DAILY MAIL– Factories making sought-after Apple iPads and iPhones in China are forcing staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide, an investigation has revealed.

At least 14 workers at Foxconn factories in China have killed themselves in the last 16 months as a result of horrendous working conditions.

Many more are believed to have either survived attempts or been stopped before trying at the Apple supplier’s plants in Chengdu or Shenzen.

After a spate of suicides last year, managers at the factories ordered new staff to sign pledges that they would not attempt to kill themselves, according to researchers.

And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages.

An investigation of the 500,000 workers by the Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) found appalling conditions in the factories.

They claimed that:

• *Excessive overtime was rife, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip showed a worker did 98 hours  of overtime in one month, the Observer reported.

• *During peak periods of demand for the iPad, workers were made to take only one day off in 13.

• *Badly performing workers were humiliated in front of colleagues.

• *Workers are banned from talking and are made to stand up for their 12-hour shifts.

• The ‘anti-suicide pledge’ was brought in after sociologists wrote an open letter to the media calling for an end to restrictive working practices. But the investigation revealed many of the workers still lived in dismal conditions, with some only going home to see family once a year.

One worker told the newspaper: ‘Sometimes my roommates cry when they arrive in the dormitory after a long day.’

She said they were made to work illegally long hours for a basic daily wage, as little as £5.20, and that workers were housed in dormitories of up to 24 people a room. In Chengdu, working between 60 and 80 hours overtime a month was normal, with many breaching Apple’s own code of conduct with the length of their shifts.

And the investigation found that employees claimed they were not allowed to speak to each other. Foxconn admits that it breaks overtime laws, but claims all the overtime is voluntary.

Some officials within the company even accused workers of committing suicide to secure large compensation payments for their families. Anti-suicide nets were put up around the dormitory buildings on the advice of psychologists.

Read more about You Are NOT Allowed to Commit Suicide: Workers in Chinese IPad Factories Forced to Sign Pledges

© 2011 Daily Mail

Photo by Flickr user fialan

GUARDIAN– Worried about the influence of money in American politics, the huge cash payouts that the US supreme court waved through by its Citizens United decision – the decision that lifted most limits on election campaign spending? Corporations are having their way with American elections just as they’ve already had their way with our media.

But at least we have the courts, right?

Wrong. The third branch of government’s in trouble, too. In fact, access to justice – like access to elected office, let alone a pundit’s perch – is becoming a perk just for the rich and powerful.

Take the young woman now testifying in court in Texas. Jamie Leigh Jones claims she was drugged and gang-raped while working for military contractor KBR in Iraq (at the time, a division of Halliburton). Jones, now 26, was on her fourth day in post in Baghdad in 2005 when she says she was assaulted by seven contractors and held captive, under armed guard by two KBR police, in a shipping container.

When the criminal courts failed to act, her lawyers filed a civil suit, only to be met with Halliburton’s response that all her claims were to be decided in arbitration – because she’d signed away her rights to bring the company to court when she signed her employment contract. As Leigh testified before Congress, in October 2009, “I had signed away my right to a jury trial at the age of 20 and without the advice of counsel.” It was a matter of sign or resign. “I had no idea that the clause was part of the contract, what the clause actually meant,” testified Jones.

You’ve probably done the very same thing without even knowing it. When it comes to consumer claims, mandatory arbitration is the new normal. According to research by Public Citizen and others, corporations are inserting “forced arbitration” clauses into the fine print of contracts for work, for cell phone service, for credit cards, even nursing home contracts, requiring clients to give up their right to sue if they are harmed. Arbitration is a no-judge, no-jury, no-appeal world, where arbitrators are (often by contract) selected by the company and all decisions are private – and final. 

They don’t pay fair wages; they don’t pay their fare share of taxes. They evade liability. What gives? Says Saladoff: “When corporations harm, there should be some way to hold them accountable.”

Read more about How Corporations Award Themselves Legal Immunity

Written by Laura Flanders

© 2011 Guardian

Photo by Flickr user tommyajohansson

GLOBAL RESEARCH– Prisoners earning 23 cents an hour in U.S. federal prisons are manufacturing high-tech electronic components for Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missiles, launchers for TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles, and other guided missile systems. A March article by journalist and financial researcher Justin Rohrlich of World in Review is worth a closer look at the full implications of this ominous development. (minyanville.com)

The expanding use of prison industries, which pay slave wages, as a way to increase profits for giant military corporations, is a frontal attack on the rights of all workers.

Prison labor — with no union protection, overtime pay, vacation days, pensions, benefits, health and safety protection, or Social Security withholding — also makes complex components for McDonnell Douglas/Boeing’s F-15 fighter aircraft, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, and Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter. Prison labor produces night-vision goggles, body armor, camouflage uniforms, radio and communication devices, and lighting systems and components for 30-mm to 300-mm battleship anti-aircraft guns, along with land mine sweepers and electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder. Prisoners recycle toxic electronic equipment and overhaul military vehicles.

Labor in federal prisons is contracted out by UNICOR, previously known as Federal Prison Industries, a quasi-public, for-profit corporation run by the Bureau of Prisons. In 14 prison factories, more than 3,000 prisoners manufacture electronic equipment for land, sea and airborne communication. UNICOR is now the U.S. government’s 39th largest contractor, with 110 factories at 79 federal penitentiaries.

The majority of UNICOR’s products and services are on contract to orders from the Department of Defense. Giant multinational corporations purchase parts assembled at some of the lowest labor rates in the world, then resell the finished weapons components at the highest rates of profit. For example, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Corporation subcontract components, then assemble and sell advanced weapons systems to the Pentagon.

Increased profits, unhealthy workplaces

However, the Pentagon is not the only buyer. U.S. corporations are the world’s largest arms dealers, while weapons and aircraft are the largest U.S. export. The U.S. State Department, Department of Defense and diplomats pressure NATO members and dependent countries around the world into multibillion-dollar weapons purchases that generate further corporate profits, often leaving many countries mired in enormous debt.

But the fact that the capitalist state has found yet another way to drastically undercut union workers’ wages and ensure still higher profits to military corporations — whose weapons wreak such havoc around the world — is an ominous development.

According to CNN Money, the U.S. highly skilled and well-paid “aerospace workforce has shrunk by 40 percent in the past 20 years. Like many other industries, the defense sector has been quietly outsourcing production (and jobs) to cheaper labor markets overseas.” (Feb. 24) It seems that with prison labor, these jobs are also being outsourced domestically.

Meanwhile, dividends and options to a handful of top stockholders and CEO compensation packages at top military corporations exceed the total payment of wages to the more than 23,000 imprisoned workers who produce UNICOR parts.

The prison work is often dangerous, toxic and unprotected. At FCC Victorville, a federal prison located at an old U.S. airbase, prisoners clean, overhaul and reassemble tanks and military vehicles returned from combat and coated in toxic spent ammunition, depleted uranium dust and chemicals.

A federal lawsuit by prisoners, food service workers and family members at FCI Marianna, a minimum security women’s prison in Florida, cited that toxic dust containing lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic poisoned those who worked at UNICOR’s computer and electronic recycling factory.

Prisoners there worked covered in dust, without safety equipment, protective gear, air filtration or masks. The suit explained that the toxic dust caused severe damage to nervous and reproductive systems, lung damage, bone disease, kidney failure, blood clots, cancers, anxiety, headaches, fatigue, memory lapses, skin lesions, and circulatory and respiratory problems. This is one of eight federal prison recycling facilities — employing 1,200 prisoners — run by UNICOR.

After years of complaints the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Occupational Health Service concurred in October 2008 that UNICOR has jeopardized the lives and safety of untold numbers of prisoners and staff. (Prison Legal News, Feb. 17, 2009)

Read more about The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons.

© 2011 Global Research

Photo by Flickr user flee the cities

MEDIA ROOTS- It reads like a science fiction novel: a multinational corporation, in control of a vast majority of the world’s food supply and chief promoters of genetically altered foods, is actively infiltrating the legislative authority to not only corner the world food market, but to make growing food in one’s own back yard illegal. Even more sinister, they’ve hired one of the most equipped private mercenary companies in the world to enforce their whims.

It’s an unnerving scenario, and an altogether realistic one. As the corporate era continues to expand its branches and authority in modern America, the modern farmer is facing challenges and dangers far more frightening than early frost or a pest infestation; they are now being forced to defend the very seeds they plant. Even worse: they’re up against one of the most powerful corporations in the world, whose genetically modified products many experts are warning could be detrimental to human health.

A quick lesson in GMOs, for the blissfully unaware: genetic engineering or modification of food involves the laboratory process of artificially inserting genes in the DNA of food crops or animals to add nutrients or traits such as resistance to insects or disease, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Genome Program’s Humane Genome Project. The result is called a genetically modified organism, or GMO.

The Monsanto corporation, the world’s leading producer of herbicides, is also a world leader in genetically modified seeds. The two go hand-in-hand, you see: one kills the bugs eating the plants, the other is able, through scientific tinkering, to resist the uber-toxic poisons used to kill the bugs. Theoretically, it’s a match made in heaven – until one factors in the impact of the potentially hazardous genetic manipulation, and the tactics by which the company owning the patent on these Frankenfoods assert their market domination.  

cJust how big is the GMO issue? As Americans become more conscientious of what they put in their bodies, many will be surprised to learn that we’ve been consuming genetically engineered or genetically modified foods for the past 15 years. 70 percent of our nation’s corn farmland and 94 percent of soy farmland are planted with genetically engineered crops, designed to resist pests and herbicides and increase crop yields. New technologies promise a future where genetically modified apples that don’t turn brown, rice is infused with vitamin A and, as early as next year, you may be able to buy a GM super salmon that grows to maturity in just two years.

At the forefront of the GMO debate, the Monsanto corporation has long been viewed as the chief enemy among organic farmers and GMO skeptics, having been the most aggressive in their attempts to corner the world food market, often through large-scale legal battles against small-time farmers and considerable (and controversial) legislative influence that leans heavily in their favor.

What is the ultimate benefit to Monsanto’s methods? The company defends the usefulness of its GM seeds, saying, “Biotechnology crops have provided a wealth of benefits to farmers and the environment. It is well established that farmers growing biotech crops realize many benefits including increased yields and lower production costs, and the use of these crops have resulted in an increase in the adoption of conservation tillage practices that reduce soil erosion. These benefits are the reason why farmers have overwhelmingly and willingly chosen to use these technologies year after year.”

Evidence of the negative economic and health effects of GMO seeds, however, which organic-farming groups argue invalidates the legal requirement for “usefulness” under patent law, are plentiful. “None of Monsanto’s original promises regarding genetically modified seeds have come true after 15 years of wide adoption by commodity farmers,” said David Murphy, founder and Executive Director of Food Democracy Now! “Rather than increased yields or less chemical usage, farmers are facing more crop diseases, an onslaught of herbicide-resistant superweeds, and increased costs from additional herbicide application.”

Moreso, studies are cropping up with increasing regularity that the potential harm of GM seeds far exceeds the original indication. Andres Carrasco, a globally recognized scientist in the biotech world, found (along with his team from Argentina and Paraguay) that Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer causes birth defects in frogs and chickens. “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy,” he told GMWatch. He has since reportedly suffered threats and attacks from local civilians as well as area police.

Many believe that the prevalence of GM corn and GM sugarbeets used as sweeteners in processed foods (such as the nearly-unavoidable high fructose corn syrup) is a leading contributing factor to the spike in diabetes, which has more than doubled since GM foods were quietly introduced to the market in 1996. GMO products have been found to exacerbate allergies, reduce digestive enzymes, cause liver problems and may, according to some findings, even lead to cancer.

Biochemist and nutritionist Arpad Pusztai first blew the whistle in 1998 on the hazards of GM crops, costing him his job at Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. Having studied biotechnology for 35 years, Pusztai had established himself as the world’s leading expert in the highly specialized field. In 1995, he won a three-year, $1.5 million contract from the UK government to establish a testing methodology for regulators when assessing the safety of genetically modified crops. The results of his findings, which are as remarkable as they are alarming, can be found in his book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation.

In his book, Pusztai contends that agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply, with innumerable references to studies and experiments to support his claims. The book’s findings lend added ominous tones to Henry Kissinger’s 1970 quote: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Despite these findings, which are increasing in regularity far beyond Pusztai’s work, large-scale efforts are underway to not only silence these damning revelations but to actually redefine personal farming, with the clear intention of world food-market domination. In 2009, two pieces of legislation were introduced (HR875 and S425) that would, through deceptively loose terminology, which would put private farming at risk and effectively criminalize organic farming. It is perhaps quite telling that the sponsor of the bill is Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa Delauro, who is married to Stan Greenburg, a political strategist for Monsanto. She is, quite literally, in bed with the enemy, in the eyes of farmers at risk.

The H.R. 875 bill, also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act, would establish a “Food Safety Administration” within the Department of Health and Human Services, specifically “to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.”

Section 3 of H.R. 875 defines what type of establishments would be subject to the regulations in this legislation. It that section, a “food production facility” is defined this way: “any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.” To clarify, that would include all small farms, all organic farms, and even small family gardens if you sell any produce to your neighbor. It would, in effect, preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share and feed naturally grown food and agricultural products.

The law was signed into effect in January.

Such conflicts of interest exist on the U.S. Supreme Court as well, with judge Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto attorney, writing the high court decision allowing biotech companies to patent GM seeds. Thomas also refused to recuse himself from last year’s Monsanto v Geertson Seed case, which allowed the USDA to impose a partial deregulation of GM alfalfa last June. This January, the USDA completely deregulated GM alfalfa, even removing the requirement for buffer zones, which helped prevent the wind-generated spread of seeds.

The Monsanto corporation has taken a very aggressive stance in its business tactics, suing literally hundreds of farmers whose fields have been contaminated with the company’s genetically modified seeds. In 2001, Monsanto sued a 70-year-old farmer from Saskatchewan, Canada, named Percy Schmeiser, for violating its patent on an herbicide-resistant GMO canola seed. They alleged that Schmeiser had intentionally planted some of Monsanto’s patented “Roundup Ready” seed, which has been genetically modified to withstand the company’s Roundup brand weed killer. Schmeister countered that the patented seed had blown onto his fields unbeknownst to him – a sentiment shared by many frustrated farmers around the world. Monsanto won the case, as well as two subsequent appeals, the last at the Canadian Supreme Court in 2004.

According to the company’s website, between 1997 and April of 2010, Monsanto filed 144 lawsuits over alleged patent violations in the U.S. Nine of those cases have gone to trial, with the company winning every case. And according to Digital Journal, Monsanto has also admitted to hiring Blackwater, a notoriously aggressive security firm which hires Green Berets and CIA officers, not only to keep watch for the safety of personnel overseas, but to monitor blogs of people raising issue with their tactics.

Even worse, Monsanto has modified its Technology Stewardship Agreement to shift all damage liability arising from transgenic crops onto farmers who plant their seeds, in the event that any health effects occur.

There is no overstating the risks small farmers face if their fields are accidentally contaminated with GMOs. In March, the Public Patent Foundation, a nonprofit legal services organization based at New York’s Cardozo Law School, filed a federal lawsuit against Monsanto on behalf of about 60 U.S. and Canadian organic farmers, family farmers, seed businesses and agricultural groups. The suit denies accusations of infringing upon biotech corporation Monsanto’s patented plant germs, and contends that the proliferation of genetically modified seeds put organic growers at particular risk—both of their crops being contaminated by modified seeds, and of legal challenges from the corporation if the seed inadvertently ends up in their fields.

“This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto’s transgenic seed should land on their property,” Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation and lead attorney in the case, said in announcing the suit. “It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients.”
 
The prosecution denies using Monsanto property and claims the company’s genetically modified seeds have an invasive presence. Despite the prosecution’s claims, a press release from Monsanto said farmers’ accusations are nothing more than a “publicity stunt.”

Genetically modified seed, the plaintiffs argue, can destroy organic versions of the same crop; after Monsanto introduced its GM canola seed, for instance, organic canola “became virtually extinct as a result of contamination.”

GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace have documented over 300 contaminations through July 2010 alone.

“Some say transgenic seed can coexist with organic seed, but history tells us that’s not possible, and it’s actually in Monsanto’s financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply,” Ravicher said.

We all deserve to know what’s in our food. We all deserve the right to grow our own food, if we desire. But above all, we deserve access to healthy food.

Stay informed. Enlighten others. Act now.

Johnny Firecloud is actively helping to build new horizons of personal activism and sociopolitical progress in Los Angeles, where he runs Antiquiet.com and is a senior writer/editor at CraveOnline.

Photo by flickr user Adobe of Chaos, alicia, Melvyn20CalderonGreenpeace

Related: Want to work on an organic farm? www.wwoof.org

COMMON DREAMS– Just when we thought Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch (in Montcoal, West Virginia) mining disaster of April 5, 2010, which killed 29 coal miners, couldn’t elicit any more tears or regrets or disgust or outrage, we find out how wrong we were.

Even after an independent investigation commissioned by the state’s former governor reported (on May 19, 2011) that the accident had been the clear result of safety violations, even after we learned that Massey had been cited for more than 1300 safety violations in the five years leading up to the explosion, and even after we concluded, bitterly, that Massey was guilty of wanton carelessness and recklessness—we find that we had aimed way too low.

It turns out that Massey executives were not only negligent, they were calculatingly criminal. On June 28, federal investigators announced they had discovered that Massey Energy was keeping two sets of books (safety logs). One log reflected actual mine conditions, which, alas, were demonstrably unsafe, and the other log was a fictionalized showpiece, a veritable Potemkin village, used to mislead government safety inspectors.

Maybe our first order of business should be to change the nomenclature. Given that Massey knew of the unsafe conditions and not only failed to address them, but attempted to conceal them from the very inspectors whose job it was to protect the miners from injury, we should no longer refer to the Big Branch explosion as an accident, disaster or tragedy. We should refer to it as “manslaughter.”

Read full article about When Greed Leads To Manslaughter–Massey Energy.

© 2011 Common Dreams

Photo by Flickr user Talk Media News