Making what’s good for workers, work for business.
The eagerly awaited third episode of BBC3’s Blood, Sweat, and T-Shirts aired last night yet disappointingly, the focus of the show was on a blocked toilet and group in-fighting when the six British ‘workers’ were transported to pick cotton in rural India. In our opinion, the 3rd episode focussed too heavily on this at [More…]
Radiohead have teamed up with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) to produce a music video to raise awareness of child labour and human trafficking. The song ‘All I Need’ from the ‘In Rainbows‘ album is used as a backing track on a video featuring two stories, shown simultaneously; one of a boy from [More…]
We have stumbled across this serious, but curiously addictive, Sweatshop Sim game, which has been commissioned by NOW, Nottingham’s Arts Festival and designed by New Pollution .You are a factory worker, tasked with making shoes on a production line. The website blurb invites you to: ‘enter the world of the sweatshop and become a [More…]
Child Labourers from Sichuan are “sold like vegetables” in Dongguan
Various media outlets in China including the Southern Metropolitan News, Xinua and Sina (links in Chinese) have been reporting that bonded child labourers have been found being ‘sold like vegetables’ in Shipai, Dongguan. The working conditions into which they were sold were horrific. The reports allege that:
There are up to 750 bonded child workers in [More…]
The BBC this week launched a new reality TV programme on its digital channel BBC 3. The programme, Blood, Sweat and T-shirts, is unlike other reality TV shows however - not only is it reality TV with a reasonable sound-track (boasting the likes of Muse and the Hives), this is reality TV with a [More…]
Last week Play Fair at the Olympics published a new report: “Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to Improving Wages and Working Conditions in the Global Sportswear Industry” which demonstrates that “substantial violations of worker rights are still the norm for workers in the sportswear industry.” In particular
Wages for sportswear workers are still well below a [More…]
It’s official; supply chain labour standards are part of the zeitgeist and a staple of children’s TV! Labour standards are not just the subject of the BBC’s new reality TV show Blood, Sweat and T-shirts, they also feature in the badinage between Donna and The Doctor.
Viewers of last Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who [More…]
The Food Crisis and Living Wages
For the past couple of weeks the media has been full of stories about food inflation and its devastating impact on the developing world.
Last week the World Bank and the IMF released reports indicating that we are facing a potential ‘food price crisis’ and thousands of people may starve.
There have been riots in Bangladesh, [More…]
The UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking has produced an exceptional video “One Life, No Price“, which illustrates the scope of human trafficking in India, the root causes and vulnerability of certain groups. Amongst some of the alarming statistics:
1.2 million are trafficked throughout the world each year (UNFPA 2006)
9.5 billion dollars in revenue [More…]
Last week a new ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) prevented the imposition of local minimum wages negotiated through collective bargaining on companies from different member states of the European Union. It stated that these locally negotiated minimum wages which are higher than those set nationally or by industry, cannot be imposed [More…]
Subscribe to the Impactt
RSS feed! (what's that?)