats of retaliation and deportation to silence whistleblowers and get away with abuse which hurts them and the US workers that work alongside them.
*POWER Act details
Useful Links
- Outline of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 201
- Read the entire 844 Immigration Reform Bill http://1.usa.gov/YvbkkD
- Many different voices responding to the Immigration Reform Bill http://bit.ly/11dfpNN
- Side-by-Side analysis of Senate immigration framework's major provisions against those included in the 2006 and 2007 Senate bills. www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/CIRbrief-2013SenateFramework-Side-by-Side.pdf
- 10 Things You Should Know About The Senate Immigration Bill http://nbclatino.com/2013/04/16/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-senate-immigration-bill/
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NGA Executive Director Saket Soni and NGA Legal Director J.J. Rosenbaum share analysis and comment on specific provisions of the bill. http://www.guestworkeralliance.org/2013/04/senate-bill-sets-stage-for-dignified-immigration-reform/
- Great Visual of Immigration Reform Bill http://bit.ly/17JHYFW
- Five ways immigration reform will help low-wage workers wapo.st/11JQWgv
Videos
- The Dream Is Now, a new 30-minute documentary film by Davis Guggenheim (Academy Award-wining director of An Inconvenient Truth) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfiInvpjPtI&feature=youtu.be
Global Supply Chain Workers Pressure Walmart to Get Serious About Labor Conditions
Written by UWC Staff*Print/Download PDF version of at the bottom of the article.
United Workers Congress-Platform for the Inclusion and Protection of Immigrant Workers
Written by UWC StaffBelow is the United Workers Congress-
Platform for the Inclusion and Protection of Immigrant Workers
*download a PDF version in both Spanish & English @ the bottom of the article
*From http://www.citizenship-now.org/april10/
On April 10th, we will make our voices heard loud and clear that we expect Congress to fix our broken immigration system in 2013. We will educate, march, rally, pray and knock on the doors of Congress until President Obama signs commonsense immigration reform that includes a realistic path to citizenship.
For too long, our communities have suffered under a defective and outdated immigration system that stifles our economic growth, makes political scapegoats out of immigrants, and tears families apart. The time is now for justice. The time is now for citizenship!
El 10 de abril, vamos alzar nuestras voces y esperamos que el Congreso nos escuche. Nuestro sistema de inmigración está roto y tiene que ser arreglado este año. Vamos a educarnos, a marchar juntos, a orar y manifestarnos en las puertas del Congreso hasta que el Presidente Obama firme una reforma que tenga sentido común e incluya un camino a la ciudadanía.
Por demasiado tiempo, nuestras comunidades han sufrido bajo un sistema migratorio defectuoso y anticuado que ahoga nuestro crecimiento económico, explota a los inmigrantes y destroza familias. Ahora es el momento para la justicia. Ahora es el momento para dar ciudadanía a todos!
Things I can do to show support...
- Watch the D.C. Rally online http://www.citizenship-now.org/live
- Can't come to the rally? Join the call-in. Sign the petition. http://bit.ly/YLxtyT
- Can't make it to Washington D.C., but still want to be part of A10? Find other local rallies and phone banking opportunities to get involved in! Plus fill out a form to let folks know about YOUR local event. Click here http://www.citizenship-now.org/echoevents/
"Tell Suppliers In Nicaragua to Reinstate Workers and End All Violence".
Written by UWC StaffSign the petition on the Corporate Action Network titled "Tell Suppliers In Nicaragua to Reinstate Workers and End All Violence".
Workers who move Walmart's goods work in appalling conditions and Walmart refuses to do anything about it. Join them in standing up and demanding a change.
Walmart is the world’s largest private company and its practices indirectly and directly affect the lives of millions of people. It pioneers practices of squeezing workers and contractors that degrade the quality of jobs and, because of its size, these poor standards become the industry standard.
Walmart is hiding behind subcontractors and other practices to try to get away from paying a fair wage to the workers who process their goods in warehouses and in factories abroad.
Warehouse workers are forging partnerships with workers throughout Walmart's massive global supply chain to improve working conditions and end illegal abuses. These kinds of practices hurt us all, and courageous workers are standing together with the Warehouse Workers United and demanding to be heard. Stand with them.
Click here to View & Sign the petition- http://bit.ly/14Sfz0w
Take action to pass the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2013
Written by UWC StaffThis morning, hundreds of domestic workers in California are kicking off their Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign in Los Angeles. Click here to sign the petition in support of these courageous women and the Bill of Rights today.
Stand with Silvia!
Take action to pass the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2013
Take Action
Domestic workers from across California have one message today: domestic workers care for the families and homes of California with respect; it's time for California to take care of its domestic workers so they can provide for their own families.
Sylvia Lopez is a house cleaner in the Bay Area. She works hard cleaning homes to provide a better life for her two children, Karina and Daniela.
We work in the shadows without a law to protect us from harsh chemicals or enforce the agreements we make with our employers.
I don't want my daughters to think that the work their mother does is less than real work. I want them to go to college, become professionals and to know that their mother did important work too. I am a house cleaner so that my daughters can have a better life.
It's important to me that my daughters to see my work as dignified — we need a domestic workers bill of rights in California.
Governor Brown may have vetoed the California Domestic Workers Bill of rights in 2012, but since the veto, Sylvia and her colleagues have built an even more powerful movement of domestic workers and families across the state, including employers and people with disabilities.
This new, stronger coalition is ready to face any challenges ahead! But, this growing movement needs your support.
Click here to sign the petition and send Governor Brown and the California state legislature a clear message: it's time to end the injustice — it's time for a California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights!
Thank you!
