All Resources

Stephen Frost

Most codes of conduct are too long for us to include in this issue, but many are online. If you can access these sites you can judge for yourself whether the corporate world is taking the issue of workers' rights seriously. This list does not include all companies with a code of conduct online, but it gives a range, both of sector and approach. It's worth noting that in our experience in the toy, footwear and garment sectors that most companies with an online presence do not post a code of conduct.

Ed Shepherd

In 1997 when ALU first investigated Codes of Conduct (CoCos), adoption of a CoCo was seen as progress because until around that time transnational corporations (TNCs) denied responsibility for the way their sub-contractors treated workers.

Luci Highfield

Aotearoa/New Zealand

Stephen Frost

Ed Shepherd

An employment contract is a formal legal agreement between an employer and employee or the employee’s representative, usually a trade union.

From a legal viewpoint, even workers who never sign an employment agreement still have a verbal or unwritten contract with employers which has the backing of law in many countries.

Ever since companies began to use legal means to force workers to accept their conditions, a written contract signed by individual workers and a company representative is increasingly common.

John Maynard

A Postal Workers Federation activist and delivery worker writes of his experiences over the last four months to negotiate a two year contract with state owned enterprise New Zealand Post, and makes observations on the role of another larger union which Post prefers to ‘represent’ its employees.

On 2 October this year a new Employment Relations Act became law in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Verite

This is an abbreviated version of the full Verite report.

Contract workers in Taiwan, mostly from Thailand and the Philippines, face labour exploitation that constitutes a significant compliance risk [to codes of conduct] for associated companies that purchase goods from unlawful factories there.

Background

Ed Shepherd

This edition of ALU looks at different experiences in the complex world of employment contracts.

A labour affairs expert discusses the difference between individual and collective contracts, and how the Australian establishment is trying to persuade workers to sign individual contracts.

Pete Lusk

From: "Pete and Carolyn" <luskcox@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: unions and the Internet
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 21:07:47 +1200

To Chris Bailey, LabourNet UK

Hi Chris,

I was very interested to read your article 'Labour movement and the Internet' in Asian Labour Update, May 2000. What you describe ties in closely with my experience.

Sunwoo Lee and In-Jae Lee

South Korea's economy has fallen into serious crisis since 1997 and is now under the control of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The current economic troubles were unexpected, but the causes seem to be rooted deep in the South Korean economic structure.

National Pension Plan

Selma Widhi Hayati and Munir

The Politics of Labour Policy

The government's labour policy is determined by an economic system that places capitalist growth above all. This enables the capitalist system to continually reproduce itself because capitalist growth requires state protection, which the state provides through legal and political systems. The state thus presents itself as the guarantor of economic growth as well as the guardian and key player in the economy.

Stephen Frost

K R Nayar

The local government of Kerala recently published a report suggesting the revival of the co-operative medical sector in the state.

Apo Leong and Stephen Frost

Guangzhou municipal government has earmarked 60 million yuan1 over three years to entice students back to the city from overseas. Each returnee will be granted 100,000 yuan1 with which to 'start up or invest in special enterprises'. China Daily, 18 May 2000.

Ed Shepherd

From various UNDP and World Health Organisation reports; and from Third World Network - What does globalisation mean for health? by Diana Smith; and Experts attack shift in global health strategy, by Martin Khor.

Social security implementation began in Germany in 1884. In the early twentieth century workmen's compensation schemes became widespread in industrialised countries.

This time marked growing acceptance that the state should be responsible for health care, and that the poor should receive the same treatment as the rich.

Ed Shepherd

The Declaration of Philadelphia (1944) and subsequent International Labour Organisation (ILO) declarations recognised that availability of an "adequate level of social protection" is a basic right of all people.

The first ILO definition of social security was drafted with developed countries in mind. But they had near full employment then, and it is now thought that the definition is inadequate for Third World countries.

Issue No : 34  March - May 2000

The Labour Movement and the Internet 

The trend of modern capitalism is towards both globalisation and networking. These features are closely related, but distinctly separate.

New Technology - Changing the Industrial World 

Eric Lee