Insight and Analysis

In early September FormarHub, along with IQLatino and the IDEA Center at Miami Dade Community College, hosted a multi-day conference with young Latino leaders in education called Leading Education. Though the conference’s central theme was education a common secondary thread was entrepreneurship and it’s potential to solve the education gap in Latin America as well as other deep-seated issues plaguing Latin American countries like lack of access to health care and finance for low-income populations.

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Ever since Russia’s covert invasion of eastern Ukraine last year turned the Donbas into a war zone, millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes in search of shelter and safety. The vast majority of those displaced have decided to remain in Ukraine, but now find themselves strangers in their own country. Uprooted from their communities, living in temporary shelters or basements far away from home, and lacking employment opportunities and social benefits, these internally displaced persons (IDPs) pose an immense challenge to a beleaguered Ukrainian state.

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Pope Francis wrapped up his tour of the United States this week after a series of speeches where he pressed leaders to address some of the critical issues affecting the world today. Flanked by two devout Catholic statesmen – Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner – Pope Francis spoke to a joint session of Congress to urge its leaders to use their power and summon “a spirit of cooperation” to act on climate change and address the income inequality that is afflicting the globe. As the increasingly popular leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis tried to leverage his voice to spur an overly lethargic and partisan Congress into action.

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Blue Star Strategies provides this excerpt from an upcoming chapter in Dorothee Baumann-Pauly & Justine Nolan's "Business and Human Rights: From Principles to Practice" (Routledge, 2016) by Blue Star Senior Advisor Barbara Shailor–at a time when many labor rights abuses that have come to light, from the Rohingya in Myanmar to the workers on Thai fishing boats. This excerpt provides a look at the history of labor rights and makes the case for an ongoing labor movement.

Worker organizations–unions and new forms of worker mobilization–are central forces in developing human rights and corporate accountability.

Untrammeled competition among businesses can lead to a race to the bottom. Thus, markets are always bounded by laws–to protect competition (anti-trust law), to enforce agreements (contract law), and to protect other social values (environmental, consumer, and worker protection laws). The struggle to define those legal boundaries is often contested. And workers and their organizations and allies are inevitably the driving force in much of that effort.

Worker organization grew with the advent of the industrial era. Early efforts took many forms and were often met with fierce resistance. In the U.S., early unions were ruled literally unconstitutional, treated as a violation of the freedom of contract. But eventually, in the U.S. as in other advanced industrial nations, unions grew, becoming in most nations the largest, independent membership organizations outside of the church.

Out of worker struggles came the basic concepts of economic rights–decent hours and wages, prohibitions of child labor, protections against discrimination, workplace safety, and eventually health care and retirement security, and, central to advancing all of these, the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively.

Often progress came from an outraged response to tragedy. The horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire–where a largely female immigrant workers faced a raging fire with the doors of their factory locked and had little choice but to jump to their deaths–triggering massive demonstrations that transformed labor laws in New York and the country.

Worker rights increasingly were seen as central to deepening democracy. Workers organized at the workplace–often across lines of national origin, race, religion and gender–and learned democracy in practice, even while joining together to gain greater voice outside the workplace in the political debate.

This understanding was increasingly incorporated into international and national laws. Haunted by the horrors of World War I, world leaders understood that “universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice,” and that social justice depended upon a strong voice for workers. That belief was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the war, and the founding of the International Labor Organization in 1919, providing workers with an equal seat at the table with governments and employers…

As globalization accelerated in the 1980’s, companies found they could escape regulation and counter worker pressure by outsourcing work abroad. Stable regimes with disciplined workforces and few regulations attracted investments.

Once more, democratic movements, mirroring the earlier campaigns of workers and progressives at the turn of the century, were needed to extend the guarantee of basic human rights. Again worker movements were central to those struggles. Again workplace tragedies and abuses stoked the outrage that drove the debate for labor and human rights for workers around the world.

These movements of labor, human right activists and students launched campaigns to “name and shame” companies and industries that did not recognize basic human rights. Activists began to expose extreme labor abuses in factories producing for well-known global brands, holding corporations responsible for their suppliers, demanding changes in the way companies do business around the world. As the movement grew, some corporate leaders understood the need to respond to the pressure. New initiatives were launched to address business practices and new commitments were made to monitor employment practices. Many of these initial responses were public relations gestures, but over time more lasting and successful programs have begun to develop through multi-stakeholder processes…

Driven by increased investigative journalism and expanding campaigning by NGO’s, labor and student movements across the world - new initiatives for broader civil society participation have urged governments, trade unions and businesses come together to improve conditions for workers.

These efforts take form in countries across the globe, particularly those that are most vulnerable to corporate pressures to adopt “low road” economic policies.

Burma is a test case for internationally respected worker rights… In 2012 the Burmese government, anxious to come into compliance with ILO conventions on forced labor, revised parts of it labor laws and the first steps were made to lift sanctions imposed by the U.S. and EU. This accelerated a political and economic reform process, which is continuing today and includes drafting new labor law legislation. These rights will be essential to development of a sustainable and equitable economy. With the lowest wages in the region and a large unemployed workforce, international companies could easily take the low road and profit from an undeveloped labor relations and regulatory systems.

Blue Star Strategies recently signed an MOU with Equitable Origin (EO) to become a Qualified Implementation Consultant for the EO100™ Standard.  Equitable Origin’s mission is to promote best practices and responsible energy development so as to reduce the social and environmental impact of energy development operations.

EO developed a voluntary independent certification process whereby production sites are certified in internationally-recognized standards related to: corporate governance, accountability and ethics; human rights, social impact, and community development; fair labor and working conditions; indigenous peoples’ rights; and climate change, biodiversity and the environment. 

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In the recent Women’s World Cup the US Women’s Soccer Team won a dramatic 5-2 victory over Japan.   The game drew record-breaking viewership, not only in terms of women’s sports, but in terms of men’s – with 25.4 million viewers.  In other words, more people watched Women’s final in the US than watched the Stanley Cup Finals and Game Six of the NBA Finals. 

Following the victory another interesting piece of data emerged; the US Women were paid $2 million each for winning.  Compare this with the winners of the most recent Men’s World Cup, Germany, who took home $35 million each, and the US Men who received $8 million for reaching the round of 16. 

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By James LeGrice of Insight Public Affairs

 David Cameron is about to embark on what will likely be the greatest challenge of his premiership. This Thursday at a summit in Brussels, he will formerly outline to European leaders his demands for a reformed European Union. He hopes that by securing these reforms, Britons will vote to remain in the EU when given the option in a referendum that could take place next year. However, Mr. Cameron’s demands present considerable obstacles in the form of EU treaty changes and the prevailing attitudes of prominent European leaders. Even if all runs according to plan, Britain’s “Europe” question could still remain unanswered after the referendum’s results are counted.

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Earlier this month almost 39 million Mexicans (47% of the population) voted in a mid-term election which was widely perceived as a referendum of President Peña Nieto’s mandate thus far.  All 500 members of the lower house in Congress, nine governors, and numerous mayors and state legislatures were up for election.  Though the formal distribution of seats is expected at the end of this month, the majority of the results are available.  President Enrique Peña Nieto’s party, the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), was able to maintain its majority in the lower house and gained nine seats (260/500 seats).  The PRI’s alliances with the Green Party and the New Alliance Party are partially responsible for this win which surprised some analysts because the President’s popularity is currently at an all-time low.   

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This year’s Wroclaw Global Forum brought together policy makers and business leaders from Europe and the United States to discuss, Shaping the Policy and Business Agenda for a New Europe. During the three-day event, many of the speakers focused on challenges to Europe’s security including ISIS, the immigration crisis in the Mediterranean, and Russian aggression. Leaders from both sides of the Atlantic acknowledged that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is best situated to address these emerging challenges; however, to be most effective NATO must engage in a series of institutional changes beginning with enlargement.

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Earlier this month Turkey held an election for all 550 seats in the Turkish Parliament.  The election was widely viewed as a referendum on President Tayyip Erdogan's administration, particularly since the President has been seeking a constitutional amendment to transition Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidentialist system, which would grant him more power.  The Turkish electorate; however, voted against President Erdogan’s growing autocratic tendencies and his party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), lost the majority which it had held for thirteen years in the Turkish Parliament.  

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