· July, 2008

Stories about Labor from July, 2008

Russia: An Expat Exodus?

Copydude follows up on an earlier story, on increasing difficulties for foreigners to stay on in Russia, and partly supports his claim with statistics, and Russia Blog picks up and develops the story.

Bahrain: A Woman in a Workplace

“I pledge, as a woman in a workplace – mostly dominated by men who smell either like cheap cigarettes, cheap cologne, hardcore armpit odour -to maintain my good deeds and acts with everyone, whether with an over-demanding bossy boss or with a chauvinistic, sexist, hateful, jealous colleague,” writes Bahraini blogger...

Costa Rica: Concerts, riots and concerns.

  29 July 2008

Journalist Cristian Cambronero from popular Costa Rican blog Fusil de Chispas posts a recount of Sunday's Concert where youth rioted and destroyed the campus of the Universidad Latina in the capital city of San José. It seems that when around 3000 of them were not allowed entrance to the free concert venue where already 5000 spectators were waiting for the concert some of the irate teens destroyed the university buildings, storefronts,dismantled cars, damaged the church in the vicinity, looted, threw chairs, rocks and bricks everywhere.

Japan: Toyota's Just-In-Time System and the Akihabara Killings (Part 1)

  27 July 2008

When Tomohiro Kato killed 7 people and injured many more in Tokyo's Akihabara district last month, the details of his life became the talk of the Japanese blogging world. Among these conversations, the murders sparked a huge number of conversations on the country's temp worker industry, as Kato himself worked as a temp worker at a factory under Toyota. No single blog entry however attracted as much attention as did a post by blogger boiledema, published two days after the incident and bookmarked on Hatena by a staggering 1366 users. In this first part of a two-part series, we translate the first half of boiledema's original blog post.

Japan: Communist Party gets boost from Nico Nico Douga

  21 July 2008

It is a long time since the Japanese Communist Party had any luck in Japanese politics, but with help from no other than Japan's popular video sharing site, Nico Nico Douga, this may be changing. A 51-minute video of a February 8th speech by Chairman Kazuo Shii of the JCP registered over ten thousand comments on the video sharing site, and there are now reports that interest in the party among people in their 20s and 30s is way up.

China: Olympics side-effect on industry

  19 July 2008

What will be the cost of presenting an unprecedented Olympics? A dialogue between a blogger and workers somewhat revealed the predicament met by heavy industry in China during the Games.

Mali: 21st Century Slavery

  15 July 2008

Sociolingo's Africa quotes two recent articles that “show that slavery still goes on today” in northern Mali and that it is a very complex issue in the country as many people deny its existence.

Bermuda: Tourism Outsourced

  11 July 2008

News that the Bermuda Department of Tourism is retrenching workers at its New York office, and outsourcing to an unnamed US sales company, leaves Vexed Bermoothes asking a lot of questions.

Brazil: On the ill-treatment for migrant workers

  5 July 2008

“We are imperialists and prejudiced, but faced with other nations’ prejudice, we forget our own. We turn our backs to Latin America and Africa, despite sharing with them the same history of colonization.” Sakamoto [pt] reflects on the way Brazilians treats its migrant workers and dreams about it as country...