· November, 2007

Stories about Labor from November, 2007

China: Labour Protest

  30 November 2007

Hunan BBS has a citizen report on a labour protest in Dongguan. Photos show that there are thousands of workers gathering outside the electronic factory demanding an increase of salary (zh).

South Korea: Crackdown on Migrant Workers

  29 November 2007

Jamie from Two Koreas posts the call for international solidarity by local labour union against the government violent crackdown of migrant worker union. More background can be found at local newspapers Hankyoreh (reposted in Two Koreas)

Haiti: Going Solar?

  28 November 2007

Denise Green writes in to Haiti Innovation wondering “if the government ever thinks about solar thermal technology as an alternative to electrical power? We should exploit the one resource that we always have plenty of – the Sun!”

Armenia: Labor Dynamics

  27 November 2007

Social Science in the Caucasus comments on a World Bank report on labor dynamics in Armenia. The blog of the Caucasus Resource Research Center says that its findings revealing that up to a third of Armenian youth neither work nor study are in line with its own.

Slovenia: 70,000 Workers Protest in Ljubljana

  24 November 2007

Sleeping with Pengovsky writes about “the largest gathering of people since the end of World War II” in Slovenia's capital: “70.000 (yes, seventy thousand) workers demanded a rise in basic wages. The constant tug-of-war between the unions and the employers was fueled by rising inflation […] which hit those with...

Bahrain: Losing its identity?

  23 November 2007

This week in Bahrain we have opinions on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit, a blogger's dilemma about whether to have a female friend, another getting stuck between his wife-to-be and her family, a call for more Islamic bloggers, and a fear that Bahrain won't stay Bahraini for much longer...

China: Child Labour?

  22 November 2007

The Opposite End of China criticizes the Congressional Executive Commission on China for putting cotton picking under the child labour section.

Ukraine: Multiple Disasters

  21 November 2007

Orange Ukraine posts a “Multiple Disaster Update” that covers Chernobyl, Kerch oil spill and the coal mine tragedy, and writes separately about the coalition-building and speaker-nominating “mess and disaster.”

China: Bankrupt ant farmers prepare to protest

  20 November 2007

Shenyang was mobbed today with furious ex-ant farmers, former employees of Yilishen, a media darling and one of China's most well-known brands in the health supplement market, as the company has just closed, taking the huge amounts its peasant-class employees had invested with it. The city's ant farming industry is...

Russia: Moscow's Gastarbeiter

  19 November 2007

Moscow Through Brown Eyes offers an approach to writing about migrant workers in Moscow: “[…] it demands the excavation of Russia’s imperial pasts, a detailed examination of the labor question in the former Soviet Union and the contributions of migrant workers, a serious investigation of the nationalist rhetoric of Russia’s...