Neha Misra, Solidarity Center senior specialist for migration and human trafficking, said temporary work visa programs can be “a way for governments to address the desire for cheap labor, malleable labor,” through a system “devoid of workers’ rights.”
Re-posted: Yahoo News, “Modern Slavery: Labor Trafficking is Everywhere and Nowhere,” October 26, 2015
Calling it a “short-term fix,” William Conklin of the Solidarity Center … said a longer-term approach is needed in order to get a minimum wage high enough to meet basic needs, such as instating a commitment to achieve a base wage in a number of years.
“Last month, a group of independent unions in Cambodia decided to push for minimum wage of $207 per month based on an independent study done by DC Research, a Cambodian firm, and was supported by U.S.-based Solidarity Center.”
“Citizens deserve the dignity that comes when one’s rights are respected … It is vital that the United States and all nations recognize that the path to human dignity is built on democracy and justice,” writes Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau, together with Freedom House President Mark P. Lagon, on United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16.− Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.
Discussing the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau said: “We’ve seen four generations of people… migrating [globally] for work without a government focus on decent jobs for people working right at home—and that’s what we hope these development goals get us back to.”
“Recent revelations of slave-labor camps and mass graves of migrant workers in Southeast Asia demonstrate the risks people will take to try to earn a living–and underscore how impossible it will be to fix inequality while migrants’ lives seem to carry so little value,” says Shawna Bader-Blau, executive director of the Solidarity Center. (Op-Ed)