Brad McCormick wrote: > You can buy a car or rent one -- you still got [use of...] a car. > > You can't buy a person, but you can rent one.
I wasn't talking about "wage slaves", but about slavery: you CAN buy a person. >From slave traders. > What's the big difference? > > Well, there is one difference: If you own it [car or person], you have a > selfish interest in maintaining it in good running order. If you > rent it, your selfish interest is to spend as little on maintenance as > you can get away with. Nice attempt at embellishing slavery, but slaves are actually worse off than rented persons, because slaves have no rights (as in: no passport, no freedom to leave the house/factory, no decent food&shelter, etc.). > "French fashion people... like their businessmen erudite and > protective.... [Christian] Dior... put his talent in the service of his > workers' skills with a humility that manifested itself whenever he > encountered an employee, however lowly, in one of the house's corridors. > Invariably, Dior would step aside to let the employee pass." Note that it's an employee, not a slave... > No wonder they are having riots in France, is it? The French > workers are tired of getting benefits from the state and want their > *freedom* like Americans! No, they want *more* benefits from the state. Chris http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/katava_main.asp?news_id=240&sivug_id=21 Bonded Labor in Israel According to the Minister of Labor, Shlomo Binizri, in a TV interview, Hanan Azran's ("Exposure," Channel 1, 27.2.02) trade in foreign workers is "the most profitable business in Israel, estimated at about $3 billion." With that kind of money it's not hard to buy influential friends. The Israeli government not only repeatedly allows the massive "import" of foreign workers, but it binds over each and every one of them to a specific employer. This gives employers untrammeled freedom to violate all the legal rights of the workers in bondage to them. Complaints to the police or to the Ministry of Labor about the criminal offenses of employers are almost always ignored. On the other hand, should an employee try to disengage himself from such an employer, such action is considered illegal flight: the person's work permit is invalidated and the offence is punishable by arrest and deportation. ... The confiscation of workers' passports by their employers - a criminal offense which has become the norm - represents, above all, the enslavement of the worker to his employer. Once the passport has been confiscated, the employer has complete control over the worker's identity, independence, freedom of movement and legal standing. In 1994 the Knesset declared that passport confiscation is a criminal offense, punishable by a year in prison (clause 376-a of the penalty law). Though eight years have passed, not even one indictment has been issued in this matter. And this is not due to a shortage of complaints lodged with the police. Such complaints, and they run into the thousands, are the most common at Kav La'Oved. The percentage of our success in returning the passports, not to mention punishing the criminals, is extremely small. The employer is, therefore, exempt de facto from obeying the law. ... The only option open to a worker who has despaired of getting his passport from his employer is to obtain new papers from the embassy of his country, a procedure requiring large amounts of money. The Ministry of Interior's contribution to the confiscation of worker's passports begins at the airport. Ministry officials accept the workers' passports from the employer and return them into his hands, though they know the passports will not be returned to the workers. ... Employers use violence or "private" deportation as a means of silencing workers' complaints and deterring "runaways." Paying thugs is often cheaper than paying the worker the wages he deserves. The right to quit such an employer could have prevented at least some of the violence, but the system of indenture does not allow it. The "escape" of Chinese construction workers from building sites, due to contract violation or insufferable work conditions, often results in violence towards them. The construction companies demand of the Chinese employment agencies large sums of money as security against the worker's leaving the site before the contract's end. The Chinese companies, in turn, require their workers to sign papers agreeing to pay thousands of dollars in case they leave their employer. When this does not suffice to prevent flight, the Chinese employment agencies use abduction, confinement, beatings and robbery. These acts take place on the building sites of Israeli construction companies, some of which are considered completely respectable. One Chinese worker, for example, complained that he had been imprisoned for 3 days in a container and brutally robbed of 31,200 shekels (which he kept in a belt round his waist). The worker had left the company "Bonei Tichon Ltd." ... Indeed, there are a quarter of a million people among us whose rights - passport, wages and social rights - are completely dependent on their employer's integrity. If the employer happens to be greedy and unscrupulous, no one will stop him - not the police, not the Ministry of Labor, not those in charge of assigning work-permits and certainly not the employment agencies recruiting workers abroad. Perhaps the time has come to give the worker at least one right he can realize for himself - the right to choose a decent employer. ========== For more information about the collusion between Chinese and Israeli governments in the slave trade, see also: Migrant Workers in Israel - A Contemporary Form of Slavery http://www.euromedrights.net/English/Download/Final%20Report%20290703.pdf _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
