Vol. III, Bulletin No. 17.
September 21, 1998
The 'Kid Sister Test' for Sexual Harassment
How can you tell whether your workplace is ripe for a sexual harassment
law suit? Interpreting the relevant laws and court decisions can be confusing.
Applying them is even more so. Ronald M. Green, a New York lawyer, suggests
taking a more basic approach--applying what he calls the "kid sister test."
It works this way. Imagine that your kid sister (or a teen-age
daughter) gets a job in your office. "How does that make you feel?" Green
asks, and continues: "Would you want someone you care deeply about hearing
what you hear, seeing what you see, walking where you walk, knowing what
you know about others in the office?"
Green, who represents management in employment law matters, says it
has been his own experience that many corporations fail that basic test.
Writing recently in the Sunday business section of the New York Times,
he explained:
"Are these situations you would want your kid sister to experience?
I would suggest that if you are in any way uncomfortable, it's time to
start changing the environment."
Changing the Environment in Far-Away Workplaces
You can apply the same test beyond your own immediate workplace.
Imagine young females of your kid sister's age working in a sweatshop producing
clothes, toys, or some other goods for your home. Offensive behavior
in the typical sweatshop ranges from mild verbal abuse to physical punishment,
including various forms of sexual harassment. Offensive working conditions
range from excessively long hours (six or seven days a week, with no vacations)
to exposure to deadly fumes.
Are these the kind of situations you would want someone resembling
your kid sister to experience? Especially someone who, in a distant
sweatshop, is working to make products for you and yours? If you
are in any way uncomfortable with this grim reality, it's time to start
changing the environment.
It's easier, of course, to change the environment in your own workplace.
The law is on your side. But as the global economy multiplies the number
of people working for you in other lands, it's time also to get international
law on your side. That won't happen without support from you and others
like you.
On-Site Reports from Vietnam and Eight Other Asian
Countries
How Asia's Export Zones Abuse Women
"If these conditions continue, these women will be physically as well
as psychologically worn out in just 5-10 years. These women will
suffer from premature old age, disappointment, and unhappiness, regardless
of the noble ideal of equality of men and women in the development of the
globalized world promoted at the 4th International Women's Conference in
Beijing."
That paragraph summarizes the plight of women, mostly from 18 to 25 years
of age, working in foreign-owned factories in the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam. The analysis comes not from a human rights organization
but from a Vietnamese academic, Professor Bui Thi Kim Quy, of the Center
for Women's Studies at the Institute of Social Sciences in Ho Chi Minh
City. In a chapter of a new book published in Hong Kong, Professor Bui
reports on her interviews with workers in the Ho Chi Minh City area. Here
are some of her findings:
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The women work "in an environment where the levels of noise, dust, heat,
humidity, and even poisonous chemicals exceed the allowable limit."
As a result of such conditions, and excessively long hours (extending up
to seven days a week month after month), some women have suffered severe
weight loss after only six months of work.
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"In their contact with employer's representatives (foreign supervisors
and technical experts)...a number of women workers are cruelly treated,
dismissed, forced to change jobs, or quit."
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Vietnam's labor laws and regulations are widely ignored. Sometimes
workers come under pressure "to vote for a Vietnamese factory management
as chairman of the union."
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When Vietnam first set up its Export Processing Zones, the jobs there were
more attractive than those in government-run businesses. Now there
is "a trend of workers quitting jobs at foreign-invested enterprises and
returning to jobs at state-run businesses," partly because the latter have
better fringe benefits.
Exploding Some Myths about Export-Led Growth
Professor Bui's report appears in "We In the Zone: Women Workers in
Asia's Export Processing Zones," published by the Asian Monitor Resource
Center in Hong Kong. The book contains contributions from writers
who have researched labor conditions in eight Asian countries besides Vietnam:
China (including Hong Kong), Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea,
Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand.
In an introduction, the book's editors write: "Ultimately, the studies
presented here contest the myths about the EPZs [Export Processing Zones]
as a strategy for national economic development, showing that the social
costs far outweigh the promised benefits. [The studies] also show
how workers themselves have challenged the logic of EPZs, resisting these
new strategies of domination and repression, and struggling against hyper-exploitation."
Worker protests have even swept Vietnam's EPZs, as a supplementary report
on Vietnam (not written by Professor Bui) points out.
"We in the Zone," 268 pages, can be ordered (at US$25 a copy, mailing
included) from the Asia Monitor Resource Center by mail at 444 Nathan Road,
8-B, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The Center's Website: http://www.hk.super.net/~amrc/
Exposing How Ocean-Going Ships Escape Laws
Carrying an unusual floating exhibition, the merchant vessel Global
Mariner left London on July 1 on a pioneering 18-month visit to 70 seaports
around the world. The voyage is part of a campaign to expose how
the present loose system of registering ocean-going ships--under "flags
of convenience"--protects and promotes irresponsibility among ship owners.
"Half the world's shipping tonnage is registered in countries other
than the real country of ownership," the International Transportworkers
Federation (ITF) points out. By "flagging out" these ships, owners
manage to avoid national taxes and laws that set labor, safety, and health
standards. As more and more ship owners use this dodge to cut costs
and evade laws and unionization, labor standards have plummeted in much
of the shipping industry.
Transportworkers Federation Legitimizes Lady Rebecca
The Global Mariner is dramatizing the struggle of the ITF and its affiliated
unions to improve the living and working conditions of seafarers.
Formerly named Lady Rebecca and registered in Hong Kong, the Global Mariner
now sails under the flag of the United Kingdom, where its owner, the ITF,
has its headquarters. The change symbolizes a long-time goal of the
ITF--to have vessels flagged in the country of their real ownership, rather
than Burma, the Canary Islands, Liberia, or other "flag of convenience"
countries that leave seafarers unprotected by labor legislation and union
contracts.
On the Global Mariner's itinerary in October and November are six U.S.
ports:
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New York Oct 9-13
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Baltimore Oct. 14-19
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Savannah Oct 21-26
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Fort Lauderdale Oct. 27-Nov.2
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New Orleans Nov. 4-8
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Houston Nov. 9-12
Later, the ITF ship will visit West Coast ports--Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Portland, and Seattle, as well as Vancouver in Canada. For details
check the Global Mariner website: http://www.itf-ship.org.
Vietnam Releases a Hero from Prison
Wanting to get him off their hands, his jailers repeatedly tempted him
with "resettlement" abroad. After he firmly rejected that offer,
they threatened him with a tougher regimen in the labor camp where he was
serving a 20-year sentence. But Nguyen Dan Que, a Saigon physician
and outspoken advocate of human rights, said No, he wanted to stay in Vietnam.
He held his ground so firmly that in August the government relented--he
was able to return to his home in Saigon.
In reporting that release as part of a mass amnesty, the media identified
Dr. Que as a "dissident." That label is inadequate for a heroic man
who has kept alive the flame of freedom and democracy in the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam. For activities such as founding the Vietnamese Non-Violent
Movement for Human Rights, Hanoi has kept him locked up for 18 of his last
20 years, mostly in solitary confinement.
Now 56 years old, Nguyen Dan Que has left that hell behind him. But
does he really have freedom? That's still to be seen, but from what
I have learned about him over the years, it seems likely that, whatever
the risks, he will conduct himself as a free man. Here's a clue.
In 1988, thanks in part to pressure from Amnesty International, which
designated him a prisoner of conscience, Hanoi released him after he had
spent 10 years in prison. Instead of retreating into silent docility,
Que wrote letters (intercepted by the police) to the leaders of a half
dozen countries, including the People's Republic of China, calling for
the release of all prisoners of conscience. He met with like-minded
friends to found the Vietnamese Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights.
Then, on May 11, 1990, on behalf of that fledgling organization, he issued
a public manifesto for democracy in Vietnam. He was re-arrested a
month later.
Over the past eight years or so, I have had the honor of helping a campaign
that highlighted the need for human rights in Vietnam. A committee
led by Dr. Que's brother, Dr. Quan Nguyen, and supported by many, including
the AFL-CIO, succeeded in establishing May 11 as the annual occasion to
commemorate Vietnam Human Rights Day.
Let's hope that we will next celebrate Vietnam Human Rights Day with
Dr. Que in attendance. Let's pray that, on May 11, 1999, we will celebrate
it in Vietnam.
(For some background, check an article of mine published in the Christian
Science Monitor in 1995, "Vietnam War Not Yet Over for
Vietnamese.")
Human Rights for Workers: Bulletin No. III-17, September 21,
1998
http://www.senser.com (Send e-mail)
hrfw@senser.com.
Robert A. Senser, editor
Copyright 1998
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