Call of the millions 5

migration, maquilas and the millions

...we are nothing and we should be everything...

features: migration and the millions p2; farm labour under pressure part 2 asia p5; the millions in action p9; solidarity interview p10; book review p12; the extras p14.

The work is severe toil in the apocalyptic heat distorts the body: exertion, sleep and even In today's global economy it is not just capital and passing urine, our daily rituals, become savage tasks. Outside work, the lifters are penned in money that flow across international borders. huge labour camps that at Sonapur holds over Labour is increasingly mobile too. Recent estimates put their numbers at 214 million. Some 150,000 captive souls. Squalid and overcrowded, these dwellings further sap the will and of the largest and most dynamic economies are determination of the migrants. Numerous suicides heavily reliant on migrants USA, China, the oilhave been reported so many that the authorities rich Middle East. have stopped counting. In Dubai the total population of 2 million are practically all foreign nationals, arriving from the Piling on the misery, when the construction boom Indian sub-continent and the Philippines to work stalled in the global economic crisis, these migrant and send money home to their families. This 'remittance money' now tops $500 billion globally squads were quickly dumped by their employers, who cut off their wages, power supplies to their outstripping aid and development flows in many cases. There are many well-worn migration routes camps, and failed to return their passports. The and channels criss-crossing the world economy...... South Asians were effectively stranded, forced into the underground economy. From time to time 'the unruly voice of labour' has made itself heard a) Opulence and Misery in the Gulf States. in the construction zones, but rebellions and protests have only led to arrests and deportations Historically the Middle East has always relied on so far, rather than winning rights for trade unions overseas labour. The gulf states, oil-rich but or citizenship entitlements. labour-poor, are at the centre of this traffic

Migration and the millions

flow, sucking in thousands of workers to undertake construction work and the domestic servicing of elites and professional expats. And Dubai, jewel of the United Arab Emirates, is the most extreme example 'an emerging dream world of conspicuous consumption' where outlandish mega projects spring up apparently at will out of the desert.

As for Dubai so for the other gulf territories. The NGO Human Rights Watch and the International TUC have repeatedly demonstrated the appalling treatment of migrant workers they all rely on. Some places do allow trade unions (Kuwait, Bahrain), but all across the gulf zone, migrant workers face tough times. Qatar is currently the focus of attention in the run-up to its staging the 2022 World Cup. Here the ITUC is leading the charge to repeal the ban on trade unions for migrant workers, improve working and living conditions and tackle its labour sponsorship system. In late 2012 the ITUC staged the first ever workers protest in the territory.

The heavy lifting here is another matter. Masses of South Asian workers are recruited as bonded labour, legally tied to their new employer, lacking trade unions or any rights of protest or citizenship wide open to extreme modes of exploitation.

It is the practice of bonded labour (the Kafala sponsorship system) that many see as the fundamental problem. Recruited in their homeland and forced into debt to pay for their passage to the gulf, these young labourers become the effective property of their new employer. Promised contracts are redrawn on arrival, leaving migrants unable to repay their loans, their passports are confiscated by employers and they have no freedom of movement. It is impossible to legally change jobs, or leave the country without the employer's agreement absconders face arrest and deportation if caught. Tied down in this way, these conscripts are unable to avoid the extreme labour regimes imposed upon them. b) Progress and Change North of the Border? Latino migration across the Rio Grande is a labour flow of longer duration. The history is uneven at times open exchange and movement, other eras saw restrictions in place, like the Bracero guest worker programme of the mid twemtieth century. Today of course there are a range of policies trying to stem these flows militarised border enforcement, employer sanctions, the harassment of Latinos in the US through extra criminal checks and exclusion from welfare. Despite all that Latinos have been surging northwards, keeping the fields, building sites, food-procesing and hospitality industries of corporate America turning. The total immigrant population of the US is now some 40 million, with around 11 million of these 'undocumented' or illegals.

Any migrant workers trying to improve their situation through labour organising are especially at risk. Smaller numbers of guest workers, in the H2-A and H2-B programmes, are legally present but tied to their employment contracts: legality is no guarantee of decent conditions, as the National Guestworker Alliance has shown. Housing is a particular problem for migrant workers. Even those lucky enough to avoid the labour camps or having to sleep in the fields or cars, can find their settlements contaminated by agrochemicals that sweep the fields clean of pests, and put at risk health wise. As well as this there are growing numbers of so-called 'unincorporated communities', where no local authority provides sewage, safe water, roads or street lighting, leaving residents exposed to filth and disease. There could be as many as 1.8 million people living in these colonias across California.

So what is to be done?? There are a number of organisations, campaigns and programmes already at work on these issues. At the grassroots level, migrants have set up their own organisations to try and improve their working prospects and living conditions in respect of community facilities, environmental threats, and the street corner practices of day labouring. For the day labourers, a national body (NDLON) has now emerged to take forward their As for their rights..........well the armies of the demands: the National Guestworker Alliance undocumented are most vulnerable. Desperate (NGA) performs an analogous role for that enough to endure harsh labour conditions or segment of the migrant population. A novel series forced to rely on intermittent day labouring, they of independent worker centres has also been are at threat through a political drive to flush out established to advise migrant workers and offer 'illegals' at work either through federal raids or organisational support across the country. social security number check-ups.

Trade unions are busy organising the growing ranks of migrant labour, especially in areas like Los Angeles, as the demographics of the workforce began to change. In some cases this shift has revived union densities and activism political traditions carried by migrants to the US have fertilised new struggles. At the highest level the AFL-CIO swing behind the immigrant rights agenda, supporting an amnesty for the undocumented, has led to its collaboration with NDLON, NGA, and the worker centres.

Immigration reform is now once again at the top of the national political agenda. The corporate political elite option now recognises demands for legalisation of the undocumented, but ties this to further enforcement and sanctions against 'illegals', plus an expansion of the guest worker programme. For many in the immigrant rights movement and its labour supporters this mixture is too restrictive. Those grouped together within the Dignity Campaign see migration as a human right, whose exercise shouldn't be subject to border patrols or workplace interrogations. They oppose any extra guestworker programmes, citing their abysmal record of mistreating workers who are tied to a particular employment.

Migrants come from somewhere - their lands of origin. And for the Dignity Campaign the role of US international trade agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA and co) in migrant flows has been crucial. Far too often, it is the devastating consequences of neo-liberal globalisation and 'structural adjustment' programmes that lie at their root. New opportunities for US investment mean the destruction of farming livelihoods, local industries and public services south of the border, leaving masses of people with little alternative but to head north in search of economic survival. This is forced migration; it needs to be halted, stopping further neo-liberal trade agreements and renegotiating existing ones. Adequate economic supports must be put in place in lands of origin, allowing people to work and live there, in order to stop poverty-driven displacement. Without that the millions will still come, despite the walls, patrols and criminalisation faced along the way.

The outcome? Well the corporate-political elite option holds sway so far. The best bits eventual legalisation for the undocumented, some protection for US organised labour in relation to In place of worker abuse, Dignity Campaigners call guestworkers - are one step forward, but definitely not enough. for increased rights at work and better enforcement of existing protections, giving all employees equal rights and mutual interests in the workplace. A common programme could bring together all sections of the working class migrants, Afro-Americans and whites by linking immigration reform to the goals of full employment, organising rights and freedom of movement. Jobs and Rights for everyone, rather than destructive competition and division.

Farm labour under pressure part 2 asia

We hear most about Asian workers in the garment factories and IT assembly plants these days. But the majority of the continent's labour force are still rooted to the land, working as subsistence farmers or hired labour on large plantations. Asia holds around 700 million agricultural workers, an incredible 70% of the world's total. First we have a report by Ashwini Sukthankar on the case of the Indian tea pickers....
On May Day this year, Oxfam released a report, titled Understanding Wage Issues in the Tea Industry. The bland title and the jargon inside are a bit like a smoke screen, trying to blur the plain truth. The bottom line is this: all over the world, the workers who labour in tea plantations whether in India, or Malawi, or Indonesia are paid starvation wages. It doesn't matter if the plantation claims to be Fair Trade, or if it's participating in some other ethical certification process, or if its tea is so rare and delicate that it is exported halfway around the world for hundreds of dollars a kilo the wages are just as low. How can this be? How could all of the mobilizations and global campaigns of recent years have left the sector so unchanged? As a trade unionist from India once told me, years ago, tea is different in ways that make organizing and campaigning for change especially difficult. So, while agricultural day-labourers in India have seen modest gains in wages, and the rise of strong unions, this is not for the most part true for tea plantation workers. The reasons for this certainly are rooted the colonial histories of the tea plantation system, but also include ongoing state repression and massive employer collusion. The example of Assam a state in the Northeast of India producing more than 50% of the country's tea illustrates this well.

the history
In the late 1800s, British planters setting up tea plantations in Assam realized that they would have to import workers to the isolated, malaria-infested banks of the Brahmaputra river, to clear the land, plant the bushes and pluck the leaves. The planters brought in whole families from the centre of India indigenous people who worked the land along with their children, unable to leave the plantation once they had arrived, since they found themselves on contracts of indenture, where they could be arrested and imprisoned if they tried to stop work, or demand higher wages. Their descendants continue to pluck and tend Assam's tea bushes, living in the employer-owned labour quarters. The ways of exercising control may have changed (workers can't be arrested for trying to leave their jobs anymore), but the control itself has not. The extreme isolation of the plantations makes it hard for workers to seek work elsewhere, and helps keeps wage levels depressed. The threat of losing the only homes they know makes it difficult for workers to protest. The tea workers are also isolated from the wider community, not only because of the physical isolation, but because they continue to speak the language of the regions their ancestors came from Sadri rather than Assamese.

the state and the employers

Soon after Indian independence, the ruling Congress Party contacted the employers' association in the state of Assam, and brokered a deal. Under the arrangement that was worked out, the Congress Party's trade union would have exclusive representation of tea plantation workers in the state, and in return, it promised the employers in the Indian Tea Association that it would do nothing that might upset the present relations between management and labour. Both sides have kept their promise. The union, the Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS), serves employers by functioning only as an intermediary between workers and management, conveying management orders to workers, and trying to contain any seeds of worker unrest. In return, employers deduct union dues from almost every single worker on the plantations, whether permanent or temporary, and refuse to negotiate in any way with any other union that might try to emerge.

Farm labour under pressure part 2 ctd

Tales from the tea organiser......

As the International Union of Foodworkers described in And here is a powerful, unique perspective from a recent posting on their website condemning the Sarmishtha Biswas, an organiser working on the ACMS, A major part of the problem facing tea Indian tea estates.... workers in Assam is the denial of the right to join a genuine trade union. Since my college days, I felt a strong craving to The state of Assam continues to use its power to excavate the margins, the outside of the existing ensure that tea plantation workers remain inexpensive system and the people of the lower depths who are to employ and easy to suppress. Assam has refused to excluded from the Meta narrative of The Development implement a statutory minimum wage for the tea in the era of globalization. The Tea plantation sector in sector, which means that wages are set only through North-east India is one of those sites that still remains tripartite negotiation. Given that the three negotiating as an object of collective amnesia in todays world. parties are the employers' association, the Assam government, and the Assam government's trade union, it is not surprising that wages remain so low. In addition, the state has used the excuse that insurgents and Maoists are operating on the plantations to engage in surveillance, arbitrary detention and random violence against workers. And so, even though the law explicitly allows for public access to the labour quarters where workers live, the state insists on colluding with employers to deny workers the right to receive visitors, including trade union organizers and journalists. I first visited the tea gardens across Dooars in North Bengal in 2005 for a research project jointly organised by PBKMS (Pashchim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, an agricultural labour organisation which is affiliated by IUF) and IUF (International Union of Food Workers). I hoped to understand the plight of the workers and in particular their living conditions in 22 closed gardens. I wanted to listen to the unheard voices on the ground in order to realize the colonial legacy of the exploitative structure existing in the Indian tea industry since its advent in the mid-19th century. But, I was extremely shocked with the sheer reality I experienced in the closed gardens, as if I was walking through the death corridors. Hundreds of tea workers were dying a silent death across Dooars out of starvation, while many a hundred were waiting to embrace the death without any resistance, without any protest, without any anger. No aid reached the poor, destitute workers from the government of our democratic, welfare state due to the corruption and coercion embedded within the entire system. And the trade union leaders were in deep slumber, because they had already been purchased by the management.

the reckoning

Given this background, it is not surprising as a trade unionist told me in a conversation several years ago that it is difficult to imagine what Fair Trade or ethical tea could even look like. Tea workers in Assam are hardly passive or mute, but the structures of state power and historical exclusion are a powerful barrier to deaths of the hapless workers in the locked out their efforts to demand justice at work. corridors of the tea belt, I started asking myself why on earth all these indentured tribal workers remained silent, why they cant speak out their own voices? What could be the reason behind this strange submission towards the structure of order, discipline and power?

Nobody was there to protest against this obscene colonial circus of violence in a post-colonial time. Everything seemed to be seamless in the tea estates except the downfall of the price in the export tea market. And in the valley of green leaves, there was a trace of blood too. Beyond the obvious yet vulgar contrast between the lavish and luxurious lifestyle of the management and the silent procession of starvation

My journey thus began in search of a change, a shift, and a rupture in the existing colonial structure. I started exploring the gardens alone on foot like a stalker to feel the pulse of the workers. I roamed miles after miles, years after years, and in the process of organizing them against the injustice and violation of their rights by the management, I learned their tribal language too. Then slowly I started realizing their colonial frame of mind where these deprived workers await for a good master who can heal all their wounds.

Hence they feel scared. If they lose the job, where they would go? For, they have no home to live, no other means of sustenance outside this cage called the tea estate where they have been confined for generations after generations. And thats why they are destined to maintain the status quo. And as an obvious consequence of the history, they still remain ignorant about their rights, completely unaware of the nature and process of exploitation, of how their surplus labour is being appropriated by the system decades after decades, even in the age of modern democracy. In this context, I was searching for a platform from where the workers could raise their own voice breaking the hundred years of silence. And for this purpose, since 2009, I started mobilizing the workers through awareness campaigns concerning their rights as plantation workers and finally, on behalf of IUF, I was able to organise the workers movement in Nowera Nuddy Tea garden, a Tata Tea Enterprise in North Bengal, demanding justice against the violation of Maternity Benefit Act by the management. And then, for last 3 years, in collaboration with the Columbia University as a consultant, I have been trying to generate awareness among the workers across Dooars and Assam through the initiation of a complaint mechanism procedure to express their grievances against the violation of workers rights in all the 24 Tata tea gardens. Could we really do anything significant that could bring a rupture in this vicious circle of exploitation and violence. Still I see the traces of blood drops on the green leaves. Still the workers are living on the verge of death. They too want to live with dignity. But how? The answer, my friend, is still blowing in the wind

Nobody never ever could question the basis of their given wage structure which is fixed by an industrywise negotiation through a tripartite meeting between the Govt. administration, the planters and the corrupt trade union leaders from where the ground level workers have been excluded forever. And the irony lies in the fact that this wage for a permanent plantation worker has always been far below than the national floor level minimum wage for the unorganised labour sector. Even the workers dont have the slightest knowledge about the basis of their wage calculation. They only know that they have no other option but to accept the inhuman condition of living which is pregiven to them and determined from the above. From this point I started seeing the existing process from the below, from the perspective of the ground. I gradually discovered that there is a fear psychosis deeply engraved in the mind of these indentured workers who have been completely disconnected, displaced from not only their roots, their home and their culture, but also from their past, memory and history for more than last 100 years. Even the garden where they are bound to live is nottheir home, but only a temporary shelter until the tenure of their job ends. Hence, they suffer from a haunting nightmare that they might be thrown away, displaced from their temporary labour quarter at any moment whenever they get terminated illegally by a management offering only arbitrary allegation without proving anything. Nowhere can they go to seek any kind of support so that they can at least fight against the injustice and unlawful behaviour of the management.

Farm labour under pressure part 2 ctd

In the Philippines, agricultural labour is locked in struggle against large-scale plantation owners and state supported repression. The defeat at DolePhilippines in 2011 of the AK-NAFLU-KMU independent union was a major setback. Despite that, farm labour has risen again and again to protest against the harsh treatment they face...... 1 On the fruit plantations themselves, banana workers in the Compostela valley struck the Freshmax Trading Company plantation late in 2012 in a dispute over pay and benefits. Although the FWU-NAFLU-KMU union achieved a settlement, it hadn't been implemented when the banana growing areas were devastated by typhoon Pablo. In its wake, the employers began pushing through a general 'retrenchment' of employment conditions, exploiting the crisis for their own ends according to KMU union leader Roger Soluta. The Freshmax workers union was instructed by the company to dissolve itself! Latest news: Freshmax have now closed their plantation, affecting over 200 workers, and sold it to the Roto company. 3 Palm oil is big business in the Philippines. Not surprisingly there are major issues of labour rights and exploitation bound up with its cultivation. The plantations were exposed as heavily dependent upon the use of child labour in recent research carried out for the Centre of Trade Union and Human Rights up to 25% of the workforce are under the age of 17. At the root of this lies the poor situation of adult palm oil workers themselves low wages, limited employment and casualised status leaves them little choice but to draft in children to supplement family incomes. Speaking for the CTUHR, Daisy Arago said:
In the end, child labor can only end if parents have the capacity to support their children by upholding their rights to a living wage, access to livelihood and social services for children and themselves.

The Caraga region of the country witnessed coordinated strike action across three palm oil plantations in November 2012 around this issue of casualisation. Over 200 workers were sacked at the FPPI plantation after talking to government inspectors about their employment status more than 50% of the workforce is casual, and receives less pay and benefits because of that. On top of this, they endure poor housing conditions and a lack of clean water on the plantations. Under Filipino law, employees gain regular status if they work for a company for more than one year the employers routinely flout the law and government doesn't intervene.. Unions stayed out until the end of January 2013 when the government assumed jurisdiction of the dispute. At FPPI though the employer refused to reinstate the casuals. The FPPI workers union has had long-running battles with the company over collective bargaining and casualisation during the strike, members were subject to harassment by company security personnel and citizens militia. Negotiations during the strike proved fruitless and so far there is still no justice for the 200+ FPPI casuals.

2 Land distribution is at the heart of many conflicts across Asia. Most large-scale farming takes place on lands originally grabbed by colonists and converted for agro-export. On the Hacienda Luisita, a long-running dispute about the transfer of land to farm workers took another twist in 2012. The area came under military occupation and cooked-up charges of 'coercion' and 'occupation of property' were laid at the door of farmworkers union leaders, another tool used to deny workers rights. Today one year on from the promise to release the land, the farmers staged a 4 day march to Manila, to symbolise their still unmet demands.

the millions in action: demanding immigration reform USA

thanks to UNITE-HERE, NGA and CHIRLA for the photos.

SOLIDARITY INTERVIEW KEVIN THOMAS MAQUILA SOLIDARITY NETWORK

However it has been more difficult to make systemic changes, that is, changes in the way Maquila is the short form of the word companies are regulated or in the way they do maquiladora, which is a term used in Mexico and business, so that gains are more sustainable and Central America to describe factories that assemble imported component parts for duty-free dont need to rely on the brute force of a public campaign every time. This is the real challenge re-export. This is similar to the type of regime commonly known as an export processing zone in ahead. other parts of the world.

What is a maquila?

MSN has been campaigning for safer workplaces, especially in the garment industry. Any progress to report?

The garment industry employs a majority of The movement has been able to make substantial women, and women have always taken the lead in gains in specific cases forcing brands to accept organizing in this sector as a result. Womens responsibility for what happens in subcontracted organizations have historically done some of the most critical organizing in this industry in Central factories, and to commit to policies that forbid America and Mexico even while some unions were some of the worst labour practices. These are not dedicating resources to the sector. Within important things because international supply chains are very difficult for national governments the union movement in Central America there are also some very impressive women organizers as to effectively regulate. well. The movement has also been able to make brands deal with specific complaints at specific factories, e.g. to reinstate fired union organizers or to address health and safety violations. In some cases the movement has been able to open up spaces for more substantial gains, forcing companies to sign union access agreements or join in lobbying for changes to regressive labour laws.

The role of women as labour organisers is a key theme of your work. Is this a growing trend?

Maquilas and export processing zones often rely on migrant workers. What effect does this have on struggles to improve working conditions?

There are too many instances where high fees paid to labour brokers and the withholding of identity papers lock migrant workers into what amounts to forced labour. The broader problem is the issue of precarious work, either the precarious status of migrant workers or the issue of short-term contracts or hiring workers through third-party agencies. These limit the ability of workers to organize because employers can just fail to renew contracts for any troublemakers. And, where workers are being hired through third-party agencies, there is a further complication in collective bargaining because the real employer is not their legal employer.

Above: Bangladeshi garment workers demanding change All of these are deliberate efforts by employers

to avoid legal responsibility for workers, and to deny workers their right to organize and to bargain collectively.

'Freedom of Association'. Achievable goal or A note on Maquilas in the global economy utopian promise in today's global economy? National laws and strong national unions are no There were an estimated 3,500 maquiladoras or longer sufficient to protect this right in practice. export processing zones in the world economy Thats because both capital and production orders by 2008, employing 66 million people. Favoured are footloose in the kind of subcontracted by employers, they offer exemption from industries were dealing with. However, national labour and environmental regulation and laws, strong unions AND international solidarity exclusion of trade unions. The maquila /EPZ has can protect the right to freedom of association. flourished in countries that specialise in the production of components for, and assembly of, The challenge is to create the capacity and the manufactured goods. Mexico and the Central mechanisms to ensure that buyers and investors American territories, China and a number of cannot cut and run when unions organize in their South East Asian states are all popular sites.
supplier factories that they are held to the same international standards (and, ultimately, Maquila / EPZ hostility to trade unions is well regulations) wherever they go. Thats not utopian. understood but that doesn't mean unions can Its just hard work.

simply look elsewhere to focus their organising activity: It is vitally important that unions everywhere acquire the expertise to be able to organise these workers...... EPZs are not isolated 'no-go' areas for unions they are the model for future work patterns under globalisation (Jenny Holdcroft, IndustriALL).

Some of the challenges facing unions here were wel illustrated in last year's Playfair report into the Asian garment sector. In the Filipino Mactan Economic Zone, no unions were found. The ITGLWF provided evidence of union-busting and access to the zone was strictly controlled by government security forces, preventing union organisers from entering workplaces. Although union rights are legally present, a climate of violence and intimidation exists, with both employers and state forces involved. Across the Sri Lankan EPZs only 31 factories out of a total of 259 had independent unions. The authorities were promoting 'employees Above: Members of the union at Gildans Star councils' as alternatives to unions employer factory, Honduras. They have been subjected to controlled and funded bodies granting them threats of violence. sole 'negotiating' rights. None of these had ever achieved a collective bargaining agreement however. Supplementing these barriers were Inspired? Then head to the MSN website for the usual tactics of threats, intimidation and more: http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/ controlled zone access.

BOOK REVIEW SCATTERED SAND: the story of china's rural migrants.

Since being published in September 2012, HsaioHung Pais Scattered Sand has been widely acclaimed, both in the broadsheets and on the political left. This is no mean feat at a time when there are a plethora of books on China being released, the book has stood out as an important and original contribution, accessible to the new reader on China and yet original enough to interest people more engaged in the debate. Last month it was shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. ( http://breadandrosesprize.wordpress.com/) In a recent interview with Socialist Review magazine, she said: Travelling by train makes it easy to meet people - travelling in the same cabins, you can get to know them. ( http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php? articlenumber=12166 ).

It is this desire to get to know people which is the key to the vibrancy of Scattered Sand. Some of the people Pai meets up with in China are contacts from the research she did in Britain (for instance, she follows up some of the cockle pickers families) or family connections (she is I first encountered Hsaio-Hung Pais work when originally from Taiwan, but has family who are doing some research on migrant workers in the mainlanders), but many of the people she talks North East of England. Pai had studied at Durham to are chance encounters people who are willing University and one of the first cases she talks to talk about their own experiences of migration about in her first book, Chinese Whispers was and the effects of poverty on their lives. She lets that of a Chinese worker, Zhang Guo-Hua, who them tell their own stories and that is what makes had collapsed and died while working in a this book both so readable and moving. components plant in Hartlepool. The factory supplied parts to Samsung and Zhang earned in The term Scattered Sand actually comes from the region of 1.50 an hour after tax. On the day the Kuomintang leader Sun Yatsen, who used it as he died, he had been working a 12 hour shift and a way of describing the disunity of the Chinese had been suffering with acute headaches. Told to people against Western Imperialism. In modern keep working and denied a break, he died three China, however, the phrase is being increasingly hours after his shift. used to describe the 200 million migrant workers, That was on our doorstep, but at no point had I who move yearly from poor rural communities in seen any coverage of it in the local news nor had I China to the industrial areas like Guangdong to spotted it in any reports about migrant labour in find work. the region. Chinese Whispers, published in 2008 and similarly nominated for the Orwell Prize, told We hear about these workers occasionally in the the tale of the 21 or more Chinese cockle pickers Western media usually when a number of them who were drowned at Morecambe Bay but in die, as in the spate of suicides at Foxconn. Even some ways it is the way in which Hsaio-Hung Pai here, we tend to see Chinese workers in terms of digs out the personal, small scale stories which their numbers. The sheer size of China and the really makes her work so powerful. dominant story of its ascendancy as an economic entity present a problem to anyone wanting to dig Not long after finishing Chinese Whispers, Pai beneath the numbers and tell the story of the set out of a journey across China. Starting out at workers who actually produce our smart phones, Moscows Yaroslavsky railway station, she cheap trainers and sportswear. travelled to North Eastern China, to the coal mines and brick kilns of the Yellow River region, to the Olympic construction sites and the factories of the Pearl River Delta. Importantly, she also let her travels take her to less well known areas of industrial development or decline, painting a very nuanced picture of the Chinese state and its relationship to its migrant workers. All of her travelling was done by train.

BOOK REVIEW CTD:

Stop press..... Qatar update

Hsaio-Hung Pai manages to overcome that problem As COTM#5 went to press news reached us of a new campaign launched by the International TUC and also strike a balance between personal engagement in the unfolding narrative and allowing on the labour situation in Qatar... the migrants she meets to speak for themselves. At times, her anger is palpable, as she traces the lives of people blighted by extreme personal danger and poverty. Her description of the underground blood clinics where the very poorest of Chinese society sell their blood even though they know they are almost certain to contract AIDS is heartwrenching. At other times on her journey, Pai puts herself in obvious danger by asking for unpaid wages or going undercover to meet migrants and gain their friendship. By allowing those relationships to take the lead, the journey takes us to unexpected, and at times dark, places. This is no travelogue, however. What Pai does very skilfully is to interweave both the recent history of China and the jaw dropping statistics that accompany this massive wave of migration and the struggle to survive. The difference is that, whereas some writers might inadvertently use statistics in a way that render the actors invisible, Pai ensures the people themselves stand as personal testimony to each one of those statistics. This extends to labour unrest, where again her research is thorough (you can see ample evidence of the use of China Labour Bulletin). Without being over optimistic, she identifies signs of an emerging workers movement independent of state sponsored trade unionism, based around the demands of migrant workers. Again, it is in the Chinese states interest to bury these disputes, but Pai seems to suggest that this is untenable in the long term. 200 million people, the logic seems to say, can never stay invisible for long. This chimes absolutely with Hsaio-Hung Pais whole endeavour, both in Chinese Whispers and in Scattered Sand: to ensure that these migrant workers cannot be seen as ghosts.

'Rerun the vote: no world cup without workers rights' is calling for FIFA and the Qatari authorities to make good their previous pledges to do something concrete about the exploitation of migrant workers in the Gulf state

THE EXTRAS On the situation of migrant labour in the Gulf states, see the Human Rights Watch website at http://www.hrw.org/ and ITUC reports at http://www.ituc-csi.org/ For the new campaign on migrant labour in Qatar - http://www.rerunthevote.org/ The lives of the undocumented millions in the US are featured in numerous reports filed by David Bacon, available from his website http://dbacon.igc.org/index.htm. For a recent example of federal workplace attacks on undocumented labour organising see http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/05/bakery-workers-speak-out-afterimmigration-silent-raid-oakland On guestworkers in the US see the National Guestworker Alliance at http://www.guestworkeralliance.org/ For day labourers, try the National Day Labor Organising Network at http://www.ndlon.org/en/ Alternative proposals for immigration reform can be followed at http://dignitycampaign.org/ For the Maquila Solidarity Network go to http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/ On the Tata tea campaign in India go to http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi? db=default&uid=default&ID=6316&view_records=1&en=1 Filipino labour issues can be followed through the Centre for Trade Union and Human Rights website http://ctuhr.org/ and the KMU site http://www.kilusangmayouno.org/ Information on export processing zones in Asia is available from the Asia Monitor Resource Center http://www.amrc.org.hk/. For the 2012 Playfair report on Olympic supply chains in Asia go to http://www.play-fair.org/media/?lang=en. Scattered Sands is out in paperback on the 1 st of June 2013 and is available from the Peoples Bookshop Durham http://peoplesbookshop.co.uk/