Capital Mobility

 

Introduction

 

Union busting in its worst form continues in Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zones (FTZ).

This is not new. 

Unions have never been encouraged to form in the tax free zones set up for the benefit of foreign investors, with little regard or the workers who provide their profits.

 

Following are a few typical situations that courageous Thai workers frequently face when attempting to organise a union, challenging the national and international legal frameworks.

 

• The Hong Kong-based May Choeng Toy Products company owns Master Toy Company in Thailand, which produces Maisto brand toys. In December 2000 Master Toy dismissed 173 workers because they were members of a union. The workers protested for half a year before achieving justice.

 

6 September 2000 was just another working day for Nib Bahadur Sunar in Hong Kong. He was happy with his job at the Tin-Wo-Engineering company that was subcontracted by the construction giant Paul Y-ITC Construction Holdings, a Hong Kong-based company that has construction projects in seven countries in the Asia Pacific region. Paul Y-ITC in turn was contracted by the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) that carries over two million persons every day.

 

Companies, often in collusion with governments, continuously develop techniques to sideline or smash independent representative unions. Wrecking methods vary from raw violence and intimidation to administrative measures, especially those backed by the law or lack of law.

 

Administrative busting

 

 

 

The world has witnessed during the last decade an unprecedented scale and force of corporate-led globalisation. The Third World in particular has experienced the immense negative social and environmental impacts of this globalisation.

 

 

Since 1996 Northern-based Export Credit Agencies (ECA) have become the largest long-term official creditors of Southern countries - far exceeding the total annual investments of multilateral development banks and bilateral agencies.

 

 

 

As discussed in much more detail elsewhere in this issue, export credit agencies provide credit insurance (and loans) to enterprises doing business overseas. Although private companies (such as EULER and HERMES, CNA, Eurofactor, and Hiscox) sometimes provide these services, credit insurance and loans are more often provided by public - government-backed - agencies.

 

 

 

A Brazilian soccer team kissed the trophy in triumph after the final game of the 2002 World Cup tournament. The event hosted by South Korea and Japan lasted from 31 May to 30 June.