call of the millions 5 summer 2013

7/28/2019 Call of the Millions 5 Summer 2013

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Call of the millions 5Call 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;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 millions in action p9; solidarity interview p10; book review p12; the extras p14.


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Migration and the millionsMigration and the millions

In today's global economy it is not just capital andmoney that flow across international borders.Labour is increasingly mobile too. Recentestimates put their numbers at 214 million. Someof the largest and most dynamic economies areheavily reliant on migrants USA, China, the oil-rich Middle East.In Dubai the total population of 2 million arepractically all foreign nationals, arriving from theIndian sub-continent and the Philippines to workand send money home to their families. This'remittance money' now tops $500 billion globally outstripping aid and development flows in manycases. There are many well-worn migration routes

and channels criss-crossing the world economy......

a) Opulence and Misery in the Gulf States.

Historically the Middle East has always relied onoverseas labour. The gulf states, oil-rich butlabour-poor, are at the centre of this trafficflow, sucking in thousands of workers toundertake construction work and the domesticservicing of elites and professional expats. AndDubai, jewel of the United Arab Emirates, is the

most extreme example 'an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption' whereoutlandish mega projects spring up apparently atwill out of the desert.

The heavy lifting here is another matter. Massesof South Asian workers are recruited as bondedlabour, legally tied to their new employer, lacking

trade unions or any rights of protest orcitizenship wide open to extreme modes ofexploitation.

The work is severe toil in the apocalyptic heatdistorts the body: exertion, sleep and evenpassing urine, our daily rituals, become savagetasks. Outside work, the lifters are penned inhuge labour camps that at Sonapur holds over150,000 captive souls. Squalid and overcrowded,

these dwellings further sap the will anddetermination of the migrants. Numerous suicideshave been reported so many that the authoritieshave stopped counting.

Piling on the misery, when the construction boomstalled in the global economic crisis, these migrantsquads were quickly dumped by their employers,who cut off their wages, power supplies to theircamps, and failed to return their passports. TheSouth Asians were effectively stranded, forcedinto the underground economy. From time to time'the unruly voice of labour' has made itself heardin the construction zones, but rebellions andprotests have only led to arrests and deportationsso far, rather than winning rights for trade unionsor citizenship entitlements.

As for Dubai so for the other gulf territories.The NGO Human Rights Watch and theInternational TUC have repeatedly demonstratedthe appalling treatment of migrant workers theyall 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 therun-up to its staging the 2022 World Cup. Herethe ITUC is leading the charge to repeal the banon trade unions for migrant workers, improveworking and living conditions and tackle its labour

sponsorship system. In late 2012 the ITUC stagedthe first ever workers protest in the territory.


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It is the practice of bonded labour (the Kafalasponsorship system) that many see as thefundamental problem. Recruited in their homelandand forced into debt to pay for their passage tothe gulf, these young labourers become theeffective property of their new employer.

Promised contracts are redrawn on arrival, leavingmigrants unable to repay their loans, theirpassports are confiscated by employers and theyhave no freedom of movement. It is impossible tolegally change jobs, or leave the country withoutthe employer's agreement absconders facearrest and deportation if caught. Tied down inthis way, these conscripts are unable to avoid theextreme labour regimes imposed upon them.

b) Progress and Change North of the Border?

Latino migration across the Rio Grande is a labourflow of longer duration. The history is uneven attimes open exchange and movement, other erassaw restrictions in place, like the Bracero guestworker programme of the mid twemtieth century.Today of course there are a range of policiestrying to stem these flows militarised borderenforcement, employer sanctions, the harassment

of Latinos in the US through extra criminalchecks and exclusion from welfare. Despite allthat Latinos have been surging northwards,keeping the fields, building sites, food-procesingand hospitality industries of corporate Americaturning. The total immigrant population of the USis now some 40 million, with around 11 million ofthese 'undocumented' or illegals.

As for their rights..........well the armies of theundocumented are most vulnerable. Desperateenough to endure harsh labour conditions orforced to rely on intermittent day labouring, theyare at threat through a political drive to flush out

'illegals' at work either through federal raids orsocial security number check-ups.

Any migrant workers trying to improve theirsituation through labour organising are especiallyat risk. Smaller numbers of guest workers, in theH2-A and H2-B programmes, are legally presentbut tied to their employment contracts:

legality is no guarantee of decent conditions, asthe National Guestworker Alliance has shown.

Housing is a particular problem for migrantworkers. Even those lucky enough to avoid thelabour camps or having to sleep in the fields orcars, can find their settlements contaminated byagrochemicals that sweep the fields clean ofpests, and put at risk health wise. As well as thisthere are growing numbers of so-called'unincorporated communities', where no localauthority provides sewage, safe water, roads orstreet lighting, leaving residents exposed to filthand disease. There could be as many as 1.8 millionpeople living in these colonias across California.

So what is to be done??There are a number of organisations, campaignsand programmes already at work on these issues.At the grassroots level, migrants have set up

their own organisations to try and improve theirworking prospects and living conditions inrespect of community facilities, environmentalthreats, and the street corner practices of daylabouring. For the day labourers, a national body(NDLON) has now emerged to take forward theirdemands: the National Guestworker Alliance(NGA) performs an analogous role for thatsegment of the migrant population. A novel seriesof independent worker centres has also beenestablished to advise migrant workers and offer

organisational support across the country.


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Trade unions are busy organising the growingranks of migrant labour, especially in areas likeLos Angeles, as the demographics of theworkforce began to change. In some cases thisshift has revived union densities and activism political traditions carried by migrants to the US

have fertilised new struggles. At the highest levelthe AFL-CIO swing behind the immigrant rightsagenda, supporting an amnesty for theundocumented, has led to its collaboration withNDLON, NGA, and the worker centres.

Immigration reform is now once again at the topof the national political agenda. The corporate political elite option now recognises demands forlegalisation of the undocumented, but ties this tofurther enforcement and sanctions against'illegals', plus an expansion of the guest worker

programme. For many in the immigrant rightsmovement and its labour supporters this mixtureis too restrictive.

Those grouped together within the DignityCampaign see migration as a human right, whoseexercise shouldn't be subject to border patrolsor workplace interrogations. They oppose anyextra guestworker programmes, citing theirabysmal record of mistreating workers who aretied to a particular employment.

In place of worker abuse, Dignity Campaigners callfor increased rights at work and betterenforcement of existing protections, giving allemployees equal rights and mutual interests in theworkplace. A common programme could bringtogether all sections of the working class migrants, Afro-Americans and whites by linkingimmigration reform to the goals of fullemployment, organising rights and freedom of

movement. Jobs and Rights for everyone, ratherthan destructive competition and division.

Migrants come from somewhere - their lands oforigin. And for the Dignity Campaign the role ofUS international trade agreements (NAFTA,CAFTA and co) in migrant flows has been crucial.Far too often, it is the devastating consequencesof neo-liberal globalisation and 'structuraladjustment' programmes that lie at their root.New opportunities for US investment mean thedestruction of farming livelihoods, local industriesand public services south of the border, leavingmasses of people with little alternative but tohead north in search of economic survival.

This is forced migration; it needs to be halted,

stopping further neo-liberal trade agreements andrenegotiating existing ones. Adequate economicsupports must be put in place in lands of origin,allowing people to work and live there, in order tostop poverty-driven displacement. Without thatthe millions will still come, despite the walls,patrols and criminalisation faced along the way.

The outcome?The outcome? Well the corporate-political eliteoption holds sway so far. The best bits eventuallegalisation for the undocumented, some

protection for US organised labour in relation toguestworkers - are one step forward, butdefinitely not enough.


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Farm labour under pressure part 2 asiaFarm labour under pressure part 2 asia

We hear most about Asian workers in the garmentfactories and IT assembly plants these days. Butthe majority of the continent's labour force arestill rooted to the land, working as subsistencefarmers or hired labour on large plantations. Asiaholds around 700 million agricultural workers, anincredible 70% of the world's total. First we havea report by Ashwini Sukthankar on the case ofthe Indian tea pickers....

On May Day this year, Oxfam released a report, titledUnderstanding Wage Issues in the Tea Industry. Thebland title and the jargon inside are a bit like a smokescreen, trying to blur the plain truth. The bottom line isthis: all over the world, the workers who labour in teaplantations whether in India, or Malawi, or Indonesia

are paid starvation wages. It doesn't matter if theplantation claims to be Fair Trade, or if it'sparticipating in some other ethical certificationprocess, or if its tea is so rare and delicate that it isexported halfway around the world for hundreds ofdollars a kilo the wages are just as low.

How can this be? How could all of the mobilizations andglobal campaigns of recent years have left the sectorso unchanged? As a trade unionist from India once toldme, years ago, tea is different in ways that makeorganizing and campaigning for change especially

difficult. So, while agricultural day-labourers in Indiahave seen modest gains in wages, and the rise of strongunions, this is not for the most part true for teaplantation workers. The reasons for this certainly arerooted the colonial histories of the tea plantationsystem, but also include ongoing state repression andmassive employer collusion. The example of Assam astate in the Northeast of India producing more than50% of the country's tea illustrates this well.

the historythe history

In the late 1800s, British planters setting up teaplantations in Assam realized that they would have toimport workers to the isolated, malaria-infested banksof the Brahmaputra river, to clear the land, plant thebushes and pluck the leaves. The planters brought inwhole families from the centre of India indigenouspeople 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 theytried to stop work, or demand higher wages. Theirdescendants continue to pluck and tend Assam's teabushes, living in the employer-owned labour quarters.

The ways of exercising control may have changed(workers can't be arrested for trying to leave theirjobs anymore), but the control itself has not. Theextreme isolation of the plantations makes it hard forworkers to seek work elsewhere, and helps keeps wagelevels depressed. The threat of losing the only homesthey know makes it difficult for workers to protest.The tea workers are also isolated from the widercommunity, not only because of the physical isolation,but because they continue to speak the language of theregions their ancestors came from Sadri ratherthan Assamese.

the state and the employersthe state and the employers

Soon after Indian independence, the ruling CongressParty contacted the employers' association in the stateof Assam, and brokered a deal. Under the arrangementthat was worked out, the Congress Party's trade unionwould have exclusive representation of tea plantationworkers in the state, and in return, it promised theemployers in the Indian Tea Association that it woulddo nothing that might upset the present relationsbetween management and labour.

Both sides have kept their promise. The union, theAssam Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS), serves employersby functioning only as an intermediary between workersand management, conveying management orders toworkers, and trying to contain any seeds of workerunrest. In return, employers deduct union dues fromalmost every single worker on the plantations, whetherpermanent or temporary, and refuse to negotiate in anyway with any other union that might try to emerge.


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Farm labour under pressure part 2 ctdFarm labour under pressure part 2 ctd

As the International Union of Foodworkers described ina recent posting on their website condemning theACMS, A major part of the problem facing teaworkers in Assam is the denial of the right to join a

genuine trade union.

The state of Assam continues to use its power toensure that tea plantation workers remain inexpensiveto employ and easy to suppress. Assam has refused toimplement a statutory minimum wage for the teasector, which means that wages are set only throughtripartite negotiation. Given that the three negotiatingparties are the employers' association, the Assamgovernment, and the Assam government's trade union,it is not surprising that wages remain so low. Inaddition, the state has used the excuse that

insurgents and Maoists are operating on theplantations to engage in surveillance, arbitrarydetention and random violence against workers.

And so, even though the law explicitly allows for publicaccess to the labour quarters where workers live, thestate insists on colluding with employers to denyworkers the right to receive visitors, including tradeunion organizers and journalists.

the reckoningthe reckoning

Given this background, it is not surprising as a tradeunionist told me in a conversation several years ago that it is difficult to imagine what Fair Trade orethical tea could even look like. Tea workers in Assamare hardly passive or mute, but the structures of statepower and historical exclusion are a powerful barrier totheir efforts to demand justice at work.

Tales from the tea organiser......Tales from the tea organiser......

And here is a powerful, unique perspective fromSarmishtha Biswas, an organiser working on theIndian tea estates....

Since my college days, I felt a strong craving toexcavate the margins, the outside of the existingsystem and the people of the lower depths who areexcluded from the Meta narrative of The Developmentin the era of globalization. The Tea plantation sector inNorth-east India is one of those sites that still remainsas an object of collective amnesia in todays world.

I first visited the tea gardens across Dooars in NorthBengal in 2005 for a research project jointly organisedby PBKMS (Pashchim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, an

agricultural labour organisation which is affiliated byIUF) and IUF (International Union of Food Workers).

I hoped to understand the plight of the workers and inparticular their living conditions in 22 closed gardens. Iwanted to listen to the unheard voices on the ground inorder to realize the colonial legacy of the exploitativestructure existing in the Indian tea industry since itsadvent in the mid-19th century. But, I was extremelyshocked with the sheer reality I experienced in theclosed gardens, as if I was walking through the deathcorridors.

Hundreds of tea workers were dying a silent deathacross Dooars out of starvation, while many a hundredwere waiting to embrace the death without anyresistance, without any protest, without any anger. Noaid reached the poor, destitute workers from thegovernment of our democratic, welfare state due to thecorruption and coercion embedded within the entiresystem. And the trade union leaders were in deepslumber, because they had already been purchased bythe management.

Nobody was there to protest against this obscenecolonial circus of violence in a post-colonial time.Everything seemed to be seamless in the tea estatesexcept the downfall of the price in the export teamarket. And in the valley of green leaves, there was atrace of blood too. Beyond the obvious yet vulgarcontrast between the lavish and luxurious lifestyle ofthe management and the silent procession of starvation

deaths of the hapless workers in the locked outcorridors of the tea belt, I started asking myself whyon earth all these indentured tribal workers remainedsilent, why they cant speak out their own voices?What could be the reason behind this strangesubmission towards the structure of order, disciplineand power?


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

Nobody never ever could question the basis of theirgiven wage structure which is fixed by an industry-wise negotiation through a tripartite meeting betweenthe Govt. administration, the planters and the corrupttrade union leaders from where the ground levelworkers have been excluded forever. And the irony liesin the fact that this wage for a permanent plantationworker has always been far below than the nationalfloor level minimum wage for the unorganised labour

sector. Even the workers dont have the slightestknowledge about the basis of their wage calculation.They only know that they have no other option but toaccept the inhuman condition of living which is pre-given to them and determined from the above.

From this point I started seeing the existing processfrom the below, from the perspective of the ground. Igradually discovered that there is a fear psychosisdeeply engraved in the mind of these indenturedworkers who have been completely disconnected,displaced from not only their roots, their home andtheir culture, but also from their past, memory andhistory for more than last 100 years.

Even the garden where they are bound to live isnottheir home, but only a temporary shelter until thetenure of their job ends. Hence, they suffer from ahaunting nightmare that they might be thrown away,displaced from their temporary labour quarter at anymoment whenever they get terminated illegally by amanagement offering only arbitrary allegation withoutproving anything. Nowhere can they go to seek any kind

of support so that they can at least fight against theinjustice and unlawful behaviour of the management.

Hence they feel scared. If they lose the job, wherethey would go? For, they have no home to live, no othermeans of sustenance outside this cage called the teaestate where they have been confined for generationsafter generations. And thats why they are destined tomaintain the status quo. And as an obvious consequenceof the history, they still remain ignorant about theirrights, completely unaware of the nature and processof exploitation, of how their surplus labour is beingappropriated by the system decades after decades,even in the age of modern democracy.

In this context, I was searching for a platform fromwhere the workers could raise their own voice breakingthe hundred years of silence. And for this purpose,since 2009, I started mobilizing the workers throughawareness campaigns concerning their rights asplantation workers and finally, on behalf of IUF, I was

able to organise the workers movement in NoweraNuddy Tea garden, a Tata Tea Enterprise in NorthBengal, demanding justice against the violation ofMaternity Benefit Act by the management.

And then, for last 3 years, in collaboration with theColumbia University as a consultant, I have been tryingto generate awareness among the workers acrossDooars and Assam through the initiation of a complaintmechanism procedure to express their grievancesagainst the violation of workers rights in all the 24Tata tea gardens.

Could we really do anything significant that could bringa rupture in this vicious circle of exploitation andviolence. Still I see the traces of blood drops on thegreen leaves. Still the workers are living on the vergeof death. They too want to live with dignity. But how?The answer, my friend, is still blowing in the wind


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Farm labour under pressure part 2 ctdFarm labour under pressure part 2 ctd

In the Philippines, agricultural labour is locked instruggle against large-scale plantation owners andstate supported repression. The defeat at Dole-Philippines in 2011 of the AK-NAFLU-KMU

independent union was a major setback. Despitethat, farm labour has risen again and again toprotest against the harsh treatment they face......

1 On the fruit plantations themselves, bananaworkers in the Compostela valley struck theFreshmax Trading Company plantation late in 2012in a dispute over pay and benefits. Although theFWU-NAFLU-KMU union achieved a settlement, ithadn't been implemented when the bananagrowing areas were devastated by typhoon Pablo.

In its wake, the employers began pushing througha general 'retrenchment' of employmentconditions, exploiting the crisis for their own endsaccording to KMU union leader Roger Soluta. TheFreshmax workers union was instructed by thecompany to dissolve itself! Latest news: Freshmaxhave now closed their plantation, affecting over200 workers, and sold it to the Roto company.

2 Land distribution is at the heart of many

conflicts across Asia. Most large-scale farmingtakes place on lands originally grabbed bycolonists and converted for agro-export. On theHacienda Luisita, a long-running dispute about thetransfer of land to farm workers took anothertwist in 2012. The area came under militaryoccupation and cooked-up charges of 'coercion'and 'occupation of property' were laid at the doorof farmworkers union leaders, another tool usedto deny workers rights. Today one year on from

the promise to release the land, the farmersstaged a 4 day march to Manila, to symbolisetheir still unmet demands.

3 Palm oil is big business in the Philippines. Notsurprisingly there are major issues of labourrights and exploitation bound up with itscultivation. The plantations were exposed as

heavily dependent upon the use of child labour inrecent research carried out for the Centre ofTrade Union and Human Rights up to 25% of theworkforce are under the age of 17.

At the root of this lies the poor situation of adultpalm oil workers themselves low wages, limitedemployment and casualised status leaves themlittle choice but to draft in children tosupplement family incomes. Speaking for theCTUHR, Daisy Arago said:

In the end, child labor can only end if parents have thecapacity to support their children by upholding theirrights to a living wage, access to livelihood and socialservices for children and themselves.

The Caraga region of the country witnessedcoordinated strike action across three palm oilplantations in November 2012 around this issue ofcasualisation. Over 200 workers were sacked atthe FPPI plantation after talking to government

inspectors about their employment status morethan 50% of the workforce is casual, andreceives less pay and benefits because of that.On top of this, they endure poor housingconditions and a lack of clean water on theplantations. Under Filipino law, employees gainregular status if they work for a company formore than one year the employers routinelyflout the law and government doesn't intervene..

Unions stayed out until the end of January 2013when the government assumed jurisdiction of thedispute. At FPPI though the employer refused toreinstate the casuals. The FPPI workers union hashad long-running battles with the company overcollective bargaining and casualisation during thestrike, members were subject to harassment bycompany security personnel and citizens militia.Negotiations during the strike proved fruitless and so far there is still no justice for the 200+FPPI casuals.


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the millions in action: demanding immigration reform USAthe millions in action: demanding immigration reform USA

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


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SOLIDARITY INTERVIEW KEVIN THOMAS MAQUILA SOLIDARITY NETWORKSOLIDARITY INTERVIEW KEVIN THOMAS MAQUILA SOLIDARITY NETWORK

What is a maquila?Maquila is the short form of the wordmaquiladora, which is a term used in Mexico and

Central America to describe factories thatassemble imported component parts for duty-freere-export.This is similar to the type of regimecommonly known as an export processing zone inother parts of the world.

MSN has been campaigning for saferworkplaces, especially in the garmentindustry. Any progress to report?The movement has been able to make substantial

gains in specific cases forcing brands to acceptresponsibility for what happens in subcontractedfactories, and to commit to policies that forbidsome of the worst labour practices. These areimportant things because international supplychains are very difficult for national governmentsto effectively regulate.

The movement has also been able to make brandsdeal with specific complaints at specific factories,e.g. to reinstate fired union organizers or to

address health and safety violations. In somecases the movement has been able to open upspaces for more substantial gains, forcingcompanies to sign union access agreements or joinin lobbying for changes to regressive labour laws.

Above: Bangladeshi garment workers demanding change

However it has been more difficult to makesystemic changes, that is, changes in the waycompanies are regulated or in the way they do

business, so that gains are more sustainable anddont need to rely on the brute force of a publiccampaign every time. This is the real challengeahead.

The role of women as labour organisers is akey theme of your work. Is this a growingtrend?The garment industry employs a majority ofwomen, and women have always taken the lead inorganizing in this sector as a result. Womensorganizations have historically done some of themost critical organizing in this industry in CentralAmerica and Mexico even while some unions werenot dedicating resources to the sector. Withinthe union movement in Central America there arealso some very impressive women organizers aswell.

Maquilas and export processing zones oftenrely on migrant workers. What effect does

this have on struggles to improve workingconditions?There are too many instances where high feespaid to labour brokers and the withholding ofidentity papers lock migrant workers into whatamounts to forced labour. The broader problem isthe issue of precarious work, either theprecarious status of migrant workers or the issueof short-term contracts or hiring workersthrough third-party agencies.

These limit the ability of workers to organizebecause employers can just fail to renewcontracts for any troublemakers. And, whereworkers are being hired through third-partyagencies, there is a further complication incollective bargaining because the real employer isnot their legal employer.

All of these are deliberate efforts by employersto avoid legal responsibility for workers, and to

deny workers their right to organize and tobargain collectively.


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'Freedom of Association'. Achievable goal orutopian promise in today's global economy?National laws and strong national unions are nolonger sufficient to protect this right in practice.Thats because both capital and production ordersare footloose in the kind of subcontractedindustries were dealing with. However, nationallaws, strong unions AND international solidarity

can protect the right to freedom of association.

The challenge is to create the capacity and themechanisms to ensure that buyers and investorscannot cut and run when unions organize in theirsupplier factories that they are held to thesame international standards (and, ultimately,regulations) wherever they go. Thats not utopian.

Its just hard work.

Above: Members of the union at Gildans Starfactory, Honduras. They have been subjected to

threats of violence.

Inspired? Then head to the MSN website for

more: http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/

A note on Maquilas in the global economyA note on Maquilas in the global economy

There were an estimated 3,500 maquiladoras orexport processing zones in the world economyby 2008, employing 66 million people. Favoured

by employers, they offer exemption fromlabour and environmental regulation andexclusion of trade unions. The maquila /EPZ hasflourished in countries that specialise in theproduction of components for, and assembly of,manufactured goods. Mexico and the CentralAmerican territories, China and a number ofSouth East Asian states are all popular sites.

Maquila / EPZ hostility to trade unions is wellunderstood but that doesn't mean unions cansimply look elsewhere to focus their organisingactivity: It is vitally important that unionseverywhere acquire the expertise to be able toorganise these workers...... EPZs are notisolated 'no-go' areas for unions they are themodel for future work patterns underglobalisation (Jenny Holdcroft, IndustriALL).

Some of the challenges facing unions here werewel illustrated in last year's Playfair reportinto the Asian garment sector.In the Filipino Mactan Economic Zone, no unionswere found. The ITGLWF provided evidence ofunion-busting and access to the zone wasstrictly controlled by government securityforces, preventing union organisers fromentering workplaces. Although union rights arelegally present, a climate of violence andintimidation exists, with both employers andstate forces involved.

Across the Sri Lankan EPZs only 31 factoriesout of a total of 259 had independent unions.The authorities were promoting 'employeescouncils' as alternatives to unions employercontrolled and funded bodies granting themsole 'negotiating' rights. None of these hadever achieved a collective bargaining agreementhowever. Supplementing these barriers werethe usual tactics of threats, intimidation andcontrolled zone access.
http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/


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

Since being published in September 2012, Hsaio-Hung Pais Scattered Sand has been widelyacclaimed, both in the broadsheets and on thepolitical left. This is no mean feat at a timewhen there are a plethora of books on China being

released, the book has stood out as an importantand original contribution, accessible to the newreader on China and yet original enough tointerest people more engaged in the debate. Lastmonth it was shortlisted for the Bread and RosesAward for Radical Publishing.(http://breadandrosesprize.wordpress.com/)

I first encountered Hsaio-Hung Pais work whendoing some research on migrant workers in the

North East of England. Pai had studied at DurhamUniversity and one of the first cases she talksabout in her first book, Chinese Whispers wasthat of a Chinese worker, Zhang Guo-Hua, whohad collapsed and died while working in acomponents plant in Hartlepool. The factorysupplied parts to Samsung and Zhang earned inthe region of 1.50 an hour after tax. On the dayhe died, he had been working a 12 hour shift andhad been suffering with acute headaches. Told tokeep working and denied a break, he died three

hours after his shift.That was on our doorstep, but at no point had Iseen any coverage of it in the local news nor had Ispotted it in any reports about migrant labour inthe region. Chinese Whispers, published in 2008and similarly nominated for the Orwell Prize, toldthe tale of the 21 or more Chinese cockle pickerswho were drowned at Morecambe Bay but insome ways it is the way in which Hsaio-Hung Paidigs out the personal, small scale stories whichreally makes her work so powerful.

Not long after finishing Chinese Whispers, Paiset out of a journey across China. Starting out atMoscows Yaroslavsky railway station, shetravelled to North Eastern China, to the coalmines and brick kilns of the Yellow River region,to the Olympic construction sites and thefactories of the Pearl River Delta. Importantly,she also let her travels take her to less wellknown areas of industrial development or decline,

painting a very nuanced picture of the Chinesestate and its relationship to its migrant workers.All of her travelling was done by train.

In a recent interview with Socialist Reviewmagazine, she said: Travelling by train makes iteasy to meet people - travelling in the samecabins, 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 isthe key to the vibrancy of Scattered Sand.Some of the people Pai meets up with in China arecontacts from the research she did in Britain (forinstance, she follows up some of the cocklepickers families) or family connections (she isoriginally from Taiwan, but has family who aremainlanders), but many of the people she talks

to are chance encounters people who are willingto talk about their own experiences of migrationand the effects of poverty on their lives. She letsthem tell their own stories and that is what makesthis book both so readable and moving.

The term Scattered Sand actually comes fromthe Kuomintang leader Sun Yatsen, who used it asa way of describing the disunity of the Chinesepeople against Western Imperialism. In modernChina, however, the phrase is being increasingly

used to describe the 200 million migrant workers,who move yearly from poor rural communities inChina to the industrial areas like Guangdong tofind work.

We hear about these workers occasionally in theWestern media usually when a number of themdie, as in the spate of suicides at Foxconn. Evenhere, we tend to see Chinese workers in terms oftheir numbers. The sheer size of China and thedominant story of its ascendancy as an economic

entity present a problem to anyone wanting to digbeneath the numbers and tell the story of theworkers who actually produce our smart phones,cheap trainers and sportswear.
http://breadandrosesprize.wordpress.com/http://breadandrosesprize.wordpress.com/


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BOOK REVIEW CTD:

Hsaio-Hung Pai manages to overcome that problemand also strike a balance between personalengagement in the unfolding narrative and allowingthe migrants she meets to speak for themselves.

At times, her anger is palpable, as she traces thelives of people blighted by extreme personaldanger and poverty.

Her description of the underground blood clinicswhere the very poorest of Chinese society selltheir blood even though they know they arealmost certain to contract AIDS is heart-wrenching. At other times on her journey, Pai putsherself in obvious danger by asking for unpaid

wages or going undercover to meet migrants andgain their friendship. By allowing thoserelationships to take the lead, the journey takesus to unexpected, and at times dark, places.

This is no travelogue, however. What Pai doesvery skilfully is to interweave both the recenthistory of China and the jaw dropping statisticsthat accompany this massive wave of migrationand the struggle to survive. The difference isthat, whereas some writers might inadvertently

use statistics in a way that render the actorsinvisible, Pai ensures the people themselves standas personal testimony to each one of thosestatistics.

This extends to labour unrest, where again herresearch is thorough (you can see ample evidenceof the use of China Labour Bulletin). Withoutbeing over optimistic, she identifies signs of anemerging workers movement independent of statesponsored trade unionism, based around the

demands of migrant workers. Again, it is in theChinese states interest to bury these disputes,but Pai seems to suggest that this is untenable inthe long term. 200 million people, the logic seemsto say, can never stay invisible for long. Thischimes absolutely with Hsaio-Hung Pais wholeendeavour, both in Chinese Whispers and inScattered Sand: to ensure that these migrantworkers cannot be seen as ghosts.

Stop press..... Qatar updateAs COTM#5 went to press news reached us of anew campaign launched by the International TUCon the labour situation in Qatar...

'Rerun the vote: no world cup without workersrights' is calling for FIFA and the Qatariauthorities to make good their previous pledges todo something concrete about the exploitation ofmigrant workers in the Gulf state


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THE EXTRAS

On the situation of migrant labour in the Gulf states, see the Human Rights Watchwebsite 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 websitehttp://dbacon.igc.org/index.htm.For a recent example of federal workplace attacks on undocumented labourorganising seehttp://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/05/bakery-workers-speak-out-after-immigration-silent-raid-oakland

On guestworkers in the US see the National Guestworker Alliance athttp://www.guestworkeralliance.org/For day labourers, try the National Day Labor Organising Network athttp://www.ndlon.org/en/

Alternative proposals for immigration reform can be followed athttp://dignitycampaign.org/

For the Maquila Solidarity Network go tohttp://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 HumanRights website http://ctuhr.org/and the KMU site http://www.kilusangmayouno.org/

Information on export processing zones in Asia is available from the Asia MonitorResource Center http://www.amrc.org.hk/. For the 2012 Playfair report on Olympic

supplychains in Asia go tohttp://www.play-fair.org/media/?lang=en.

Scattered Sands is out in paperback on the 1st of June 2013 and is available from thePeoples Bookshop Durham http://peoplesbookshop.co.uk/
http://www.ituc-csi.org/http://dbacon.igc.org/index.htmhttp://dbacon.igc.org/index.htmhttp://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/05/bakery-workers-speak-out-after-immigration-silent-raid-oaklandhttp://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/05/bakery-workers-speak-out-after-immigration-silent-raid-oaklandhttp://dignitycampaign.org/http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=6316&view_records=1&en=1http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=6316&view_records=1&en=1http://ctuhr.org/http://www.amrc.org.hk/http://www.play-fair.org/media/?lang=enhttp://www.ituc-csi.org/http://dbacon.igc.org/index.htmhttp://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/05/bakery-workers-speak-out-after-immigration-silent-raid-oaklandhttp://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/05/bakery-workers-speak-out-after-immigration-silent-raid-oaklandhttp://dignitycampaign.org/http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=6316&view_records=1&en=1http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=6316&view_records=1&en=1http://ctuhr.org/http://www.amrc.org.hk/http://www.play-fair.org/media/?lang=en


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call of the millions 5 summer 2013

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