Decent Work

Canoes are the local means of transportion in Congo Mirador. Credit: Arnaldo Utrera

VENEZUELA: Wretchedly Poor on the Banks of Lake Maracaibo

"My father was a fisherman, and so was my grandfather. I fished for as long as I could. We live here because it is very beautiful, but we suffer great hardship," said 72-year-old Antonio Navarro, sitting in his six-by-eight-metre house on stilts in the Venezuelan village of Congo Mirador.

MIDEAST: Demolition Decimating Palestinian Village

Al Walajeh village was once a quiet but busy place. Just four kilometers from Bethlehem and 8.5 km from Jerusalem, its rolling hills filled with fruit trees, natural forests, and blooming vegetation made it a prime farming location. Easy access to large and consistent markets led its inhabitants to relative economic prosperity. Life was good.

COLOMBIA: Quarries in Slums Seen as Health Risk

Local residents of shantytowns on the outskirts of the Colombian capital complain that sand, gravel and limestone quarries operating in the area pose serious risks to their health as well as the danger of landslides. But they are afraid to speak out.

A young woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty at an immigrants&#39 rights march in Boston in April 2006. Credit: Philocrities

MIGRATION-US: Mexicans Jittery About Raids, Deportations

Panic has taken hold of the six million Mexicans who live in the United States without residence permits, because of the ongoing crackdown on "illegal aliens", which has involved an increasing number of raids and deportations.

IBERO-AMERICA: Summit on Track to Protect Migrants’ Social Rights

The Multilateral Convention on Social Security, to be signed at the 17th Ibero-American Summit in Chile, is an important step toward improving the quality of life of poor people in this community of nations, according to its governments.

LABOUR: WTO Dusts Off Hidden Collection of Workers’ Art

Works of art with a powerful social message, donated by trade unions in the first half of the 20th century, will again be displayed at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters after being deliberately hidden for the past 30 years.

MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA: Bringing Millennium Goals to Life

"Daniel San Juan Tolentino dug his own grave. A pile of earth fell on him and buried him." So begins the article on child labourers in Mexico that won first prize in the "Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals" Journalism Awards, organised by IPS and UNDP.

TRADE: Only a Handful Are Lords of the Food Harvest

The food and beverage industry is experiencing a high degree of concentration, with 10 distributing companies controlling 24 percent of the world market, according to a report being studied this week by workers’, employers’ and government representatives gathered by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

MIGRATION-CHILE: Back Home, Things Are Even Worse

"I can't go back to my own country because things are really bad there," says Gloria, a 25-year-old Peruvian woman who came to Chile less than a year ago, pregnant with her third child. But her life here is no better: she is an undocumented immigrant with no job, living in a borrowed room.

 Credit: Mario Osava

BRAZIL: Bittersweet Sugarcane

The sugarcane workers in this small Brazilian town ate at least 200 of the little roasted wild birds. But they had not hunted them. They merely collected the roasted bodies of the birds that died in the controlled fire set in the cane field.

Maquila workers Credit: Coordinadora General de Trabajadores Guatemaltecos

GUATEMALA: Labour Rights Mean Little in Maquila Factories

"We had no set punch out time. Sometimes we would work through the night until dawn," said Everilda Yanis, who worked at an export garment factory in Guatemala that closed down in December 2006, leaving her and hundreds of co-workers in the street with no severance pay.

CHILE: Copper Miners’ Strike May Set a Precedent for Labour Rights

The 35-day strike by roughly half the 28,000 subcontracted workers at Chile’s state National Copper Corporation (CODELCO) may set a precedent for labour rights in the country, experts say.

Capoeira class Credit: IPS/Mario Osava.

BRAZIL: New Lives for Victims of Slave Labour

José Alves has held on, for memory’s sake, to what is left of the old bicycle that took him hundreds of kilometres throughout Brazil’s eastern Amazon jungle region as he "hunted for work to improve my life." His need for a job led him to fall victim to slave labour - not once, but several times.

CDVDH founder Carmen Bascarán Credit: Mario Osava

RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Freeing Modern-Day Slaves

A young man with burns to his hands and feet which have become evil-smelling open wounds arrives, assisted by a co-worker. He suffered an electric shock on the hacienda (estate) where he works, when a metal rod he was carrying made contact with a high-tension cable.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Child Labour Seen as Normal

The three-wheeled cart piled high with scrap metal slowly makes its way down one of the main avenues in the capital of the Dominican Republic. It is pedalled by smiling 12-year-old Julio, who with his little brother Miguel goes out every day to scour the city’s outlying neighbourhoods in search of recyclable waste, which they sell to help support their family.

ARGENTINA: Incentive for Eliminating Slave Labour

A public institute in Argentina is offering "certificates of quality" to firms that do not use slave labour in the textile industry, where 80 percent of workers operate in the informal sector of the economy.

RIGHTS-BURMA: No End to Forced Labour

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) expressed profound concern about the persistence of forced labour in Burma, while it is closely monitoring the implementation of a mechanism for victims to file complaints, which was recently agreed with the Southeast Asian country's governing junta.

LABOUR-ARGENTINA: Informal Economy Just Won’t Shrink

The Argentine economy has been growing steadily for over four years, and unemployment has fallen 14 percent in that period. However, experts say that nearly half of all jobs are precarious and/or of poor quality.

PORTUGAL: Strike Takes Aim at Socialist Government’s “Neoliberal” Policies

The economic decline of Portugal's middle class, the growing marginalisation of the poorest of the poor, the uncertainty facing young people and drastic measures - described by critics as "neoliberal" - adopted by the socialist government form the backdrop to Wednesday's general strike in this southern European country.

ARGENTINA: An (Air) Accident Waiting to Happen?

Although the Argentine government is adamant that air transport safety is guaranteed, for the past 80 days the main airports in the country have been facing an unprecedented crisis. Air traffic controllers are operating without radars, flights are delayed or cancelled, and the risks are mounting.

Miners on Algamarca hill Credit: Office of the President of Peru.

PERU: Blood and Gold on Algamarca Hill

While two companies are disputing a hill rich in gold in the extreme northwest of Peru, more than 3,000 informal sector miners are working there without the most basic safety or environmental protection measures.

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