2,000 Thailand Fast Food Workers Win First Contract

2,000 Thailand Fast Food Workers Win First Contract

Thailand, KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Solidarity Center

Apantree Charoensak, union president, was fired from her position at Yum! Thailand during contract negotiations. Credit: Solidarity Center/Tula Connell

Some 2,000 fast food workers and supervisors at one of Thailand’s largest KFC franchises recently won the first-ever collective bargaining agreement in the kingdom’s fast food industry, a pact that includes an early retirement program, 23 meals provided by the company per year and motorcycle maintenance funds for delivery workers.

The contact also includes the right to union representation in any dispute or grievance, and paid union leave.

The workers are among 2,400 members represented by the Cuisine and Service Workers’ Union, an IUF affiliate.

During negotiations last month, union President Apantree Charoensak, who has been leading the struggle for fast food workers across Thailand for nearly a decade, was fired from her position at Yum! Thailand, which operates some of the KFC franchises. (The new contract covers KFC franchises run by Restaurant Development Ltd., which operates 130 of the 586 KFC restaurants in Thailand.)

Women representing 50 organizations in Thailand issued a statement of solidarity with Charoensak and submitted it to management of Yum! Thailand in Bangkok. Charoensak, along with two co-workers, had been previously dismissed in 2011 following her efforts to organize a union and negotiate a contract with Yum! Thailand. She and her co-workers were reinstated after filing a complaint with the country’s Labor Relations Commission describing their dismissal as retaliation for union activity, an action prohibited under Thai law.

Charoensak, a manager at the corporation where she supervised up to a dozen restaurants, says she began union organizing to rectify what she saw as a large pay disparity between front-line workers and managers. Ultimately two unions formed, one covering front-line employees and one for supervisors. Over the years, she says management also tried to end her union activism by offering her large sums of money, which she refused, and isolated her at work, giving her little to do—time she filled by completing a master’s degree in political science and addressing union members’ concerns.

Zimbabwe Women Stage Sit-In for Husbands’ Unpaid Wages

Zimbabwe Women Stage Sit-In for Husbands’ Unpaid Wages

Hundreds of women in western Zimbabwe who have waged a week-long sit-in at Hwange Colliery Co. Ltd. (HCCL), demanding unpaid wages for their husbands who labor in the company’s coal mines, say they are set to march to tourist-packed Victoria Falls. There, says the women’s spokesperson, Thokozile Ncube, “we will tell the world everything about the company and how our government has failed us.”

Carrying placards reading, “Five years no pay, but going to work everyday,” and “Enough is enough,” the women say they are not satisfied with the response of a former government minister who spoke with them Friday and said he would take their concerns to the president. The women vowed that if their husbands do not receive the wages owed since 2014 by February 15, they will march to Victoria Falls, some 62 miles to the north.

They also demand the resignation of the company’s CEO, who they say has not fulfilled a 2016 High Court order compelling management to pay workers’ back wages.

The women launched their action January 29 with a peaceful rally and have remained at the company’s headquarters, despite heavy rains. Last week, the National Mineworkers Union of Zimbabwe (NMWUZ) provided a tent to shelter the women.

Several thousand miners work in open-pit mines extracting millions of pounds of coal each month for use by power stations and in iron and steel smelting. Most of the workers live in houses in the mining village.

According to news reports, HCCL has been paying miners 50 percent of their salaries since the beginning of 2016 and last June, the company paid 7 percent of the employees’ 2014 outstanding wages.

Children Forced to Labor in Turkmenistan Cotton Fields

Children Forced to Labor in Turkmenistan Cotton Fields

Truckloads of children were sent to pick cotton during the Turkmenistan fall harvest, according to a new report by the Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN), an independent media and human rights organization. The children, along with tens of thousands of civil servants, including pregnant teachers, were forced to pick cotton for weeks in a government-led mass mobilization of forced labor that began August 15 and lasted through December.

In a secret order, “the local education department even sent a memo to the schools in [Ruhabat and Baharly] districts to organize the mobilization of children for the harvest during the fall break,” according to the report. ATN sources also reported a massive use of forced and child labor in several districts of Dashoguz, Lebap and Mary provinces.

Turkmenistan, forced labor, cotton harvest, child labor, human rights, Solidarity Center

“The cotton harvest feels like serfdom because you go to work in a rich man’s land”—public utility worker. Credit: ATN

A teacher told ATN that pregnant teachers showed their principal a doctor’s certificate to be excused from field work, but the principal forced them to go—and ramped up their cotton collection quota from 110 pounds a day to 132 pounds. Another source reports officials at institutions, like local schools, financially benefit from the use of forced labor.

A public utility service worker in Dashoguz province told ATN that if workers refused to pick cotton, they will lose their job. “The boss will happily hire someone else for your job and even get a bribe for it. Unemployment is so high in Dashoguz that bosses won’t have hard time finding your replacement.”

Although most of the cotton harvest takes place on government-run land, scores of cotton pickers also say they were forced to work in either private fields or lands leased long-term by wealthy landlords or high government officials. “The cotton harvest feels like serfdom because you go to work in a rich man’s land,” says the public utility worker.

Human Rights Abuses Rampant

The Turkmen government “tightly controls all aspects of public life and systematically denies freedoms of association, expression and religion,” according to Human Rights Watch. Gaspar Matalaev, an activist who provided photographs documenting child labor during Turkmenistan’s cotton harvest, was arrested in 2016 and is serving a three-year prison sentence on trumped-up fraud charges. He has reportedly been subjected to torture by electric current to force him to confess to false charges of minor fraud.

Turkmenistan remained in the lowest ranking in the U.S. State Department’s 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, meaning the government does not comply with minimum U.S. Trafficking Victims and Protection Act (TVPA) standards and is not making significant efforts to become compliant.

The Turkmenistan government “continued to use the forced labor of reportedly tens of thousands of its adult citizens in the harvest during the reporting period,” according to the report. “It actively dissuaded monitoring of the harvest by independent observers through harassment, detention, penalization, and, in some cases, physical abuse.”

In neighboring Uzbekistan, where 1 million public employees are forced to pick cotton each fall harvest, children also were forced into the fields this past fall. The government had stopped the practice in recent years following campaigns by international human rights organizations, low rankings in the US Trafficking in Persons Report and threats by the World Bank to curtail funding.

Migrant Domestic Workers Seek Rights in the Middle East

Migrant Domestic Workers Seek Rights in the Middle East

After spending seven years in Jordan as a domestic worker, Suryanti sought to return home to Indonesia to see her family. But her original employer, whom she left under duress, had confiscated her passport and would not give it back, leaving Suryanti in legal limbo as she tried to leave the country.

Securing a new passport required months of court filings and, ultimately, four-and-a-half-months in a detention center in Amman before Suryanti was allowed to leave the country. While confined, officials took her mobile phone, and she had no means to initiate communication with anyone.

In fact, some migrant workers who are jailed for not paying visa overstay fines in Jordan end up in detention for years. A survey found some 55 percent of migrant workers in detention were held between three weeks and four months, 18 percent for five to 11 months, and 5 percent for between one and two years.

“I didn’t know how long I would be there,” Suryanti says, describing her months in detention. “I was frightened.”

Jordan Domestic Workers Network

Indonesia, migrant worker, domestic worker, Solidarity Center

Now back in Indonesia, Suryanti plans to assist migrant domestic workers know their rights. Credit: Suryanti

With few legal rights in Jordan, domestic workers like Suryanti, 32, have been trying to improve the lives of migrant domestic workers with education, awareness training and legal aid through the Jordan Domestic Workers Network. Some 400 domestic workers have benefited from the network’s services, including 180 members from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Philippines and Sri Lanka. Suryanti, one of the founding members, says she has helped some 200 Indonesian migrant domestic workers take part in network activities, a task she undertook “because we have the same problems.”

Formed in 2014, the network is the first organization to bring together migrant domestic workers in the region, where countries typically prohibit migrant workers from forming or joining formal trade unions and negotiating with employers to improve wages and working conditions. Through the network’s partnership with the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), migrant workers also are connected with IDWF affiliates in some countries of origin. A key draw for domestic workers is the legal clinic with the Adalah Center for Human Rights Studies.

Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries operate under a kafala system, in which worker visas are tied to a particular employer, essentially inhibiting workers from reporting abuse and denying them the ability to change jobs. Employment contracts can only be terminated if both parties agree, if the duration of the contract has expired, or if the worker dies or is no longer capable of working due to a disease or disability certified by a medical authority. In practice, this means workers seeking to leave abusive employers often cannot get their permission and so are forced to seek employment elsewhere, without their passports.

Further, employers are responsible for annually renewing the work and residency permits of their employees, yet migrant workers are required to pay fines—$64 per month, nearly half the monthly salary of many workers—when employers do not renew the permits and they expire.

“Almost always, the original employer keeps our passport,” Suryanti says, speaking from Jakarta, where she now lives. “I don’t know why the original employer didn’t give us our passport because a passport is our right.”

Migrant Domestic Workers Vulnerable to Abuse on the Job

Migrant domestic workers from Indonesia and elsewhere not only are at risk of having their passports confiscated by employers, but often endure overwork and physical abuse, isolated in their employers’ homes.

A first-ever nationwide survey of Indonesian migrant workers by the World Bank gives a glimpse into the working conditions of all migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. The 2017 survey found some 26 percent of Indonesian migrant domestic workers in the region endure long working hours, 52 percent do not receive any days off, and 88 percent are not paid for overtime work. Suryanti says she left her first employer’s house after three months because in addition to cleaning the house, she was forced to clean the houses of the employer’s mother and sister, and was never allowed to rest.

“They always make me work, work, work, but you know, I am a human,” she says.

Between 440,000 and 540,000 migrants work in Jordan, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). More than 9 million Indonesians work abroad—nearly 7 percent of Indonesia’s total labor force (only China and the Philippines send more workers abroad). Roughly 40 percent are domestic workers and caregivers, and each year this predominantly female migrant workforce contributes 51 percent of total remittances sent to Indonesia.

Migrant workers also are at risk when they connect with unscrupulous labor brokers who make false promises about wages and working conditions. Suryanti says a labor broker in Indonesia told she would get a job abroad working in an office for $250 a month. Instead, she was forced to toil as a domestic worker for $150 a month. “I didn’t know I would be domestic worker,” she says.

Suryanti ultimately worked for several employers, most of whom abused and overworked her, and often would not pay her.

Despite her struggles, Suryanti remained active in the network, assisting domestic workers whenever possible. She attended English classes to improve her mastery of the language to better assist other domestic workers, and joined a training on care giving with migrant domestic workers from the Philippines to improve her work skills.

Now working as a cook and translator for an employee of a Middle Eastern embassy in the Indonesian capital, Suryanti is connecting with migrant workers and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SMBI), where she plans to continue her efforts ensuring those working in isolation have the power of solidarity.

Saudi Arabia Bars Foreign Workers from Retail Jobs

Saudi Arabia Bars Foreign Workers from Retail Jobs

Saudi Arabia has announced new restrictions on expatriate workers, yesterday naming 12 types of retail stores that can only hire Saudi citizens.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Development issued a directive, as part of the government’s “Saudization project,” barring foreigners from working in shops that sell carpets, electronics, eyeglasses, home and office furniture, kitchen utensils, sweets, textiles and watches, as well as medical equipment and tools stores, auto parts and accessories stores, construction materials stores and car and motorbike dealers. The move follows a similar directive in April 2017 banning expatriates from jobs in shopping malls. In December, the government announced fines for gold and jewelry shops employing non-Saudi workers.

Saudi Arabia has more than 11 million foreign workers.

In a similar move, Oman this week issued an immediate six-month freeze on migrant work visas in 10 sectors, including information systems and engineering.

The Gulf nation is attempting to diversify its economy, address unemployment among the Saudi population and decrease the public-sector workforce.

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