On Wednesday, thousands of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi construction workers were forced to end a strike they began last Sunday over pay increase.

Now many are risking deportation.

(Photo: Gallo/Getty)

The UAE Ministry of Labour sent the police to the labour camp of Jebel Ali, where the workers decided to stay, refusing to take the company’s buses and go to work.

They demanded a 350 UAE dirham (92 US dollars) monthly food allowance to be paid with their salaries, rather than the three daily meals provided by the company.

Their salaries go from 650 to 1,200 UAE dirham a month (from 177 to 327 US dollars) for a 12-hour day, six days a week.

“They are upset at the low wages and also about not being paid for overtime work,” one employee told the Reuters news agency.

“The protest started in Abu Dhabi on Saturday … workers in Dubai have also joined,” the employee said.

The company refused any negotiation, and the Ministry of Labour sent the police to the labour camp along with some officers, according to local newspapers.

Arabtec said that all workers returned to work with no impact on any of its projects.

The UAE leading construction company built Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper (830 m) and has won a 654-million US dollars contract to build the Louvre Abu Dhabi art gallery, set to open in 2015.

“This unwarranted stoppage had been instigated by a minority group who will be held accountable for their actions,” said the company in a statement, claiming that the issue was “resolved amicably” with cooperation from the labour ministry, police and other official authorities.

In reality, workers were just as intimidated as usual.

“The police told us to go back and we did. What can we do if they don’t give us an increase?” a Bangladeshi worker told the UAE daily The National.

“Between 20-25 people just got the [deportation] letter now,” Ashraf, a scaffolding installer at Arabtec, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday after receiving a phone call from a co-worker.

“When we got the news of the [first] deportations [on Monday], everyone came down shouting. When the police came, we just went back to our rooms. People were trying to be part of the group without coming to the front,” he said.

In the United Arab Emirates, freedom of association is denied and strikes are banned, just like in most of the other oil-rich Gulf countries: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Trade unions are not allowed, there is no right to collective bargaining, nor a minimum wage set by the government.

This happens in a country where migrant workers make up 90 per cent of the labour force. They have an average yearly income of 3,000 US dollars, while the Arab natives’ estimated GDP per capita is 37,000 US dollars, which makes the UAE one of the richest economies in the world.

Suicides and mass deportations

In such an unequal and segregating society, workers from poor South-Asian countries have no means to claim for and obtain better conditions. Not surprisingly, many decide to commit suicide, also at Arabtec.

In May 2011, Athiraman Kannan, a 38-year-old Indian labourer, who had been in the Gulf for 10 years and lived at the Jebel Ali work camp, jumped from the 147^th floor of the Burj Khalifa.

He had told his workmates that he would have to return home to the south of India to resolve a family matter after the death of his brother.

But Arabtec refused permission, information that the company was quick to deny immediately after his death.

Those who dare to fight back against this blatant exploitation are often repatriated.

There have been various protest actions to obtain higher wages in the last six years, but Arabtec’s management always threatened mass expulsions.

The most famous dates back to November 2007, when more than 30,000 migrants downed tools for 10 days.

They were asking for an increase of 20 per cent in their wages, which they got in the end but at the cost of many being repatriated.

The last strike at Arabtec was in January 2011, when about 5,000 workers stopped work for two weeks.

The demand was for another 50 US dollars a month and the cost of a return journey to their country to be covered.

Many also complained about not being paid for overtime.

But there was no negotiation, and 71 Bangladeshis were accused of instigating a revolt in the company camp.

They were all arrested and taken away.

European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding has called on EU Member States to do more to integrate its Roma populations.

Last week she spoke at the Roma Roundtable, attended by a number of key players from Roma civil society.

(AP Photo/dpa/Soeren Stache)

Along with the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion László Andor, they discussed the progress made so far and the next steps to be taken to ensure the proper integration of Europe’s 10-12 million strong Roma population.

“The laws that we need to prevent discrimination of Roma are there,” Reding told Equal Times. “What is not functioning is integration.”

Reding commended some states for making “real and serious efforts” towards improving the lives of Roma citizens but said that high levels of poverty amongst Roma populations speak of severe social exclusion.

“I’m very disappointed at some Member States, as they are not putting in practice what is stated in their national strategies,” she said.

When asked which Member States should be singled out for praise and disapproval, Reading replied, “It is not a beauty contest. It depends on the problems that each country is facing. If a country hosts one or two thousand Roma people, it’s different than if it has to deal with hundreds of thousands. That’s why at this stage naming and shaming makes little sense.”

But she did encourage some member states to look at examples of good practice to learn from them: “Ministers, unlike students, are allowed to copy when they stumble upon a success story.”

At the round table, NGOs and the European Commission could share their views on the outcomes of a three-year joint effort towards Roma integration and assess what is still to be done.

In April 2010, under the Spanish presidency, the first EU Roma summit was held in Cordoba (Spain).

In 2011, the Commission adopted its EU framework for Roma Integration Strategies. The first report on the implementation of Roma national strategies was published in 2012.

By the end of 2013, the Commission will publish a second progress report on the compliance of national strategies on Roma integration by Member States.

Several NGOs who took part in the round suggested setting up a specific Roma fund to finance integration projects, but Commissioner Andor said the emphasis would be on targeting specific actions rather than particular groups of people.

He also advocated a greater role played by the Committee of the Regions.

Still segregated

Nicolas Berger, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions bureau, said the Commission is not doing enough to hold Member States accountable on their Roma integration targets.

“Every year, thousands of Roma people are forced to leave their homes.  In many countries, Roma school children are forced to attend segregated classes which provide inferior teaching. They’re denied work and can’t get proper health care. They’re victims of violent hatred and often go unprotected by the police. All this is because they’re Roma. This is happening because EU countries are failing to enforce the EU’s own anti-discrimination laws. Enough is enough.”

“The European Commission is responsible and has the means to ensure EU countries comply with EU law and combat anti-Roma discrimination and violence,” he added.

“But the Commission has yet to exercise these powers. The Commission is quite simply failing to use its own legal tools like the infringement procedure to hold Member States accountable”.

Heather Grabbe, Director of the Open Society Institute for European Policies, said countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic and Slovakia don’t have monitoring mechanisms to check whether their strategies are effectively implemented.

“The Commission should exercise all its possible pressure to make compliance really happens.”

The next steps

When asked why politicians and policy makers were failing to implement these strategies, Gabriela Hrabanova, Policy Co-ordinator at the European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO), put the blame on anti-Roma racism.

“This attitude must change, and Roma have to be considered as full citizens and active participants to society, and not only as those who live on benefits, cause problems and experience extreme forms of poverty,” Hrabanova commented.

Ivan Ivanov, director of the European Roma Information Office (ERIO), highlighted the importance not to limit the efforts towards integrating Roma people to combatting poverty and improving their material conditions:  “This is just part of the problem, as there are Roma who are not living in poverty but are nevertheless experiencing multiple forms of discrimination.

“It’s very unfortunate that the national strategies were drafted in a general anti-Roma political atmosphere, where politicians found it convenient not to really commit themselves to solving the issues of integration and discrimination,” he added.

More information available on the Commission website on Roma.

15-year old garment Sim Srey Touch was crushed under tons of metal and concrete before she could escape.

Sim Srey Touch, one of three garment workers killed in an accident at the Wing Star Shoes fatory, was only 15-years-old (Shane Worrell/Phnom Penh Post)

She is one of the three garment workers killed in the Wing Star Shoes’ factory collapse, which occurred early on Thursday morning in the Kampong Speu province, a few miles from the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Less a month after the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh, where 1127 garment workers lost their lives, this latest tragedy reveals the many contradictions of the global garment industry, where workers pay the ultimate price for cheap consumer items.

It particularly reveals the total disregard for safety and labour standards at Asian factories that produce clothes and shoes for Western consumers.

Sim only started working at Wing Star two weeks ago. Her mother, Noun Nget, told reporters that she had lied about her age to get the job.

“My daughter used a fake document that said she was 22 or 23 to get work,” she said.

“She began working there on 2 May and did not yet get a salary. I do not want compensation from the factory – I want to see my daughter survive,” she said.

According to the Phnom Penh Post, Sim’s three sisters also work at Wing Star. One of them, Yim Pay said she watched police carry out her sister’s body after the collapse.

“I was working in another building and heard a thunderous sound and ran to see what was happening,” she said.

The manager of the factory, Chea Sothavirith, did not comment about the girl’s age or about compensation for the families of the victims.

However, the governor of Kampong Speu province promised the families of the dead workers will be compensated with 5,000 US dollars each.

Worked to death

Reuters reports that Wing Star Shoes Co Ltd is a Taiwanese company employing about 7,000 people in the factory complex that opened about a year ago.

The collapse occurred in a part of the complex used as a storage warehouse and apparently in the work area there were only about 100 people.

Cambodian rescues work at the collapsed Taiwanese-owned Wing Star factory (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Work conditions and salaries have also been an issue at Wing Star. One of the workers rescued, Ngeth Phat, said there had already been two strikes in the last year over low wages, about 80 US dollars a month.

Like other South-East Asian countries, garment manufacturing is the leading industry in Cambodia (80 per cent of the export, says the IMF) and employs about 500,000 people in more than 500 garment and shoe factories.

According to the Associated Press news agency, the country shipped more than four billion US dollars worth of products to the United States and Europe in 2012.

Chea Muny, the factory’s trade union representative, said that Wing Star produces sneakers for Asics, the Japanese sportswear label, destined for the United States and European markets.

Indeed, Asics footwear emerged from the damaged warehouse, while bulldozers were clearing away the rubble.

An Asics spokesperson later confirmed that the factory was amongst their suppliers.

Asics’s sales amounted to 247,792 million Yen (2,428 million US dollars) in 2012; estimates suggest that the figure for 2013 will be higher.

In April, the ILO issued a report about safety in the Cambodian garment and footwear industry in which the UN agency found a worrying increase in safety violations and working conditions, which sometimes lead to fatalities.

“Our report findings demonstrate that improvements are not being made in many key areas of working conditions and this is likely to be in large part due to the rapid growth of the industry.

“However, growth should not result in an increase in non-compliance among factories in an area as intrinsic to worker safety as having clear access pathways,” said Jill Tucker, chief technical advisor of ILO-Better Factories Cambodia.

The Spanish fashion brand Zara is outsourcing its production in Argentina to clandestine sweatshops employing immigrants under slave-like conditions.

Zara is responsible for the same illegal and inhuman methods of exploitation in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where it was fined millions for the same offence it has been accused of in eleven other countries.

The sweatshops in Argentina are based on the outskirts of Buenos Aires or in tourist areas with large numbers of immigrants from Bolivia, lured by traffickers promising wages in dollars, housing, food and an eight-hour working day.

(La Alameda)

But, as denounced by the NGO “La Alameda” and the Human Rights Secretariat of the CGT, the country’s largest trade union confederation, the working hours are inhuman.

The criminal charges filed on 26 March and 11 April of this year, which were backed up shortly afterwards by Buenos Aires City Government inspectors, are based on hidden camera recordings showing that the workers sleep in bunk beds right next to the machines and are made to work for over 13 hours a day, from Monday to Friday from seven in the morning to ten or eleven o’clock at night, and until midday on Saturdays.

Electrical cables were also shown to be hanging precariously, creating the risk of fire, such as that seen in 2006, in which six Bolivians, five of them minors, died, trapped inside a clandestine sweatshop.

Such conditions are not exceptional in Argentina or in other textile industries around the world.

La Alameda has taken legal proceedings against 110 major clothing brands, including international firms such as Puma and Topper, and employers themselves have recognised that 78 per cent of the clothing industry operates illegally.

The same system of people trafficking and slavery has been denounced in Mexico, in the so-called maquilas, in Italy, in the Camorra sweatshops, and in the factory collapsed in Bangladesh.

The three clandestine sweatshops producing garments for Zara in Argentina were shut down by the government for not being registered and posing high health and safety risks.

The justice system has not yet confirmed the charges, despite their having been verified by the video footage and the government inspectors.

The public prosecutor investigating Zara has not yet summoned the producer to give a statement, the sweatshops have not been searched and the telephone lines thought to connect the brand with the illegal workshops have not been tapped.

It is worth pointing out that Inditex, which owns Zara, is the second largest textile company in the world, and its owner, Amancio Ortega, has the third biggest fortune on the planet and is the richest person in Spain.

The lawsuit against Zara is registered under case number 3161/2013 and is being handled by federal court no. 7, by the young magistrate Sebastián Casanello. The investigation, however, is sitting in the hands of the public prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan.

In Argentina, Zara stands accused of servitude, based on persons being forced to work in excess of 12 hours a day and the restrictions on freedom derived from housing persons in their workplace, as well as of violating the legislation on home working, which makes outsourcers criminally liable and responsible for labour conditions in work places producing their goods, and the law on migrants, which proscribes profiting economically from undocumented persons.

Zara is able to audit its supply chain through Argentina’s state-run National Institute of Industrial Technology, but has never done so. The programme is practically free, but not compulsory.

Zara, defending itself through various media channels, has stated that internal audits have been conducted but violations have never been detected.

What else is to be expected when a company audits itself?

The footage filmed by La Alameda, embedded in this article and to the lawsuit filed, provides evidence of what the justice system is idling to confirm.

Social networks, press and media around the world have nevertheless given wide coverage to the abuses denounced by La Alameda.

From China to India, from England to Mexico, the slogan popularised by La Alameda, “EsclaviZara”, linking Zara with slave labour, is travelling the world.

Human rights groups have accused Egyptian security forces of detaining scores of children without charge and in some cases torturing and abusing them.

On 3 February, 12-year-old sweet potato seller Omar Salah was ‘accidentally’ shot in the chest by an army conscript.

A military court handed out a three-year sentence to the soldier accused of killing Salah on 7 May, but the Egyptian Coalition on Children’s Rights (ECCR) criticised the verdict for being too lenient.

The Egyptian government has detained hundreds of children since the second anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution in January

Earlier this year, 14-year-old teenage cancer patient Mahmoud Adel made the news when he was arrested in the port city of Alexandria and detained for nine days, missing vital chemotherapy sessions.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Adel – who has bone cancer – said he wasn’t even protesting when he was arrested: “I was having a drink and jumping over puddles with my friends. I had nothing to do with the protests.”

The authorities refused to release him, however, even though they were shown papers proving Adel’s illness.

The prosecutor accused Adel and another child of “using excessive force to prevent law enforcement, offending state employees and endangering the safety of the city of Alexandria.”

Adel was only released after pressure from Egyptian human rights groups.

Unprecedented numbers

Egypt’s Interior Ministry has detained 383 children since the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution took place on 25 January, according to the ECCR.

In an interview with Ahram Online, UNICEF Representative in Egypt, Philippe Duamelle, said that the UN agency has provided legal assistance to around 600 children who were accused of involvement in demonstrations in recent months.

During protests and clashes, Egyptian security forces try to arrest as many people as they can, targeting those less likely to attack them. And that often means minors, human rights activist Ghada Shahbender explains.

“It is definitely a way of frightening people, the number of children taken by security forces and the manner in which they are detained is unprecedented in my experience,” she said.

Many of those children arrested face serious violations of their human rights.

As well as being subjected to physical violence and having their personal belongings stolen, they often face sexual assault.

Minors are usually detained alongside adults, which is a direct violation of Egypt’s children’s law, which was amended in 2008.

An investigation by Human Rights Watch recently uncovered strong evidence that police and military officers beat many of the children detained, and in some cases, subjected them to torture-like treatment.

President Morsi’s government has promised to put an end to these practices, but it is evident that nothing has changed, say activists.

Street children

Egypt’s street children often bear the brunt of government violence as they often get involved in the protests and street clashes that are now so widespread in Egypt.

They have no homes and live on the streets where they hawk goods to earn them enough money to buy food.

“It might be hard to say how many children are living on the street in Egypt, but one thing is clear: the numbers are very large and almost certainly growing,” states UNICEF.

Although it is difficult to quantify the phenomenon, NGOs estimate that there are tens of thousands street children in the country, mostly in the big cities of Cairo and Alexandria.

Given their miserable living conditions and the harassment they face from the police, it is understandable that street children participate in protests against the regime and the authorities.

Like other Egyptians, they too want a better life.

But since taking power in 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood has not improved the difficult living conditions endured by Egyptians, and until that changes, the protests will continue.

And as long as the protests continue, it is likely that children will always be victims, especially with the general deterioration of human rights in Egypt.

The clock is ticking for some of the world’s biggest retailers, such as Gap and Wal-Mart, to sign a landmark agreement to improve safety conditions in Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi garment workers manufacture clothing in a factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety was initiated by IndustriALL, UNI Global Union, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and a group of NGO partners following the deaths of over 1,127 workers in a building collapse last month.

The legally-binding five year agreement was signed on Monday by a group of seven European retailers including H&M, Inditex (parent company of Spanish clothing and furnishing brand Zara) and Primark.

But despite a looming deadline of 15 May, a bloc of mainly-American retailers are yet to sign.

In fact, the only American retailer to have signed the Accord so far is PVH, the parent company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. Other big European retailers such as Benetton, Carrefour and Mango are also yet to sign.

The Accord will bind retailers to blacklist manufacturers whose factories fail to meet safety standards.

Retailers have also pledged to pay for repairs and renovations in the factories. And crucially, the Accord also grants workers the right to refuse dangerous work, in line with the 1981 ILO Convention 155 on occupational health and safety.

The Convention has been ratified only by 60 countries, excluding the US and most European countries.

Refusals

However, it appears that the non-signees of the new Accord are concerned about how much it will cost to enforce these new rules as well as how legal matters will be resolved in the wake of the agreement.

Gap, for example, has said it will not sign the Accord until changes are made to the rules on settling disputes.

But UNI Global’s Deputy Secretary General Christy Hoffman said the US clothing retailer had mischaracterised the agreement: “Gap would like to give the impression that the agreement would open them up to litigation when in fact it provides for binding arbitration, a common practice for US employers.”

Cases will only go to court when there is an appeal – which very unlikely when arbitration is involved – or when one party does not respect the arbitration award.

None of the other US retailers have said whether they will or will not sign the agreement before 15 May but according to the Reuters news agency, Wal-Mart did release a statement on Monday calling for the Bangaldeshi government to halt production at one of Wal-Mart’s Chittagong-based suppliers, Stitch Tone Apparels, where it found “structural concerns”.

It has since suspended all orders with Stitch Tone.

UNI Global Union General Secretary, Philip Jennings issued a statement imploring retailers not to miss this historic opportunity to improve Bangladesh’s garment industry: “Sign up before it’s too late, save lives and show you are a responsible employer. We are building a momentum for change and it won’t stop here.”

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary, Jyrki Raina, also commended the “industry-leading clothing brands retailers committed to work with us, to stay in the country and get rid of their unsustainable business model of extreme exploitation. A bloody t-shirt is not much cheaper than a clean one.”

Improvements

The Rana Plaza collapse in the Dhaka suburb of Savar on 24 April was one of the worst industrial accidents in history.

The rescue operation only ended on Monday, almost three weeks after the nine-story building collapsed; now the spotlight is turning to those who survived the tragedy.

Mojibur Rahman Bhuiyan of ITUC-Bangladesh Council has called on international retailers to pay compensation to the thousands of workers injured, many of whom still require medical support.

The accident also brought Bangladesh’s garment industry, worth 20 billion US dollars, back to the world’s attention.

Despite being the second largest garment exporter in the world after China, the industry is beset with health and safety issues, poverty wages and labour violations.

In November 2012, at least 117 workers were killed in the Tazreen factory fire in Dhaka.

Since then, there have been four other deadly garment industry accidents in Bangladesh, including the 24 April factory collapse.

Following widespread worker protests across the country and the global outcry over the Rana Plaza tragedy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has announced a raft of measures to reform the industry.

In a move that has been welcomed by trade union officials, on Monday, the Bangladeshi government said that workers would be allowed to form unions without obtaining permission from factory owners.

“With collective-bargaining power, tragedies like Rana Plaza would not happen, since owners would not be able to force workers to work in unsafe conditions,” Amirul Haque Amin, president of Bangladesh’s National Garment Workers Federation, told the Wall Street Journal.

The government also announced plans to meet with trade unions and factory owners to set a new minimum wage for garment workers.  Currently set at around 3,000 takas (38 US dollars) a month, it is one of the lowest in the world.

But Bangladesh has come under fire for taking so long to commit to change and there is some skepticism over what tangible impact these proposed government reforms will have – especially when more than 20 members of parliament are also said to own garment factories.

After a 15 year battle, Brazilian workers finally achieved a negotiated standard to improve worker safety in slaughterhouses.

(Photo/Mecropress.com)

The new Regulatory Standard No. 36 , ratified on 18 April, seeks to prevent and reduce workplace illnesses and accidents through detailed regulation to improve workplace infrastructure and tools.

Measures such as the introduction of a compulsory 10 minute break every 50 minutes worked, a reduced workload, the introduction of safety risk management and personal safety equipment etc.

Clovis Veloso, a representative of the meat processing businesses in the negotiation process, estimated that the industry will need to invest around seven billion USD over the next two years to live up to the standard.

Rather than looking at it as a mere extra cost, he sees it as “an investment in improving the life quality of our workers.”

Poor working conditions

As in many other countries, working conditions in the meat processing industry in Brazil are amongst the worst.

Workers, who use heavy machinery to cut up animal parts, are under pressure to hit high productivity targets.

As a result, they endure long working hours, exhaustion, poor infrastructure, insufficient safety equipment and there are many cases where workers’ fingers become numb after hours working in cold refrigerators, resulting in casualties.

In 2011, the government registered 19,453 accidents – that equalled 2.73 per cent of all workplace accidents in Brazil, including 32 fatal accidents.

The industry employs 750,000 workers and exports of 15.6 billion USD worth of meat every year to more than 150 countries around the world.

“During the time that I worked there, I saw some ugly accidents,” said Vinicius, a former slaughterhouse worker in the southern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

“One man cut off a finger with the saw, the conveyor belt ripped of the leg of another and a young guy lost movement in his thumb when touched the electric wiring while pulling a cow. The rest were minor cutting wounds needing about 10 to 15 stitches.”

Vinicius is just one of the workers interviewed by Repórter Brasil for a report denouncing the slave-like working conditions revealed in September last year.

The report also maps supply chains to identify the main businesses responsible.

“The workers we spoke to were truly desperate. Through the tremendous work pressure and poor protection they risk serious injuries every time they go to work and they fear dismissal when complaining. The Marfrig factory in Hulha Negra, produces canned meat for Tesco’s house brand, the largest retailer in the UK. In December 2011, the Public Labour Prosecutor noted the absence of 12 per cent of local workers because of work related accidents or sickness,” said Leonardo Sakamoto, Director of Repórter Brasil.

The global situation

Meanwhile this March in Europe, Belgium filed a complaint with the European Commission against Germany for social dumping and unfair competition driving down working conditions in the industry to an unacceptable low.

In 2011, the Belgian National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking highlighted extreme exploitation in the local meat processing industry.

While most of the attention has recently gone to the presence of horse meat in food products, the International Union of Foodworkers highlighted weak labour standards throughout the industry as the root cause of serial food safety scandals.

The Brazilian government , however, has finally shown itself to be prepared to address these root causes.

Siderlei de Oliveira, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of the National Union of Foodworkers (CONTAC/CUT), said: “It is an important step forward in the war against occupational injuries. I’m leaving for Argentina upon invitation of the unions there who want to use our standard as an example.

“Next month I will be travelling to Europe. Before, we were using Europe as an example when discussing health and safety at work. Today, it is with pride that we are giving this example to the world.”

Labour Minister Manoel Dias highlighted the importance of the tripartite process of the elaboration of the standard. “We understand that through discussion, dialogue and mutual understanding you will always move forward. There is no use in laying down rules which are unrealistic in practice.”

 

In this short video by Repórter Brasil, workers talk about the difficult work pressure faced by the workers:
 

 

More than nine million part-time workers in Europe wished to work more hours, were available to do so, but couldn’t find employers, and therefore considered themselves “underemployed”, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, on 19 April.

The number of underemployed people in Europe equals the number of a medium-sized EU country (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

These people, representing the population of a medium-sized EU country, are not accounted for in official unemployment statistics.

And yet they work fewer hours than it would be required to make ends meet.

Statistics show that due to the crisis, it has become increasingly difficult to find more working hours, and more people live in poverty, although they are not “officially” unemployed.

“Since the start of the economic crisis the proportion of part-time workers wishing to work more hours and available to do so has grown steadily, from 18.5 per cent in 2008 to 20.5 per cent in 2011 and 21.4 per cent in 2012” said Eurostat in its statement.

Unsurprisingly, the largest percentages of underemployed part-time workers are found in crisis-stricken countries, especially in Greece, where two thirds of part-time workers would like to work more hours, or have a full-time job, but are unable to do so.

The same is true for more than half of part-time workers in Spain, Latvia and Cyprus. On the other hand, in the Netherlands, where total unemployment is relatively low, only 3 per cent of part-time workers would like to work full-time, or more hours than they actually do.

The Neets

Even more worryingly, an ever-increasing number of European citizens are not in education, employment or training. This economically inactive population, also known as “Neet” (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) has risen to 8.8 million people in Europe.

Eurostat says: “Among the economically inactive population (those persons neither employed nor unemployed), there were 8.8 million persons aged 15 to 74 available to work, but not seeking work, and 2.3 million seeking work, but not available in the EU27 in 2012, compared with 8.6 million and 2.3 million respectively in 2011 and 7.3 million and 2.4 million respectively in 2008.

“While not part of the economically active population, both groups have a certain attachment to the labour market.

Together these two groups constitute a potential additional labour force of 11.0 million people.”

Even the market-friendly Economist warned about a “generation jobless” in its 27 April  issue: “Official figures assembled by the International Labour Organisation say that 75 million young people [in the world] are unemployed, or six per cent of all 15- to 24-year-olds.”

But going by youth inactivity, which includes all those who are neither in work nor education, things look even worse.

The OECD counts 26 million young people in the developed world as “Neets”. A World Bank database compiled from households shows more than 260 million young people in developing economies are similarly “inactive”.

The Economist calculates that almost 290 million youths are neither working nor studying: almost a quarter of the planet’s young people.

A lost generation

The aforementioned statistics confirm that Europe, as well as the rest of the developed world, risk losing an entire generation to unemployment, underemployment and total labour inactivity.

According to the latest available data from Eurostat (March), total unemployment in the Eurozone reached an all-time record high of 12.1 per cent.

An overall 19.211 million people are unemployed in the Eurozone and 26.521 million in the EU-27, the latest figure being equal with the combined total population of Belgium and the Netherlands.

The situation in countries under EU-IMF backed “Fiscal Adjustment Programs” is nothing short of dramatic: the unemployment rate in Greece is 27.2 per cent, in Portugal 17.5 per cent, in Spain 26.7 per cent, and in Cyprus 14.2 per cent.

A shocking 6.2 million people are unemployed in Spain alone, more than any other time since the fall of Franco’s dictatorship. If we were to compare Europe with the US, where unemployment is 7.7 per cent, or Japan, where unemployment is even lower (4.2 per cent), the picture that emerges is indicative of the failure of European leaders to deal with the problem.

It is also worth noting that the Eurostat data is indicative of the vast differences between the European North and South, whereby unemployment in Greece and Spain exceeds 26 per cent, whereas in Austria (4.7 per cent), Germany (5.4 per cent), and Luxemburg (5.7 per cent) unemployment remains at relatively low levels.

Nevertheless, given that the recession has now started to affect the core of the Eurozone, with economies such as those of the Netherlands and Germany remaining stagnant, it is almost certain that unemployment will rise in those countries as well.

According to the latest report by the OECD, the European economy is not projected to start recovering substantially before the end of 2013, whereas the European GDP remains essentially “trapped” at low levels since the second semester of 2011, which are much lower than those of 2008.

The inability to recover from the “shock” of 2008 has led many analysts to characterise the current period as the “Great Stagnation”, in an analogy to the “Great Depression” of the 1930s.

It’s austerity’s fault

Trade unions claim that the reason for this dramatic situation is the implementation of harsh austerity programs across the board in the Eurozone, and especially in the so-called “Program countries” (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus), as well the IMF-inspired labour market deregulation policies.

“IMF labour market advice, as part of the Troika, undermines democracy and risks economic dictatorship across Europe and beyond and will create more divisions and social unrest, without producing any economic benefits,” warned the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), on 17 April.

The Greek General Workers Union says that “contractionary policies and savage austerity measures have led unemployment to unsustainable levels, with tragic social consequences.” Such social consequences include, among others, the rapid deterioration of public health in Europe, a continent that enjoyed, until a few years ago, the highest standards of living in the world.

According to a recent article published in the Lancet medical journal and cited by the European Trade Union Institute, suicides, outbreaks of HIV infections, malaria and other diseases are becoming more common in countries where austerity is harshest.

“The economic and social consequences of the crisis (the explosion of unemployment, the runaway loss of job security, the growing inequalities, etc) have reached the limits of what is socially acceptable in a number of EU countries,” said the European Trade Union Confederation, in a statement ahead of the latest EU Council in Brussels.

The message finally seems to be getting across to Eurozone leaders.

Olli Rehn, the EU Commission’s Vice President responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said that the pace of deficit reduction in the Eurozone will slow down markedly this year, to 0.75 per cent of GDP, compared to 1.5 per cent of GDP last year and 1.75 per cent this year in the USA.

Two questions remain to be answered: first, if taking it easier on fiscal consolidation will be enough to restore growth and create jobs in Europe, and second, if it is already too late for millions of Europeans, since their long-term absence from the labour market has destroyed their skills.

The boat is to remind MEPs, EU governments and Member States of the thousands of immigrants who die every year in the Mediterranean.

The bottle contains a petition signed by over 70,000 European citizens to call for better protection of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers at EU borders.

(Photo: Sven Dauphin for Amnesty International)

These are the two symbolic messages Amnesty International has chosen for an SOS to Europe, regarding those who try to reach the continent by sea or land, and too often die during the journey.

Last week, the human rights organisation staged a protest in front of the European Parliament, using an emblematic refugee boat and delivering a big bottle with the petition to a group of MEPs.

What Amnesty International is asking for is more transparency and accountability of controls over the authorities at the EU borders. Those borders are, according to Amnesty, like ‘no man’s lands’ which too often are not supervised so to ensure the human rights of migrants.

Out of sight, out of mind

Nicolas Beger, director of Amnesty International’s EU Offices, points the finger on the efforts Europe is making to prevent migrants, asylum seekers and refugees even to set foot on Europe’s territories rather than focusing on meeting their fundamental rights.

“With this action we are putting Europe to shame,” he said. “Migrants suffer the impacts of being out of sight, out of mind. Experiencing conflicts and grinding poverty, they are often left with no option rather than setting out on journeys on unseaworthy boats.”

The Mediterranean is a cemetery

According to Fortress Europe, a blog run by the Italian journalist Gabriele Del Grande and which serves as watchdog of what’s happening at the European southern borders, at least 18,673 people have died in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic over the last 25 years while attempting to migrate.

The blog suggests that these deaths could have been avoided if the EU had a more sensitive migration policy that treated migrants as human beings and not as unwanted objects to be pushed back or diverted.

With its ‘SOS Europe’ campaign, Amnesty International is asking the EU to respect its own laws, for instance, putting an end to the push backs or “refoulment” and to collective deportations.

The Amnesty International’s appeal is very timely, as the EU is finalising a new set of rules on procedures for asylum seekers. Anneliese Baldaccini, policy officer at Amnesty International EU, said the new package is a step forward in the right direction, but could and should have gone further.

“We welcome the harmonisation that the new legislation will bring about, and some of the existing gaps have actually been filled, but more ambition was very much needed and, to some extent, the new rules even make things worse,” she said.

“For instance, they explicitly allow for asylum seekers’ detention under certain circumstances, which is outrageous, and don’t protect adequately the rights of unaccompanied minors. All in all it’s a wasted opportunity to really raise existing standards”.

Open access to detention centres

Also last week, the Open Access campaign was launched at the European Parliament, to obtain unlimited and unconditional access to immigrants’ detention facilities for MEPs, the media and civil society.

Every year, over 600,000 migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are detained in centres where life is often harder than in prisons.

These centres are meant to be places were irregular migrants are kept for a limited period of time before being expelled, but in practice only about half of them is subject to expulsions, while hundreds of thousands are kept behind bars, sometimes for up to 18 months, before being released with an order to leave the country.

Migreurop and the European Alternatives Networks, the two organisations which have set up the campaign, have planned MEPs’ visits to detention centers in several European countries from April to June, to ensure transparency on how these centres operate.

UK Union leaders, head teachers and parents blasted the Education Secretary Michael Gove’s reforms on Saturday at rallies held in Liverpool and Manchester by the National Union of Teachers (NUT).

School children joined parents and members of NASUWT and NUT in Manchester in a rally to defend education (Photo/NASUWT)

The events, held ahead of this summer’s teachers’ strikes, heard from several speakers including Chris Keates, General Secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT).

Speaking in Manchester Keates accused Gove of spreading “misinformation” about education professionals in order to further his political agenda.

“Today is our chance to tell Michael Gove that we’ve had enough of the myths, the misinformation, the distortions and the downright lies that are peddled every day by him and his coalition ministers about our education service.”

The Conservative minister has been fiercely criticised in recent months over his ‘traditional values’ reforms to the national curriculum, with a heavy focus on rote learning and the memorisation of facts from the age of five.

A further point of controversy has been the introduction of academies – state funded schools which are independently run and can appoint teachers without a formal qualification, a move some regard as an attack on the teaching profession.

“What would the reaction be if people were told that doctors no longer needed a qualification?” asked Keates, before receiving a standing ovation.

The rally also heard the testimony of mother-of-three and Labour party activist, Angela Rayner, who told the audience she feared Gove’s focus on rigorous academic assessment would cause vulnerable children like her five-year-old partially blind son, Charlie, to be left behind.

“Throughout all his life Charlie has had special support but I’m worried all that is going to go now.

“He’s not going to be the type of child who puts you up at the top of the league table but he’s a true inspiration to all of us because despite all the odds he continues to fight every day.”

Erosion of standards

Tension between Gove and his critics has been building for months.  In March, 100 academics and education experts signed an open letter in the Independent newspaper warning that the new curriculum “could severely erode educational standards.”

This sentiment was echoed this month by Britain’s largest teachers’ union, the NUT, who gave the Education Secretary a vote of no confidence for the first time in their 143 year history.

However, Gove has refused to backtrack, further incensing his detractors by dismissing them as “enemies of promise” and “Marxists”.

In response, the NUT and NASAWT – which boast a combined membership of over 400,000 – have announced rolling strikes starting in the north-west of the country in June.

However, Keates called for Gove to meet with unions to try and resolve the dispute and avoid more strikes.

“We have no wish to be moving to escalation to strike action. No teacher wants to be put in that position,” she told the rally.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the speakers at the rally did not represent the majority of parents who back the reforms.

“For too long other countries have been outpacing us. Our reforms are giving teachers more freedom, increasing choice for parents so every child can go to a good local school, and ensuring we have an education system that matches the world’s best.

“We have met frequently with the NUT and NASUWT to discuss their concerns and will continue to do so.”