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Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Journalism and Communication for Global Change
Labour
In Minimum Wage Debate, A Battle Over Inequality and Job Loss
In the midst of a nationwide movement for policymakers to raise minimum wages for millions of workers in the United States, experts here continue to debate the advantages and drawbacks of raising the federal rate.
Staff Accuses U.N. of Violating Human Rights
The United Nations will commemorate Human Rights Day next week amidst charges the world body is unilaterally proposing drastic changes to working conditions and salaries of staffers without due consultation - and in violation of their basic rights.
U.N.’s Post-2015 Agenda Needs a Triple Play
As the international community fleshes out a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be unveiled next year, civil society activists and U.N. officials agree their success will hinge on policies that address the nexus of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation.Off-Radar Gold Mine Sustains Kyrgyz Mountain Village
A generation after independence from the Soviet Union, most villages in Kyrgyzstan are ramshackle, broken places, scenes of hopelessness and despair. Able young people leave – for Bishkek, the capital, or for menial jobs in Russia. But thanks to a secret gold mine, one little mountain hamlet is different.
Wage Hike in Haiti Doesn’t Address Factory Abuses
Haiti’s minimum wage will nudge up 12 percent on Jan. 1, from 4.65 to 5.23 dollars (or 200 to 225 gourdes) per day. Calculated hourly, it will go from 58 to 65 cents, before taxes.
Saving Children From Loggers
Logging is the largest industry in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located northwest of Fiji, where 80 percent of the islands are covered in tropical rainforest. But, although timber accounts for 60 percent of this South Pacific nation’s export earnings, most local communities have experienced no beneficial development.
Skateboarding Can Be Empowering
An array of colourful quarter pipes, bank ramps and a fun box come to life as a clutch of Cambodian youngsters do balancing tricks, kick-flips and kick turns. The all-girl session at a skating facility near the Russian Market here is facilitated by 20-year-old Kov Chansangva, popularly known as Tin.
In Haiti, Planting Trees Is No Simple Matter
Reforestation and soil conservation programmes costing many thousands of dollars in this rural community have resulted in hundreds of small ledges built of straw or sacks of earth. In certain areas, the earthworks seem to be lasting, but in others, they are disintegrating.
Green-Friendly Enterprise Helps Save Biggest Caribbean Wetlands
The 18 communities in Cuba’s Ciénaga de Zapata, the largest wetlands in the Caribbean, have long survived on the abundant local hunting and fishing and by producing charcoal. But that is no longer possible, due to climate change.
Today’s Forecast Is for Climate-Proof Farming
Even as weather extremes bedevil Caribbean farmers, Ramgopaul Roop has turned his three-acre fruit farm into a showcase for how to beat climate change.
Jobless Growth, the 21st Century Condition
The world’s poorest countries are rethinking economic policies that - even during periods of breakneck growth - have failed to provide quality employment capable of matching a demographic boom.
Oil Palm Changes Rural Culture in Brazilian Amazon
Thousands of small farming families in Pará, in the Amazon jungle in northeast Brazil, have turned to the African oil palm as a new source of income, through contracts with biofuel companies. Strange bedfellows, which poses cultural and economic challenges.
Widening Inequality Shatters Mirage of Social Mobility
Growing income inequality will pose a major threat to social stability in countries around the globe, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum.
More Chileans Want the Benefits of Living in Latin America’s ‘Tiger’
Hugo Hurtado, 47, is a chef. Anyone would say that in his country, Chile, the Latin American “tiger”, his profession would be synonymous with success and even fame. But unfortunately that’s not true.
Bank Crash Hits Women Harder
Women in Iceland have been more badly affected by the economic collapse in 2008 than their male counterparts, both in terms of physical and mental health, studies show.Next Page »
A global common denominator is the need for a decent job. The economic realities of each country determine just how difficult it is to find one. Despite the labour movement's achievements, serious challenges persist: gender discrimination, child labour, worker migration, the digital divide, evaporating pensions, unsafe workplaces, corporate pressure against union organising, negative impacts of trade agreements, and the precariousness of informal employment, among many others. IPS follows the world's workers as they confront these challenges - their setbacks and their successes.
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