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1998 EAM Presidential Address: Human Rights in Employment |
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Alison M. Konrad, Temple University |
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We assign our students to read Upton Sinclair’s novel, "The Jungle", to explain the importance of protecting workers’ rights. As a result of unionization, the minimum wage, and occupational health and safety laws, most U.S. workers experience far more humane working conditions than their counterparts did at the turn of the 20th Century. We now approach the 21st Century, and for too many workers, it’s still a jungle out there. Conditions we would find intolerable and morally reprehensible thrive around the world, in developing countries but also in U.S. territories and often with U.S. complicity. Many have argued that the Academy of Management and the Eastern Academy of Management must become more relevant to the practice of business management. One way we can speak to management practice is to uphold fundamental standards of human rights in employment. This is the topic I wish to speak to you about today. During the 1990s, a strong international consensus has emerged supporting five fundamental human rights in employment:
These five core standards derive from the Universal Declaration of Human rights and have been embraced by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and the United Nations. It is important to affirm human rights in employment to stop the abuses that occur in the absence of pressure. Let me describe some examples. Child labor is perhaps one of the most horrendous examples of human rights abuses in employment. Child laborers are considered desirable in many parts of the world because they follow orders, are too timid to complain, are unlikely to assert their rights or try to form trade unions. Children can also be easily intimidated with physical punishment for making mistakes. Many child laborers toil in miserable, exploitative factories in which they are subjected to unsafe working conditions, denied medical treatment, and beaten when they get too tired to work as fast as management would like. In India, Thailand, and Nigeria, to mention a few countries, bonded child laborers work under conditions of servitude to pay off debts. The debts that bind them are not incurred by the children themselves, but by their relatives, usually a parent. These debts tend to be for amounts we would consider to be quite small, ranging from around $14 to $200. Children sold to bond masters work long hours over many years in an attempt to pay off these debts. They are usually unsuccessful due to exorbitant interest rates and extremely low wages. Many pass the debt on, intact or even higher, to a younger sibling, back to a parent or on to their own children. The Indian silk industry is a notorious offender. It is not unusual for children to begin working when they are 5 years old. One job, the "reeler" requires young children to dip their hands into scalding water to feel the silk cocoons and judge whether the fine silk threads have loosened enough to be unwound. When checking the boiling cocoons, the children are not permitted to use spoons instead of their hands, on the theory that their hands can more easily sense when the threads are ready to reel. The children who work in these jobs have their hands covered with scars, burns and blisters. One researcher reported seeing a boy with fingers so badly cut that he was unable to feed himself. Employers often do not provide medical care or even first aid to their bonded child workers. The use of bonded child labor is supported by the action of the World Bank, which has actively promoted the silk industry in India over the last 15 years. The World Bank does not restrict the use of bonded children in the factories it supports, stating that though the bank does not condone child labor, it feels the issue is too complex to call for a ban and that child labor is needed for poor families to survive. This is simply not true. Systems can be set up to reduce the pressure on families to sell their children into virtual slavery. For example, a system providing small-scale loans for the poor other than from bonding would help to eliminate bonded child labor. Freedom from Hunger is an organization providing small loans for women in developing countries to start businesses, and they have an excellent success rate, with over 90% of loans being paid back in full. Many other initiatives would reduce the incidence of child labor, such as providing free, compulsory education and a solid social welfare system. Enforcing bans on child labor would force employers to hire adults, who have a greater capacity to demand better wages and working conditions. [For documentation of these and other child labor cases, see the Multinational Monitor, Volume 18, Numbers 1 & 2, January/February, 1997. A copy is available on the web at www.essential.org.] I am also concerned for the adult workers also experience inhumane working conditions around the world. Such outrages are not confined to other countries. Just 6 weeks ago on March 31, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources heard testimony about the employment abuses experienced by workers in Saipan. Saipan is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is a U.S. territory. Workers from many countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and the People’s Republic of China pay exorbitant fees for the privilege of working in Saipan. Wendy Doromal, a witness at the Committee hearing, gave detailed information from her interview study of over 400 foreign contract workers. She found that workers paid between $1500 and $7000 to come to Saipan, with the average fee being $5000. These fees obviously represent a great sacrifice to workers from developing countries. Workers spoke of selling family businesses, land, jewels and taking out high interest loans. They pay the fees because they are told that they will be making high wages in the U.S. and will have a chance to become U.S. citizens. But what happens to these foreign contract workers is similar to what happens to the bonded child laborers. They work for years without being able to repay the fees. And because they owe these fees, they cannot leave or quit and are at the mercy of their employers. Employers often cheat the workers out of pay by charging them higher rent for their living quarters than indicated in the employment contract or illegally charging them for electricity, furniture or appliances, which are specified in the employment contract as being provided for free. Some employers pay less than the minimum wage of $3.05 per hour. Other employers simply fail to pay the workers any wages at all. The testimony of Mohammed Zulfiquar provides an instructive example of what is happening in Saipan. This is the written statement he submitted to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources C *** lost text block *** e recruitment fee was $5,000. I had no money to pay it, so I asked my father. It was an emergency, so he sold the family land at a low price to pay the fee. I waited many months for the papers from Captain Yousef. When I got my papers, my passport had the wrong birthdate. My real birthdate is January 13, 1972, but my passport said I was born on January 13, 1968. I do not know why it was made wrong. I worked for a Korean man, as a construction worker. I was surprised that my pay was only $2.75 per hour. The Korean man was very mad all the time. He yells and tells bad things to me and other workers. Sometimes he hits us. Everyone ran away. Only me, I stayed. I had to do many jobs at the same time. Everything was very busy. One time, I turned on the mixer but only sand came out with no cement. When the Korean found out, he beat me and I fell down three feet from a high place. I hit my hand on a bucket, and there [was] plenty of blood coming out of my arm. When I tried to stand, he kicked me. Up to now my back hurts. The police came, but they did not arrest the Korean. He said to me, ‘See, I have big power in Saipan.’ I was mad, but I can do nothing. I went to the hospital in an ambulance. Up to now, I have no full time job. I think my Korean boss is telling people bad things about me, that why no one will hire me. I filed a case with the Saipan Labor. More than two years I was jobless, but no one at the Saipan Labor helped me. They do not tell me who my investigator is. They do not tell me when my hearing is. They just tell you to wait, while they chew betel nut, or smoke, or tell jokes. They do not help us and they do not know how hard it is to find a ride to Labor, and wait, and nothing is done. When I called my Pakistani friends to tell them I am in Washington, they tell me that a Labor Investigator came to the house looking for me and saying I was in big trouble. But my Pakistani friends, they are married to Chamorros, so they can talk back. They said you never help Mohammed for two years, now you look for him so fast. I came to Washington to tell you my story. What happened to me happens to many workers in Saipan. I cannot go home until I earn enough money to pay back my family for the land they sold. My family is trusting me to make money for them. Please help me so I can help my family. Also, please help many workers like me in Saipan." The legislators in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have shown little interest in assisting the foreign contract workers. Instead, they have introduced several mean-spirited bills aimed at reducing the workers’ rights. In recent years there have been bills to charge workers a $200 fee to file a labor complaint, a bill to deport complaining workers within 20 days of their filing a complaint, a bill to close the Philippine Consulate, and a bill that would no longer require employers to pay for their foreign contract workers’ medical expenses. To try to remedy this situation, the U.S. Senate is currently considering two bills extending certain immigration and labor laws to Saipan. The Commonwealth has spent millions hiring consultants to lobby Washington against this legislation. These millions could have been better spent to enforce employment contracts and improve the living conditions of the workers. If you want to do something to help this situation, you can write to your senator and ask him or her to co-sponsor Senate bills 1275 and 1100. A sample letter is attached. [Senate bills 1100 and 1275 are available on the web at http://thomas.loc.gov. Search for the bills using the numbers S.1100 and S.1275. Information on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s March 31, 1998 hearing is available on the web. Follow the links from www.senate.gov. Wendy Doromal’s testimony is not on the web. To get a copy, telephone the committee at the number listed on the committee’s web site.] Even here, on the mainland, employment abuses occur in the form of sweatshops in the garment industry and migrant labor in the agricultural sector. So what can we do, as members of the EAM? The Board of the EAM has endorsed the following statement of principles to be printed in our program each year: "The Eastern Academy of Management strongly affirms its support for the following core employment principles which are internationally recognized to be fundamental human rights:
I urge you all to support the Board in this action. May 15, 1998 |
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The Honorable Senator _______________ United States Senate Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator ______________ I urge you to become a co-sponsor of Senate Bills 1100 and 1275. These bills will reduce the ability of employers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to import low-cost foreign contract workers. Many of the foreign contract workers in the Commonwealth are desperately poor individuals who have no meaningful opportunity to demand safe living and working conditions or fair wages and benefits. They are lured to the Commonwealth with false promises that they can make a lot of money and eventually become U.S. citizens. Many of them go deeply into debt to pay profiteers fees as high as $7000 for the chance to work in the Commonwealth. When they arrive, they find that wages are low and/or that their employers cheat them out of their wages. Many are unable to even repay the fees, much less profit from their labors. Their debts tie them to their employers and limit their ability to protest unfair treatment or poor working and living conditions. It is important to end the importation of foreign contract workers to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in order to end these abuses on U.S. soil. Senate bills 1100 and 1275 will also set a minimum percentage of labor hours that must be conducted by U.S. citizens or nationals to allow the use of the label "Made in the USA" for textile products manufactured in the Commonwealth. At present, products made entirely by foreign contract workers in the Commonwealth can use the "Made in the USA" label. This practice wrongly implies to the U.S. consumer that products are made by workers and businesses that are subject to Federal immigration law, the Federal minimum wage law, and Federal labor standards. Finally, the bills would raise the Commonwealth’s minimum wage. I hope that you will agree to co-sponsor Senate bills 1100 and 1275. Please write to me and let me know your position on the bills and the issues they address. Sincerely,
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