Labour conditions and the iPhone

A new article entitled "The politics of global production: Apple, Foxconn and China's new working class" has appeared in the Asia-Pacific journal examining labour relations that underlie the production of the iPhone. Its abstract reads:

Apple's commercial triumph rests in part on the outsourcing of its consumer electronics production to Asia. Drawing on extensive fieldwork at China's leading exporter—the Taiwanese-owned Foxconn—the power dynamics of the buyer-driven supply chain are analysed in the context of the national terrains that mediate or even accentuate global pressures. Power asymmetries assure the dominance of Apple in price setting and the timing of product delivery, resulting in intense pressures and illegal overtime for workers. Responding to the high-pressure production regime, the young generation of Chinese rural migrant workers engages in a crescendo of individual and collective struggles to define their rights and defend their dignity in the face of combined corporate and state power.

-- Bob Barnetson

Medical repatriation of migrant farm workers in Ontario

The Canadian Medical Association Journal has published an article examining medical repatriation of migrant farm workers in Ontario. The upshot is this:

During 2001–2011, 787 repatriations occurred among 170 315 migrant farm workers arriving in Ontario (4.62 repatriations per 1000 workers). More than two-thirds of repatriated workers were aged 30–49 years. Migrant farm workers were most frequently repatriated for medical or surgical reasons (41.3%) and external injuries including poisoning (25.5%).

Medical repatriations is one of the ugly undersides of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP)—get hurt on the job and your employer may put you on a plane home.

-- Bob Barnetson

Voluntary codes of conduct in supply chains

The Journal of Cleaner Production (yes, that’s a thing!) has just published an interesting article entitled “Do codes of conduct improve worker rights in supply chains? A study of Fair Wear Foundation”. Factories and wholesalers often adopt voluntary codes of conduct in factories in the developing world when faced with allegations of inhumane working conditions (e.g., child labour, deaths due to factory fires or collapses). The question is whether these code have any real impact. This article suggests the answer is “not really”.

Here is the abstract:

The rise of private regulation of sustainability in global production networks has led to intensive debates about the impact of this regulation at the point of production. Yet, few empirical studies have systematically examined this impact in practice. Based on multiple factory audits of 43 garment factories conducted by the multi-stakeholder initiative Fair Wear Foundation, we show that codes of conduct improve (although marginally) worker rights on an overall level but that few significant results are found for specific worker rights. 

Our findings also lend support to the widespread argument that codes have uneven impact. Furthermore, we show that even rigorous multi-stakeholder factory audits seldom are able to identify process rights violations (such as those affecting freedom of association and discrimination), and that auditing is thus is more fundamentally flawed than assumed in previous research. Given companies’ extensive investments in private regulation of worker rights, the findings have important implications for both scholars and managers.

-- Bob Barnetson

Precarious employment in southern Ontario

Volume 22 of Just Labour has been published and it contains a series of articles examining [poverty and employment precarity in southern Ontario. Sadly, this will be the last issue of Just Labour produced.

-- Bob Barnetson

Hw the Conservatives expanded the temporary worker pipeline

The Canadian Labour Congress has explained the temporary foreign worker program in this handy little comic. A very clear explanation of the history and politics of this issue. Interestingly, they dropped the word "foreign" from the title. Happy labour day!

Happy labour day!

Farms, injuries and kids

The issue of farm safety has come around a few times this summer. Last week a 39-year-old man died after falling seven metres while demolishing a barn on a farm. OHS stopped its investigation because it has no jurisdiction on farms—even if the worker was not doing a task most of us would consider farm work.

Because Alberta excludes so-called farmworkers from virtually all of its labour laws, there will never be an investigation of his death (since it wasn’t otherwise criminal) and the worker’s dependants will likely have no compensation for his death—unless they sue the farmer, who will then likely declare bankruptcy.

Earlier this summer, a U of C study suggested that the blanket exemption of farmworkers from basic workplace rights (e.g., right to refuse unsafe work, child labour laws, workers’ compensation, right to form a union) likely violated the Charter of Rights of Freedoms. Yet candidates for the leadership of the Tory Party (i.e., the next premier) refuse to endorse providing basic rights for these workers. They couch this Little House on the Prairie notions of farms (which today average 1100 acres…) but basically they the PC Party is in the electoral soup and are pandering to the rural vote.

A few weeks back, an interesting case popped up in Saskatchewan that usefully illustrates the issue and its dynamics. A farm family was allowing its own 8- and 10-year-old children to work in a chicken processing operation they ran on their farm (the kids had been working in it since they were 2). They also employed neighbour’s children who were under 16. They were ordered to cease employing children necause that violated health and safety laws.

Did they comply with the child labour laws? Hell no, they bitched to the media. This caused the usual brouhaha, with commentators attesting to the value of hard work and the necessity of children working to keep farms afloat.

While these assertions are likely heartfelt, that doesn’t mean they are valid or the most important considerations. Consider these two points:

1. Having children working in what is effectively a small meatpacking plant exposes them to physical hazards (e.g., sharps, repetitive motions) and biological hazards (e.g., bacteria), hazards that may pose a greater threat of children (due to their physical and cognitive immaturity). Consequently, the state has quite correctly deemed these tasks inappropriate for workers under age 16 to perform.
2. Allowing children to perform such dangerous jobs is essentially sacrificing the health of children in order to keep economically unviable business afloat. That is pretty blunt, but if a farm can’t make it without the (often unpaid) work of 2- or 8- or 10-year-olds, isn’t it better to let the farm go belly up?

Predictably, the government assessed the impact of actually upholding child labour laws on farms, crapped its electoral pants (figuratively, I assume) and reversed its order for the farmers' own children ("go to it kids!"). I wonder how the Minister involved will feel the next time a kid dies doing dangerous work on a farm because provincial inspectors have been told to turn a blind eye?

-- Bob Barnetson