The Cases of Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal To understand the situation in the countries at the periphery of the European Union, four countries within the Eurozone, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, we have to understand the political context they have in common. All of them were governed by fascist or fascist-like dictatorships (Spain, Portugal, [...]

  An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens. We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what [...]

  Tirupur, Tamil Nadu -Textile Workers in a Globalized Workplace India’s game plan to compete in the globalized environment is based on our “asset” of cheap labour. The Tirupur manufacturers have carved a niche for themselves on the strength of cheap and abundant labour. Exports gained momentum in the late eighties and Tirupur came into [...]

The  news that a Romanian sweatshop manufactured one of Kate Middleton’s most famous dresses has inspired renewed popular interest in the ethics and economics of outsourcing jobs to utilize super-cheap labor. This is only the most recent of a string of cases that exemplify the shocking proliferation of sweatshops — even across Europe — over [...]

  Last year may have been a cruel year for much of the country with slow growth and double-digit food inflation, but India’s high net worth individuals (HNWIs) prospered — just over 120,000 in number, or 0.01% of the population, their combined worth is close to one-third of India’s Gross National Income (GNI).   HNWIs, [...]

  According to findings of a survey by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the first ever on work activities generated through NREGS*, has another major finding: the majority of participants , over three-fourth,  in NREGS works were either from “agricultural labour” or “self-employed in agriculture”(poor peasants) category of households. The proportion was as high [...]

  With unemployment at a near historic high in the United States, could you imagine any American company bringing in foreign workers to work for them below the minimum wage and with no benefits? Most people would say no. But can you imagine those same Americans forcing foreign workers to stay here, with no pay, [...]

  in Gurgaon – Delhi Industrial Belt –the Special Exploitation Zone (SEZ) Without artificial optimism or propagandistic attitude we can say that the development of both ‘industrial climate’ and working class experience in the Delhi industrial belt have created the general condition for a larger wave of wage struggles. Obviously there is no ‘historic inevitability’, [...]

  The Illegalised Mining ‘Illegal mining’ existed before nationalisation, it emerged – it was ‘illegalised’ – with the introduction of land property titles and the encroachment of common land by the colonial state. The process of ‘nationalisation’ re-shaped the ‘illegalised sector’ and its relation to the ‘official economy’, the boundaries of a hierarchical division within [...]

  The Coal-Mining Sector during Colonialism and after ‘Independence’    In the following we have at the historical development of the mining industry and workers’ struggle in the area – from the ‘Colonial Times’ to ‘Independence’ after 1945 and nationalisation of the mining industry in 1971-3. On this background we then focus on the re-structuring [...]