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	Economic Crisis increases risks for Migrant Workers by Brad Adams Human Rights Watch China   Jan 2009   The Chinese government should ensure that the rights of China''s estimated 150 million migrant workers are not sacrificed as Beijing copes with the ongoing global economic crisis, Human Rights Watch said today.   Migrant workers have helped to spur China''s dramatic economic growth rate over the past three decades. Yet recent research and studies by leading government-affiliated bodies and research organizations conclude that migrant workers are the earliest casualties of any economic downturn.   "China''s massive migrant worker population is already socially, economically, and legally marginalized and is uniquely vulnerable to the global slowdown''s effects on China," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The economic crisis could well spark a ‘race to the bottom'' in rights protections and work conditions as employers exploit migrants desperate to work."   Violations of migrants'' rights were well-documented long before the current economic crisis. Migrant workers are denied the right to collective bargaining or to form trade unions outside the official All China Federation of Trade Unions. Financial and bureaucratic constraints often prevent workers from obtaining legal redress for owed wages and other labor rights violations.   Many migrant workers, particularly in construction, have long suffered from wage exploitation by employers who deny them legally stipulated labor contracts. Many employers routinely violate laws requiring monthly salary payments and instead make migrants wait for an annual payment ahead of the Lunar New Year. Such payments are often below official minimum wage standards. In many cases, employers cheat migrants of the entirety of their yearly wages.   Human Rights Watch said that migrant workers often have inadequate food and housing and unsafe working conditions, which increase the risk of illness and disability. Most have no medical or accident insurance, and shrinking job opportunities may force increasing numbers of migrants to seek work in the country''s most dangerous industries such as mining and construction.   A recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences indicates that migrants are the front-line victims of the country''s economic downturn through mass layoffs in the migrant-dominated export manufacturing sector. China''s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has indicated that up to 10 million migrants lost their jobs in 2008 due to the financial crisis. A recent study by China''s Tsinghua University suggests that up to 50 million migrant workers will lose their urban jobs in 2009 if the economic downturn continues.   Human Rights Watch said that growing joblessness will threaten the already fragile protections for migrant workers built into China''s constitution, labor law, and at least 16 other central government and municipal government laws, regulations, and directives.   "In a country that has not yet established the rule of law, the weakest in society will be the most vulnerable to exploitation," said Adams. "The Chinese government should prioritize the development of welfare and re-employment schemes for migrant workers and ensure that unscrupulous employers don''t take advantage of unemployed migrants as the economy worsens."   Human Rights Watch is particularly concerned that the economic crisis will amplify existing human rights violations linked to China''s discriminatory household registration, or hukou, system. Migrants from the countryside have long been denied social welfare benefits available to residents with urban hukou, including state-sponsored retirement pensions and medical care. Although some municipalities have temporary urban hukou programs, the majority of migrant workers remain deprived of urban hukou-related rights and benefits.   In January 2008 Ma Liqiang, the deputy secretary general of China''s official National Development and Reform Commission, indicated that the restrictions in the hukou system would be eliminated by 2020, but without giving a specific timetable.   In November 2008 the Beijing municipal government reinforced the discriminatory nature of the urban hukou system by announcing a system that will provide employers annual subsidies of up to 10,000 yuan (US$1,470) for employing urban hukou-holding jobseekers. That system explicitly denies the same employment opportunities to non-hukou-holding migrant workers. This measure may not deter migration to Beijing by the rural poor, and does nothing to address the plight of unregistered migrants who still live there.   Human Rights Watch pointed out that rising unemployment among migrants will also imperil their children''s right to education, as laid-off migrants become unable to pay tuition fees. Although Chinese law decrees nine years of free compulsory schooling, lack of funding for rural education requires many students in the countryside to pay to attend state schools. Migrants'' remittances to their families in rural areas - which a World Bank study indicated reached US$30 billion in 2005 - have been essential in enabling migrants'' children to get an education.   "If the Chinese government is sincere about achieving a ‘harmonious society,'' it needs to start taking a zero-tolerance approach to employment discrimination against migrants," said Adams.
	In the Globalized Crisis, Everyone shares the Pain by Spiegel Online Germany   Jan 2008   The upheaval in the financial markets has sent shock waves around the globe. Economies in North America, Europe and Asia are closely connected for better or for worse.   Never before in postwar history has there been an economic slump that has dragged down so many economies at the same time, from the major players of the G-7 to economic minors, from high-tech economies to developing countries. And all of this at an incomprehensible pace.   A mere four months ago, it was seemed inconceivable that scores of banks could be in such dire straits that partial nationalization would be their only salvation. It was unimaginable that the US Federal Reserve could be forced to reduce its key interest rate practically to zero. And who would have believed that a country like Iceland could become insolvent - and that a staid financial institution like Germany"s Bayerische Landesbank would have to write off hundreds of millions as a result. But now everything has changed, and now everything is possible.   Since then, the status quo - the system of cheap money, fast credit and the reckless establishment of debt - has been steadily unraveling. In an op-ed for Newsweek, Yale professor Jeffrey Garten, wrote that the root of the global problem lies in "the fact that banks lent way too much money to too many people and companies that were not worthy." Since that fateful Sept. 15, the flow of capital has run dry, and financial institutions have fallen into something resembling a stupor.   For years, the financial sector became more and more disconnected from the real economy, developing a life of its own in its quest for higher and higher returns. This led to the development of an economy of borrowers based on a foundation of debt.   These developments have rolled across the global economy like shock waves. They affect the carmakers in Detroit, where employees are worried about their jobs. They have spread to the city of Guangzhou in southern China, where textile factories are laying off workers by the thousands. They even impinge on traditional companies like German chemical giant BASF, whose customers are now buying much smaller quantities of plastic parts and insulation materials.   No one can escape the maelstrom. It was an illusion to believe that the world economy was broadened by the rise of China, India and Eastern Europe, and that the risks were more evenly distributed as a result. And the hope that the emerging economies could disengage themselves from the economic slump and grow on their own proved to be deceptive. The world has become multipolar, just as the crisis itself is multipolar.   Nowadays the economies in North America, Europe and Asia are tightly interwoven, and labor is distributed around the world. Sporting goods maker Adidas, for example, develops its shoes in Portland, among other places, its designers work in New York and Tokyo, and its marketing offices are in Amsterdam. The company"s products are mostly made in China - where else? The People"s Republic, responsible for 11.8 percent of global exports, has already become the world"s second-largest exporter after the European Union, which accounts for 16.8 percent.   The risk of infection is even greater on the financial markets. If homeowners in Miami default on their mortgages, this can end up bankrupting savers in Munich, whose bank may have bought and sold the toxic debt after it was prettily repackaged as securities.   More than ever before, the world economy is proving to share a common fate. Because the individual economies are linked - for better or for worse - they tend to drag each other down.   The crisis affects US citizens in several ways: as homeowners whose properties are worth less and less from one month to the next, as pensioners whose retirement nest eggs are vanishing, and as workers anxious about keeping their jobs. The unemployment rate has grown by half since April 2007. Without an effective social welfare system, this means a descent into poverty for many.   When things are going badly in the United States, the effects are felt almost immediately by its neighbors to the south. Latin America is suffering greatly from weakening demand for its commodities. From Chilean copper to Argentinean soybeans to Brazilian sugarcane, demand has plunged worldwide and prices have declined across the board.   The Russian ministry of industry expects auto sales to decline by more than a third this year. Japanese automaker Suzuki has put its plans to build a factory in St. Petersburg on hold. The energy sector has been hardest hit. Gazprom, Russia"s massive oil and gas conglomerate, has shrunk to normal proportions. Only recently, management was bragging that Gazprom, worth $1 trillion, would soon become the world"s most expensive company. Today Gazprom is worth $86 billion.   Russia''s national budget is expected to slide into deficit territory this year, for the first time in 10 years. Unemployment threatens to climb from 6 to 10 percent, with 400,000 people having lost their jobs in November alone. According to the Russian public opinion research institute Levada Center, the crisis has already affected one in four Russians in some way - in the form of job losses, reduced working hours or pay cuts.. Visit the related web page
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