Stories about Labor from August, 2008
Myanmar: Jade and Beijing olympics
Activists urge visitors to the 2008 Beijing Olympics to boycott souvenirs and jewelry made of Burmese jade in order to avoid supporting Burma’s “abuse-ridden jade mining industry.”
China: Where's Our Nest?
Tiger temple interviewed construction workers of the Olympic stadium, “Bird nest”. They have built the nation's nest but themselves remain in a nest-less state. The citizen journalists will post his series at my1510. Part I and Part II.
Bangladesh: Working in Kuwait
a bengali in TO points to the case of Bangladeshi workers being ill-treated in Kuwait in the context of pan-Muslim movements.
Japan: Toyota's Just-In-Time System and the Akihabara Killings (Part 2)
In the first part of this two-part series, we translated the first half of a blog entry by blogger boiledema, who presented a very personal perspective on the Akihabara massacre on June 8th. In this second half, boiledema elaborates further on Japan's temp worker industry, expresses his frustration at Kato's actions on June 8th, and provides further details about Toyota.
Cape Verde: On foreign policy and diaspora
Miguel Cruz Sousa [pt] analyzes the Cape Verdean foreign policy and the country's relationship with its diaspora. “Unemployment, social inequality, insecurity, low wages and the risk of disruption prevail here in the country. In the diaspora, there are persecution, discrimination, employment insecurity, unemployment, xenophobia and discrimination, arbitrary arrests and indifference...
Angola: Priority for Angolan workers in the labor market
Kianda [pt] celebrates a recently approved law that ensures employment for Angolan workers in the oil sector through a ban on hiring of foreign staff unless the necessary skills can not be found among Angolan workers. “Good news, I think they should start thinking about extending the law to other...
Russia: “Worker Ghettos”
At Robert Amsterdam's blog, a translation of a story from a Russian newspaper on “a proposal to build designated housing for foreign laborers” in Moscow.
