 | MEXICO VIS-À-VIS THE ROBBER SCUM
Dignity or Capitulation in the Face of Mexico's Abduction by the Political-Business Mafias
What is Mexico dying of? Next to the miseries of modernity, a whole series of inherited miseries distress us, a by-product of the resilience of ancient forms of production already outdated, with all their entourage of anachronistic political and social relations. Not only those alive besiege us, but also the dead. (Marx, 1867) If we had the chance to look at Mexico from a point in the future, surely we would shudder at seeing the whirlwind of contingencies in which it sinks, and with painful urgency we would ask ourselves, why did it happen this way? Yet today the problem is to understand our situation from the point of view that we have access to: the present. And, from this vision, the truth is not only that daily we are stressed out by poverty, unemployment and violence, but, all the more, by, from the citizen’s perspective, the lack of solutions, unless we endow ourselves with another political class: for the current one lacks moral stature, strategic intelligence, public responsibility and vocation to lift the country from its sinking. "Mexico vis-à-vis the Robber Scum" is an assessment of the outrageous situation endured by our country. It is about the systemic illegalities executed by those in government invariably against the citizenry. It is about an institutional edifice that establishes predatory privileges for the coalition in power. It is about, unequivocally, a “despotic island” that maintains, exacerbated, all the authoritarian and illegal depravities of the Mexican State, with repercussions deeply damaging of our social wellbeing; as if its historical clock had stopped before adjusting to the West, and the time of modernity remained an unreachable promise. This book describes the systematic and paralysing plundering that Mexican society is facing up to. Nonetheless, for its author, Álvaro de Regil, to think about Mexico’s problems just as a matter of moral order is tantamount considering the predators, the robber scum, would need to humanise how they deal with the citizenry and be upright with the public matter. For this, to infuse morality, is indeed to go against the nature of the current regime. Moreover, a strategy of this kind does not end with the ungovernability and misgovernment, for the plundering has been exacerbated by the institutionalisation of a perverse method. De Regil compartmentalises comprehensively and critically the institutional system and its incapacity to process the challenges posed by today’s environs. Even more, the author ponders beyond the mere critique of the perverse effects of neoliberalism, and explores a grim and subdued terrain: the pending responsibilities of the citizenry. In this area, he underscores the issues of the modern concept of democracy, demanding the fundamental conditions: participation, rights and empowerment. That is, we are what we are, by virtue of our participation (active or passive) in the public life of our society. Hence his final proposal is a call to action to get rid of, as citizens, the inherited miseries, as Marx would say, that keep Mexico in agony. In sync with this vision, "Mexico vis-à-vis the Robber Scum" puts together quite revealing dimensions of the undertones of the political process and their meaning in the national and international debate. To grasp the character and the motives of this agony in which Mexico is trapped will allow us to assess our life as citizens and to know where we are heading. Guadalupe Lizárraga Independent journalist and writer
Download here the detailed assessment about the threat that looms over Mexico! (document currently available only in Spanish-language version).
TOP
A COMPARATIVE APPROXIMATION INTO CHINA'S LIVING – WAGE GAP
China’s manufacturing wages incorporate millions into the modern slave work model of today’s Darwinian capitalism in one of its direst possible forms
Some recent studies argue that, due to demographic trends, this economy may be about to reach the turning point when its pool of surplus labour would start declining, which would make real wages rise. The number of cases of labour strikes and other forms of pressure that have resulted in dramatic wage increases are apparently mounting. But this is still too early to tell and it is strictly based on traditional market logic. On the contrary, if China eventually runs short of workers, market logic –Darwinian as it is– would make multinationals leave China to better labour exploitation  heavens, where the political-business oligarchies would be more than happy to let corporations exploit their citizens in exchange for a share of the profits. This Darwinian logic imposes a tremendous downward pressure on the quality of life of many societies in the developing world, for governments have bet their sustainability in power on customary centre-periphery relationships. The result is a rather dire situation for the vast majority of the population in these societies. Neoliberal globalisation has globalised consumer markets, prices and access to labour pools, but wages, deliberately, have not been globalised. In this sense, the extremely low level of China’s wages is a perfect strategic element used by corporations to maintain strong pressure on the manufacturing wages of other economies that compete with China. This is the political economy milieu explaining the labour endowments of Chinese workers.
Given the importance of China as a major global player, the TLWNSI project has been seeking, for several years, reliable data that can enable it to assess the state of real wages in China and their gap with a living wage. TLWNSI regularly uses as its main source for its analytical work the annual reports published by the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labour. Lett and Bannister –the authors of the BLS’ reports on China– argue that albeit these data are not as reliable as those for the most developed economies, the accumulated evidence to date, including China’s First National Economic Census..., supports the general validity of the BLS’ annual calculations on China’s manufacturing employment and labour compensation. In this way, TLWNSI now deems it appropriate to prepare its first comparative report of hourly compensation costs in China’s manufacturing sector vis-à-vis selected countries. Form TLWNSI's living wage concept perspective, this work assesses the dimension of the gap between the real wage and the living wage. Subsequently, two projections into the future of China’s manufacturing sector wages are performed. The first projection is based on the growth experienced during the five-year period of this study (2002-2006). This will allow us to prospect how long it would take to close the living-wage gap –at the average nominal wage growth rate of 9,2%– under certain assumed conditions. The second projection explores the average growth rate of Chinese real wages, in the manufacturing sector, required to close the gap in thirty years –TLWNSI’s standard to close wide wage gaps– under certain assumed conditions. Parting from TLWNSI’s living wage concept, the two projections in this assessment expose, comparatively, the dramatic gap that currently exists between the real wages paid, on average, to all manufacturing employees in China and the nominal wages that would constitute a living wage in real terms. This gap is dramatically wider than those prevalent in the two largest East Asia economies of Japan and South Korea, and still quite wider than those in some of the so-called emerging markets in other regions, such as Brazil and Mexico. Moreover, the likelihood that China’s future economic policy will integrate a reasonable long-term plan of thirty years to achieve labour endowments of a living wage condition is currently unrealistic. Although, in the last few years, Chinese real wages have been appreciating, China’s role as the largest supplier of cheap labour –under modern slave conditions– in the global capitalist system’s international division of labour, does not show any signs of any significant abatement. China’s development policies are still anchored on offering the traditional centre-periphery comparative advantages, namely cheap labour. Thus, the weight of China’s huge labour pool will continue to exert strong downward pressure on the wages of other developing economies that are dependent on centre-periphery relationships.
Download the assessment of China's living-wage gap here!
TOP
BRAZIL: in perfect harmony with tlwnsi's concept
Brazil undertakes a historical policy to close wage gaps that stands out for its strong affinity with Jus Semper’s TLWNSI concept for the realisation of living wages
President Lula’s Brazilian government, approaching the end of its second term, has just made a decision that is both transcendental and historical due to its paramount effectiveness in the reduction of poverty in a very meaningful manner and in the span of little more than a decade. Beginning in 2010 the Brazilian State intends to increase the real minimum wage annually, until 2023, following the simple rule of increasing nominal wages by applying the rate of inflation plus the GPD growth recorded two years earlier. Without a doubt, such policy will gradually transform Brazilian wages into living wages. In this way, Brazil commits to closing the wage gap  prevailing between current Brazilian labour endowments, still undignified, and the living wage ethos prevailing in developed economies, within the current market context. This commitment makes the Brazilian State achieve a great deal of congruence with the most primeval raison d'être of any State that takes pride in being a democracy: the pursuit of the welfare of every rank of society, and especially of the dispossessed.
The Brazilian plan brings a great dose of encouragement for Jus Semper’s mission, for it exhibits rather strong affinity with our concept: The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI); an initiative designed to close the wage gap between so-called developed and developing economies, through the gradual increase of real wages, by increasing nominal wages several percentage points above inflation. Our ebullience is unprecedented for TLWNSI has always argued that, unfortunately, the vast majority of so-called democratic governments have become market agents of the world’s capitalist system. Consequently, their performance typically favours institutional investors and their corporations. A second alternative to close the wage gap is the pressure of consumer power on businesses; an option until now unsuccessful, however, for the development of a responsible consumer culture is still in its infancy. Therefore, if by chance a State commits itself to closing the wage gap in its society, as is the case in Brazil, the setting could not be better to fulfil a fundamental human right in the context of real democracy, with the full power of the State: the right to a just and favourable remuneration ensuring the worker and his/her family an existence worthy of human dignity, as stipulated in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this manner, Jus Semper obtains conclusive evidence, and hardly surpassable, that provides a powerful argument to assert, convincingly, that the realisation of this human right is perfectly possible through the gradual closing of the wage gap, as proposed by TLWNSI, when a country counts with the resolute political will of the State. Download assessment of Brazil's new wage appreciation policy here!
TOP
UPDATED TO 2007!
IN MEXICO, THE STATE'S POLICY THAT DELIBERATELY PAUPERISES MEXICAN WORKERS CONTINUES TO CREATE HAVOC
PPP WAGE GAPS FOR SELECTED DEVELOPED AND "EMERGING" ECONOMIES FOR PRODUCTION-LINE MANUFACTURING WORKERS. (Updated from 1975 up to 2007)
Countries in the European Union and Canada converged in 2007 towards the equalisation of manufacturing production-line real wages with their U.S. counterparts. Germany and Canada maintained their already traditional competitive advantage –in PPP terms– over the U.S. Italy slightly crossed the equalisation threshold; the United Kingdom and  France are a short step behind equalisation and Spain continued its upward trend, at only 13% away from the equalisation threshold. Similarly, South Korea outperformed Japan for a third consecutive year by cutting its living wage gap with the U.S. to only 20% vis-à-vis Japan’s 28%.
Hong Kong and Singapore are far from making their real wages living wages, for their gaps are still substantial (51% and 68% respectively) and they have not recorded any significant variations.
In Iberian America, Brazil maintains an equalisation of little more than one-third (37%). In Mexico, the State policy that deliberately pauperises Mexican workers has imposed, for three decades, on manufacturing sector production-line workers, the endurance of the worst real wages, in PPP terms, of all countries assessed, with an abysmal living-wage gap with the U.S. of 83%.
The Classic Problem Scenario
With market liberalisation, MNCs sell their products in both the host countries and in all other markets where they are active, including their home country, at the same or at a very similar sales price. They achieve maximum profitability when the manufacturing process in their developing countries' operations is at par in quality and production efficiency with the standards used in their home operations, but their cost of labour is dramatically lower. The MNCs' markets, manufacturing and marketing operations are globalised but their labour costs remain strategically very low in order to achieve maximum competitiveness at the expense of the South's workers. As a result, the MNCs get all the benefit. Sometimes the salaries that they pay are higher than the legal minimum wage in the host country. But, these wages still keep the workers in dire poverty. A minimum wage does not make a living wage even in the most developed economies. What has occurred, with market globalisation, is the dramatic widening of the gap between wages in the North and in the South.
The Argument
Workers performing the same or an equivalent job for the same business entity, in the generation of products and services that this entity markets at global prices in the global market, must enjoy an equivalent remuneration. This equivalent remuneration is considered a living wage, which is a human right. A living wage provides workers in the South with the same ability to fulfil their needs, in terms of food, housing, clothing, healthcare, education, transportation, savings and even leisure, as that enjoyed by equivalent workers in the North, which we define in terms of the purchasing power parities (PPP) as defined by the World Bank and the OECD.
The definition of a living wage of The Jus Semper Global Alliance is as follows: A living wage is that which, using the same logic of ILO´s Convention 100, awards "equal pay for work of equal value" between North and South in PPPs terms.
The premise is that workers must earn equal pay for equal work in terms of material quality of life for obvious reasons of social justice but also, and equally important, for reasons of global sustainability.
The argument of an equivalent living wages is anchored on two criteria:
- Article 23 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on the following points:
- Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work
- Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
- ILO´s Convention 100 of "equal pay for work of equal value', which is applied for gender equality, but applied in this case to North-South equality, using PPPs as the mechanism.
The proposal is to make workers in the South earn living wages at par with those of the First World in terms of PPPs in the course of a generation (thirty years). There will not be any real progress in the sustainability of the market system -in all three economic, environmental and social dimensions- if there is no sustained generation of aggregate demand, in that period, through the gradual closing of the wage gap between North and South. This does not mean, whatsoever, that progress should be equivalent to the increase of irrational consumption, depleting all non-renewable resources. Eventually, during the twenty-first Century, a new paradigm must be built in which the purpose of the market is the welfare of all ranks of society, and the privileging of sustainability and not of capitalist accumulation.
Yet, while that stage is reached, there is no justification at all, moral or economical, for the workers of the South not to earn wages equivalent to those of their counterparts in the North, in PPP terms, based on equal pay for equal work of equal market value. Just as the International Labour Organisation's Decent Work Agenda states, the decent work concept has led to an international consensus that productive employment and decent work are key elements to achieving poverty reduction. The blatant and perverse exploitation of workers in the South must be stopped.
The analysis is and update for 12 economies and the U.S., prepared by TJSGA, using hourly compensation costs for production-line manufacturing workers (1975-2006) as reported by the U.S. Department of Labour, and PPP data from the World Bank and the OECD. The report exposes once again a global labour system that profits over the majority of the people in favour of a global elite.
Download the pdf file with the wage gap update for 12 economies (Germany, France, Italy, Canada, U.K., Spain, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Hong Kong and Mexico).
TOP
UPDATED ASSESSMENT OF MEXICO'S WAGE GAP 1975-2007
The Mexican State, still challenged for the lack of legitimacy of its election, has become an eminent case of open violation of the labour rights of its citizens
Mexico’s labour conditions are so deplorable that they merit describing their context. The exploitative and repressive nature of the group that overtook power thirty years ago, when it surrendered to the Washington consensus in order to remain in power, becomes transparent  as more than three decades of wage data in the manufacturing sector keep piling up. This has engendered an environment that stands out on a global scale for the tremendous erosion of labour rights. The Mexican State, lacking legitimacy (opposes an election audit) and mafia prone, has imposed an ethos of labour bondage that takes the country back to the conditions prevailing before the social revolution of 1910. There is a repressing labour policy with very conspicuous features.
The future of production-line manufacturing wages in Mexico is absolutely ominous unless society removes from power those who have imposed the mafia State and impose a citizen’s government of real democracy. Every year the government’s economic policies contain or further erode real wages. Additionally, the State has unleashed a policy of repression of the rights of freedom of association and to organise and collective bargaining previously mentioned. The deep impoverishment of Mexicans is a fact. Official data acknowledge that 81% of Mexicans are poor (Coneval 2009). By the same token, based on INEG’s 2006 National Survey of Occupation and Employment, it is estimated that in 2006 the minimum wage could only afford 22,5% of the cost of the so-called basic basket of 40 goods (CBI) deemed essential for survival (Sánchez Juárez: 2006). Parting form these findings, it is estimated that 77% of the economically active population does not earn the wage required to acquire a CBI. Moreover, the government began 2010 with strong price increases in the energy sector, which guarantee a greater pauperisation of real wages.
In summary, more than a quarter century of predatory capitalism in Mexico exposes, decisively, a government's policy –from the perspective of manufacturing wages– of perverse and premeditated pauperisation and exploitation of Mexican labour, for the only State policy of the mafia State is to govern for the benefit of domestic and foreign institutional investors and their corporations. In this way, as long as the “robber baron” elites currently in power remain in control, the deepening of the pauperisation of Mexico’s population is more than guaranteed.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Mexico's wage gap here.
TOP
UPDATED ASSESSMENT OF BRAZIL'S WAGE GAP 1996-2007
Brazil’s recovery of production-line manufacturing wages remains idle in 2007. Yet, there are plans for a strong long-term equalisation
In 2007 the closing of Brazil’s production-line manufacturing real wage gap stalled, remaining at a 63% level. In this way, although Brazil’s equalisation with its U.S. counterparts, of little more than a third (index 37), is greater than those obtained by Hong Kong  and Mexico, it is still rather distant from the levels achieved by the most developed economies.
This idleness notwithstanding, the future of Brazil’s wage policy is being redefined by clearly establishing a commitment to not only the recovery of its 1996 wage level but to the equalisation with equivalent wages in the U.S. That is, exposing strong affinity with TLWNSI’s concept –of the gradual closing of wage gaps through annual real wage increments (increments of several points over inflation)– a system of annual real wage increases is planned. Indeed, for 2010, Brazil’s government has announced the increase of minimum wages – the benchmark for all other wage classifications– of 5,87% above inflation. Such increase represents, in nominal terms, a raise of 9,68%.
Even of more importance and in full affinity with TLWNSI’s concept, Brazil’s government will send to Congress –before 31st march 2010– a legislative project with three proposals to adjust the minimum wage, for the periods 2012 to 2015, 2016 to 2019 and 2020 to 2023.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Brazil's wage gap here.
TOP
UPDATED ASSESSMENT OF SPAIN'S WAGE GAP 1975-2007
Maintaining the European trend, Spain improves once again the equalisation of its production-line manufacturing workers' REAL WAGES with their U.S. counterparts
In 2007 Spain’s production-line manufacturing real wages, continue approaching those of the G7, with a PPP equalisation wage gap with the U.S. of only 13%;’  substantially less than South Korea’s 20% and Japan’s 28% and increasingly closer to the real wages of its main European counterparts.
Attuned with the trend of the major economies of the European Union, Spain continued reducing the gap that separates the competitiveness –in purchasing power parity terms– of its production-line manufacturing real wages with those of its U.S. counterparts. This makes these wages the sort that can generally be considered living wages –assuming U.S wages to be living wages. Since 1975 the equalisation index of Spanish wages (87) has increased 71%, and everything indicates that the trend will continue until it oscillates quite close to equalisation or even above it, as is the case of Italy.
The strong climb of Spanish manufacturing wages to a living wage ethos is due, as in all successful cases, to the growth of real wages at a much faster pace than those of their U.S. counterparts. Between 1975 and 2007, the hourly equalised manufacturing Spanish wage –the wage required to receive an equivalent remuneration to that of their U.S. counterparts– increased 394%, due to the increase of Spain’s PPP cost of living –relative to the U.S. PPP cost of living– from $4,87 in 1975 to $24,07 U.S. dollars in 2007. Thus, given that the Spanish hourly manufacturing wage increased nominally 749%, from 2,47 in 1975 to $20,98 U.S. dollars in 2007, wage equalisation with equivalent U.S. wages grew 71%, from 51 to 87.
A comparison with Mexico –of living wage equalisation trends with the U.S.– illustrates accurately how the behaviour of the wage variables (PPP and nominal wages) define the leaning trend towards a living-wage ethos or towards labour bondage conditions.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Spain's wage gap here.
TOP
UPDATED TO 2007!
TABLE T4*: 1975 - 2007 REAL-WAGE GAPS FOR TWELVE ECONOMIES, IN PURCHASING POWER PARITY (PPP) TERMS, FOR PRODUCTION-LINE MANUFACTURING WORKERS. *(The base table used for all PPP real-wage gap analysis)
International comparisons of hourly compensation costs for production-line (PL) workers between the U.S. and selected developed and "emerging" markets, exhibits, consistently, a drastic reduction –or the elimination– of living-wage gaps in Europe, Canada and South Korea. Hong Kong achieves its best equalisation level. Brazil, Japan, Singapore and Mexico remain stagnated or have deepened their gaps
With the results from the new Purchasing-Power Parities round (PPPs) from the World Bank (WB) fully integrated in 2007, our research shows that, since 2000, the countries from the euro area have continued reducing or eliminating their living-wage gaps with the U.S. for manufacturing sector PL workers. The United Kingdom has virtually equalised its PL manufacturing wages with the U.S. and South Korea keeps its ascending trend closing its wage gap, which is already within the ranks of the major economies. Japan has stopped in 2007 the widening of its gap. Brazil has stagnated its equalisation growth. Mexico continues stagnated as well, with the worst of all wage gaps. Singapore experiences a new deepening of its wage gap with the United States.
✦ In the five economies of the European Union –albeit their costs of living in U.S. dollars (GNI PPP) have increased considerably– their nominal wages have increased their real value above equivalent U.S. wages. Thus, in the €uro area, France, Germany, Italy and Spain recorded sensible increments in real wages between 2000 and 2007 vis-à-vis U.S. wages. Germany doubles its wage advantage; Italy closes its wage gap; France is 4 points away from closing it and Spain sustains its growing equalisation trend, reducing its gap to only 13 points. In the same way, the United Kingdom maintains the same trend and has virtually closed the living-wage gap with the U.S., at only two points (98%) below the U.S. benchmark.
✦ In Asia, South Korea sustains its trend of reducing its living-wage gap with the U.S., despite a meaningful growth of its purchasing parities with the U.S. (GNI PPP). That is, South Korea has reduced its wage gap from 30% in 2000 to 20% in 2007, decreasing it by one third in seven years. Japan, after a strong wage erosion vis-à-vis the U.S., has been able to stabilise its gap and recorded a one point rebound in 2007 in its equalisation. Hong Kong records its best equalisation level in 2007 (index 32) since 1980; yet still quite far from its goal. Singapore has experienced ups and downs in its equalisation line. Despite the fact that its 2007 equalisation level doubles that of 1980 (26 vs. 49 respectively), 2007 records a five-point drop with respect to 2006 –its best level ever, with a loss of 9%.
✦ In the Americas, Brazil's wage recovery –relative to equivalent U.S. wages– stagnated in 2007, after a strong recovery since 2002; thus, Brazil's equalisation level with the U.S. is still below the level achieved during the 1996 – 1998 period. Canada maintains a surplus in production-line real wages against the U.S. (103%), recording a slight two-point drop. Mexico's case remains pathetic. Mexico's production-line real wages remain at their lowest level in 2007 vis-à-vis its main trading partner, with a huge living-wage gap of 83% –or an equalisation level of only 17. With the World Bank's new 2005 PPP data fully integrated, the best Mexican equalisation index with the U.S. was 39 in 1980, and since 1995 continues at half or less of that index level. In this way, Mexico is the only economy where wage equalisation is sensibly below its levels of more than a quarter century ago. It must be emphasised that Mexican manufacturing real wages continue to be the worst –or the most undignified– of all countries analysed, and they are light years away from equalisation with the wages of their U.S. counterparts, as a result of a deliberate and perverse State economic policy of pauperisation of the labour force.
Download the pdf file of Table 4 here.
TOP
UPDATED TO 2007!
Table T5: New living-wage gaps 1996-2007 –in purchasing power parity terms (PPPs)– vis-à-vis the U.S. for all manufacturing employees for the four largest economies in the Americas (Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina)!
Comparison of hourly wages for all manufacturing workers (blue & white collar) between the US, Canada and the two major Iberian-American economies indicate that, barring Mexico, living-wage gaps tend to be smaller for production-line manufacturing workers (PLWs) than for all manufacturing sector workers (AMWs).
Trends between 1996 and 2007 indicate that, both in Canada and Spain, PLWs are better remunerated than AMWs vis-à-vis their U.S. counterparts.  This implies that AMWs have less competitive wages vis-à-vis their U.S. counterparts. Thus, in Canada's case, whilst PLWs' wages have no living-wage gap with the U.S. –and even enjoy a surplus, AMWs' wages do have it, which has deepened to 7% in 2007 (or a 93 equalisation index). In the Spanish case, there is a wage gap that has consistently narrowed. Yet, with each measurement AMWs have recorded, consistently as well, greater gaps than PLWs. In this way, the 2007 living-wage gap for PLWs –in relation to their U.S. counterparts– is 13%, whilst the AMWs gap is 16% (or 87 and 84 equalisation indices respectively).
✦ In Brazil, living wage gaps with their U.S. counterparts are much wider than those of Spanish workers, and, albeit they have improved since 2002, they stalled in 2007. As for the difference in wage gap sizes between AMWs and PLWs, it has tended to be minimal or non existent. In the case of Argentina, data is only available for AMWs, which exhibits that the closing of Argentina's living-wage gap with its U.S. counterparts continued to improve in 2007, dropping to 44% (equalisation index of 56), clearly ahead of Brazil.
✦ Mexican wages, both for AMWs and for PLWs, are flagrantly the lowest of all economies in our research –by far the worst of all OECD countries and among the three largest economies in Iberian America. Even more troublesome is the fact that the Mexican living-wage gap for PLWs is in worse dire straits (83%) than for AMWs (81%). This clearly attests, in stark contrast with Canada, Spain and even Brazil, that Mexico's blue-collar workers endure a greater wage exploitation than white-collar and all other non-production manufacturing workers.
Download the pdf file for Table 5 of wage gaps for all employees in manufacturing in the Americas here.
TOP
ISO 26000 – BUSINESS AS USUAL
Another standard where the market reigns supreme and, thus, the fundamental issue of the living wage remains in oblivion
This brief succinctly makes the argument about the business as usual approach that the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has taken in the development of its ISO 26000 standard to address corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. As was expected, the Final Draft of the standard is not a binding framework. It is a tool that organisations may incorporate discretionally as guidelines to develop their best practices. Far more important, as was also expected, ISO 26000 failed to address the issue of the ineludible obligation of business organisations to pay to all their workers –including those in their supply chains– a living wage, so that their best practices comply with Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As usual, the issue remains a taboo topic, not to be addressed, for it goes directly against the interest of the market. Moreover, what was not expected, was that the ISO 26000 is an exception to customary practice inside ISO. In contrast with most of its standards, ISO 26000 is not a tool that can be used to certify the practices of an organisation that claims to have incorporated ISO’s 26000 CSR guidelines. Such particularity plays all the more in favour of business organisations, where the mantra is to leave all issues up to the logic of the market, which has as its only purpose the maximisation of shareholder value.
One of the most consistent issues in all the guidelines, norms, standards and principles currently available “in the market”, is the sheer degree of ambiguity of many of its concepts. One fundamental reason for this is the ambiguous ethos in which international conventions –including those binding upon States– have been developed. For instance, decent work, a decent standard of living and decent working conditions do not provide a conceptual definition of decent or at least a process to determine what shall be considered “decent” to accurately and objectively qualify these concepts. Everything is left up to the interpretation of governments and businesses, in a discretionary manner, in an ethos completely immersed in the context of the market. Consequently, given that the ISO 26000 is anchored on many international conventions –particularly on the issues pertaining to human and labour rights– it indulges as well in a great deal of ambiguity, when addressing these critical concepts. Furthermore, it leaves the critical issue of the living wage outside its framework. This is so despite the fact that a living wage is a fundamental responsibility that no business organisation that pretends to be perceived as socially responsible and with a sustainable business model can do without. Such approach does not provide much added value to what is already available. In this way, in regards to ISO’s 26000, the market reigns supreme, once again.
Download the assessment on the new ISO 26000 standard here!
TOP
CSR in Iberian America: Opportunity or Moot Point
An assessment of the development of CSR in Iberian America in the threshold of the implosion of the neoliberal mantra
The assessment that this paper makes relative to CSR in Iberian America –previously published in 2006 in the Social Responsibility Journal– remains as current as it has ever been. In looking at a region famous for sheltering the world's greatest social inequality, the author, Álvaro de Regil,  then conveyed great scepticism regarding the value that CSR could have in Iberian America to force corporations to behave in a sustainable manner from the perspective of free societies. He deemed to be quite difficult to achieve a true CSR ethos due to the democratic mockery that we endure in both Iberian America and virtually worldwide. He argued that today's societies are completely dominated by the market, for all public decisions are taken from the market's perspective and not in compliance with the basic democratic responsibility of procuring the welfare of every rank of society. Instead, we live in marketocracies in Iberian America and in most parts of the world; an ethos which stands out for its great degree of corruption in governments, that act as market agents and not as public servants governing by fulfilling the people's mandate.
Two years later, with the global implosion and extreme crisis of capitalism, the future of CSR globally becomes rather evident. The author describes the irrelevance of the development of specific CSR concepts in the region for being, in most cases, as they are worldwide, envisioned from a market context, which is regarded as the supreme value that reigns over the lives of today's societies. Thus, according to the author, today's CSR is far from responding to the essential demands of Iberian Americans. The most conspicuous case is the absence in today's CSR of a vital element in human dignity: the right to decent work and a living wage, in accordance with article 23 of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights.
In the authors opinion, due to the pillage that the rule of the market perpetrates and the extreme inequality that generates, there is a sense of urgency in Iberian America not present in other regions in the South. Regardless of their awareness about CSR, Iberian Americans know quite well that corporations cannot rule the world and dictate to governments the policies that benefit their very private interests. This has forced them to mobilise to confront the power structures imposed by free market dogma. Such mobilisation has succeeded in several South American countries in getting rid of oligarchic governments, albeit not yet in entirely dismantling the structures of exploitation.
In this way, the author deems that the current CSR is an irrelevant issue in Iberian America for it does not address, whatsoever, the need of most citizens to force corporations to eliminate their predatory practices and contribute to the welfare of all ranks of society. What people are doing is redefining the purpose of democracy, and how it addresses each aspect of life, starting with the social, economic and environmental policies that are essential for building a truly sustainable paradigm. And they are doing it in a far more effective manner that what could be expected from a CSR that the author deems to be a mockery. Download the assessment of the development of CSR in Iberian America here!
TOP
BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS – Upholding the Market's Social Darwinism
An assessment of Mr. John Ruggie’s Report: “Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights”
In January 2008 Álvaro de Regil published a study that included a detailed evaluation of Mr. John Ruggie’s work, as part of a comprehensive assessment of the debate on the responsibilities of business regarding human rights. In this new work, he continues the same approach by assessing the vision and arguments that Mr. Ruggie –UN's Special Representative for Business and Human Rights– advances in his new paper: Protect, Respect and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights.
The author's conclusion is that Ruggie’s vision in the current report continues to be in open conflict with the basic concept of democracy and of true long-term sustainability, for he continues to uphold the market as the principle that reigns supreme over the lives of societies across the world; never mind the customary, massive, ubiquitous and systemic violation of a wide range of human rights that the market exerts over billions of people every second of our time.
In his report, Mr. Ruggie deems the governance gaps –created by market globalisation– between the markets’ footprint on human rights and society’s capacity to manage it, as the root cause of the increasing abuse of human rights, and regards bridging these gaps as our fundamental challenge.
The author's assessment is in stark disagreement. In his opinion, it is absolutely futile for Mr. Ruggie to address the customary violation of human rights in the business ethos if he does not address the true root of the problem: true democracy has been supplanted by marketocracy and, thus, has disabled the States ability to impose a regulatory framework that effectively protects human rights from corporate malfeasance. The lack of regulation –a fundamental irresponsibility of any truly democratic government– is the current standard in almost every area of business activity. To be sure, the clearest and most pervasive case is the greatest debacle of capitalist economies that we are attesting to, as a direct consequence of the economic deregulation that governments have undemocratically imposed upon societies across the world since the 1970s.
Consequently, relative to human rights, de Regil contends that, as long as we do not demand from our governments a universal and legally-binding framework to protect human rights from business’ predatory practices –as a core element of international law– we will remain “in a sea of rhetoric rights, deception and posturing”. De Regil contends that unless we force our governments to fulfil our demands they will continue relying on the good old formula of pretending that they are making changes so that, at the end, everything remains the same. Something that, by the way, it is likely to occur in all areas of business, particularly in financial markets, unless society gets directly and permanently involved in the public matter, which is a fact of life in today's societies.
Download the assessment of John Ruggie's report here!
TOP
Human Development Report 2009. Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development
The 2009 HDR asserts that the enormous social inequality that prevails in the world makes moving away from their home town or village –and frequently to other countries– the best—and sometimes the only— option open to improve their life chances for millions of people around the world.
When people move they embark on a journey of hope and uncertainty, whether within or across international borders. Most people move in search of better opportunities,  hoping to combine their own talents with resources in the destination country so as to benefit themselves and their immediate family, who often accompany or follow them. Local communities and societies as a whole have also benefited, both in places of origin and at destinations. The diversity of these individuals and the rules that govern their movement make human mobility one of the most complex issues facing the world today, especially in the midst of the global recession.
Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development explores how better policies towards mobility can enhance human development. It first traces the contours of human movement—who moves where, when and why—before analysing the wide-ranging impacts of movement on migrants and their families and on places of origin and destination. It lays out the case for governments to reduce restrictions on movement within and across their borders, so as to expand human choices and freedoms. It argues for practical measures that can improve prospects on arrival, which in turn will have large benefits both for destination communities and for places of origin. The reforms speak not only to destination governments but also to governments of origin, to other key actors—in particular the private sector, unions and non-governmental organizations—and to individual migrants themselves.
The 2009 Human Development Report fixes human development firmly on the agenda of policy makers who seek the best outcomes from increasingly complex patterns of human movement worldwide.
The report includes a large collection of statistical reports and data sets, including the annual Human Development Index.
Download directly from the UNDP website here or in French here
Visit the UNDP Humand Development Report website here.
Or, if the urls do not respond, download the pdf of the full report here or of the French version here.
TOP
WORLD TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION REGULATORY AUTHORITY
A proposal from civil society to make corporations and governments accountable for corporate malfeasance
This issue commentary introduces a proposal –in development– for true and  direct democratic practice by making governments implement the World Transnational Corporation Regulatory Authority (WTNCRA). This concept has previously secured citizen support for provisional inclusion in the Simultaneous Policy (Simpol); which is being developed through a direct democracy process and aims to deliver social justice around the world, resolve global problems and regulate the economic power of international capital for the good of all.
The WTNCRA provides a vehicle to exercise direct democracy from the bottom up. It seeks to make corporations accountable to civil society for the impact of their activity as well as governments for regulating business practice. People can submit formal complaints against any corporation on behalf of global, national or local communities through public petitions, and bring prosecution through the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would have the power to impose penalties on companies for their corporate malfeasance or on governments for failing to meet their regulatory responsibilities.
Nonetheless, this proposal still needs to devise a way for people to have access to the ICC, for currently its mandate does not include corporate malfeasance. Moreover, it is not recognised by all States, including prominently the United States, the country with the largest number of global corporations.
The WTNCRA makes clearly evident the need of civil society for direct access to international judicial institutions empowered to penalise corporations for their customary and ubiquitous corporate malfeasance. The logical next step is for civil society to devise a specific strategy to force governments to agree on expanding the jurisdiction of the ICC to the prosecution of corporate malfeasance and on allowing society to file formal complaints against corporations and against States refusing to enforce existing agreements. The WTNCRA also exposes the great limitations of representative democracy and the urgent need for society to achieve true and direct democratic practice in a variety of ways such as the one advanced by this proposal. Download the full commentary here!
TOP
BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Towards a New Paradigm of True Democracy and the Sustainability of People and Planet, or Rhetoric Rights in a Sea of Deception and Posturing. The good old formula of changing so that everything remains the same...!
This study is motivated by the concern and frustration for the lack of meaningful progress in the struggle to establish a normative framework to protect human rights (HR) along the entire domain of business activity. The author, Álvaro de Regil, Executive Director of TJSGA, approaches this critical issue with the conviction that we endure an era in which, to say the least, a savage and perverse market ethos has been imposed upon humanity and the planet as a paradigm of life, with rules and structures designed in direct line with the conditions demanded by business for its exclusive benefit. As a consequence, societies' human rights are systematically stamped on by business activity in the name of free marketeering. In this context, The Jus Semper Global Alliance (TJSGA) has closely followed the development of the debate, beginning with the publication in 2003 of the draft of the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regards to Human Rights. In those days we expressed our restrained support of such Norms. To be sure, despite their broad ambiguity, such Norms constitute a first positive step upon which to build, with the direct participation of global civil society, a true regulating framework that effectively protects HR from the impact of business activity. Taking into account that, by now, different sectors of civil society and the business world -including the work of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights- have conveyed their positions, regarding both the Norms as well as the work of the UN on the matter, through Mr. John Ruggie -Special Representative on HR of the UN Secretary General- and the UN Global Compact, it was better to wait to obtain a comprehensive vision instead of assessing these activities individually as they were taking place. In this way, this is an assessment of the debate on the responsibilities of business regarding human rights in particular, but also generally on the political, civil, economic, cultural and labour rights; an assessment that, furthermore, constitutes the position of our only initiative: The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI), relative to business and HR. Hence, the assessment ends by proposing a new HR paradigm with respect to business, from TLWNSI's perspective, with true democracy and real sustainability as its underpinnings. Prior to embarking on the assessment, nonetheless, the author clearly establishes the context of the world's stage, from the economic, democratic, true sustainability and the current state of HR in business perspectives, from which he performs his assessment. This is how, from the very title, de Regil reveals his conviction that, in the struggle for establishing a framework regulating the responsibilities of business in respecting HR in their environs, there is a dominant position rejecting regulating the impact of business on the enjoyment of HR through a binding framework, with no other argument but the primacy of business over people and planet. In his perception, it is more than evident the clear reluctance of the UN member governments to comply with their most basic responsibility: to enhance the current HR framework, in a world globalised by the owners of the market, and guarantee the protection of the current rights. De Regil contends that the governments of the world and their multilateral agencies have clearly imposed, in a completely undemocratic fashion, an ethos where the market reigns supreme over people and planet. Consequently, they not only condone but enthusiastically support the systematic and customary violation of HR in business, with the payment of misery wages, vis-à-vis living wages, standing out prominently in what today constitutes a modern-day-slavery business practice; the shining feature of this era's Darwinian business culture. Accordingly, despite the overwhelming evidence of the systematic and customary violation of HR by business, what is clearly observed is an unrelenting litany of postures and gesticulations that pretend to change to remain the same, in line with the will of the owners of the market. Nevertheless, de Regil asserts that the last word has not been said, and that we, civil society, the common citizens of both rich and poor countries, are not letting up nor will we weaken our vigour and pace to completely and radically change the current ethos. Download the new Business and Human Rights study here!
TOP
THE PLACE PREMIUM: WAGE DIFFERENCES FOR IDENTICAL WORKERS ACROSS THE US BORDER
Another angle of labour exploitation through North-South wage discrimination
Researchers Michael Clemens, Claudio Montenegro and Lant Pritchett applied their analytical model on micro data on the wages of over two million individual formal-sector wage- earners in 43 countries. This exercise made these researchers arrive to basically the same conclusion that constitutes the fundamental argument of Jus Semper's sole initiative: The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI): Northern wages are much higher than Southern wages for workers of equal intrinsic productivity because of North-South exploitation and not due to price differences.
This paper compares the wages of workers inside the United States to the wages of observably identical workers outside the United States—controlling for country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural-urban residence. The authors drew fundamental conclusions:
✦ for many countries, the wage gaps caused by barriers to movement across international borders are among the largest known forms of wage discrimination. They arise only from socially constructed characteristics of the worker (like country of birth) that are not related to worker productivity (labour demand) or to the preferences of potential migrants (labour supply).
✦ these gaps represent one of the largest remaining price distortions in any global market. The differentials the researchers recorded are generally larger than price gaps for goods or financial instruments between developing countries and the US. As Jus Semper has always argued through TLWNSI, there is no relationship between the difference in wages for equivalent workers and the differences in prices between Southern countries and the U.S. based on purchasing power parities. This is all the more evident when comparing equivalent workers working for the same company in a Southern country vis-à-vis the U.S. As our living wage-gaps analysis consistently exposes every year, Southern workers earn only a fraction of what they should earn for performing the exact same job based on true price differences. Not surprisingly, the researchers, also found that the gains from a marginal relaxation on barrier to labour mobility produced welfare gains would greatly exceed the total gains to developing countries from elimination of all remaining global trade barriers.
✦ these gaps imply that simply allowing labour mobility can reduce a given household’s poverty to a much greater degree than most known in situ antipoverty interventions. Their estimates strongly suggest that no existing policy carried out in situ can benefit the marginal poor household as much as one year of access to the US labour market.
They also performed comparisons parting from results of concrete consumer-oriented actions such as consumer boycotts that brought the same conclusion. For instance, they looked at Harrison and Scorse (2004) finding that international anti-sweatshop campaigns against textile, footwear, and apparel plants in Indonesia caused a 20-25% increase in real wages for workers at foreign-owned and export-focused plants between 1990 and 1996. Their analysis model showed that this campaign translates to an annual wage gain of US$647 at purchasing power parity, which at a 10% discount rate has a present value of about US $6.960, which would account for 58% of the annual wage gain from working in the US. From another angle, this means that the cumulative lifetime effect of the anti-sweatshop movement on an Indonesian worker’s earnings could be earned if that person had the chance to work in the US once for a period of about 30 weeks.
In summary, this rich-data analysis exposes once again the argument rhetorically used by the International Labour Organisation to position its so-called decent work agenda: that the decent work concept has led to an international consensus that productive employment and decent work are key elements to achieving poverty reduction. In other words, there is no other measure more effective to combat poverty in Southern countries than paying living wages in the South and not the misery wages that workers receive as a result of the system of customary exploitation that has been in place for centuries.
Download the full paper on wage differences for identical workers North-South!
TOP
Bookmark this on Delicious
| |
