The oligarchic Noboa government of Ecuador has brought in a law whose attack on labour rights includes the right for employers to demand Ten Hour working days and makes it easier for employers to avoid paying overtime, which accounts for up to 30% of workers’ income. This is not unique, the dynastic Mitsotakis government of Greece has done the same. What is special to Ecuador is that it follows the defeat of the oligarch’s attempt to massively change the country’s Constitution. This has made for an urgency in legalising its attacks on workers and its Indigenous populations and their land. What is also distinctive is the ferocity of physical attacks on those protesting Ministerial Agreement MDT.2026-059. At Plaza de Santo Domingo in Quito, heavily armed police used stun guns and tear gas while mounted police ran over one citizen and beat another while the government responsible talks of “flexibility” and “pragmatism”.
The strike by workers of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 “at the JBS “meat processing” operation at Greely, Colorado in the USA which started in the middle of March is the first such strike in Forty years. JBS though nominally Brazilian is one of the four oligarchs of the business who all have slaughterhouse, cutting and packaging integrated operations. During the worst period of the COVID virus (that continues to transform itself) these workplaces were revealed to be epicentres of the virus and its transmission with little regard for their mostly immigrant workforces. The Greely plant was one of the worst. In the present striking workers have documented unfair labour practices, instances of labour trafficking and wage theft, along with pay that has not kept up with Colorado’s cost of living. The reference to the immediate area cost-of-living us special. The work is dangerous and despite ICE it still depends a lot on immigrant workers that are seeking asylum here on TPS (temporary protected status), under a national regime for whom eating beef is close to godliness . Striking workers have documented unfair labour practices, instances of labour trafficking and wage theft, along with pay that has not kept up with Colorado’s cost of living.
The dangers and caste discrimination of workers cleaning public and private sewage in India has been recognised , has had to be recognised with the number of deaths involved. A recent report shows a similar situation in Pakistan. It documents widespread injuries, deaths and hazardous working conditions, including exposure to toxic gases and unsafe sewers, with little enforcement of health and safety regulations. It finds that women sanitation workers are hit particularly hard, frequently earning less than the minimum wage and facing greater barriers to accessing social protection schemes.
Germany like most of the relatively prosperous world is suffering a crisis of demographics. The economy needs to attract 288,000 foreign workers per year, Otherwise the workforce could shrink by 10% by 2040, has said the report by the Bertelsmann Foundation think tank. This recognition is coupled with constant attacks on those foreign workers who do come and keep the show on the road. German Chancellor from the respectable Conservatives has recently called for the Syrian refugees who kept the economy going to leave. At the same time the active recruitment of workers from India has increase many times over in the last 5 years.