Jan 26: China: Companies and employees sign commitments to tide over crisis
Recently, a public commitment activity with the topic of 'enterprises and employees love each other' was held at the Kite Square of Lianhua Mountain in Shenzhen. Over 100 enterprises including Foxconn, Wal-Mart, Huawei, Yantian International and over 2,000 employees signed their names to promise that they will help each other, make efforts together to fight against the financial crisis, overcome the hard time and achieve a win-win situation.
Jan 26: Health and business roundtable in Indonesia takes off
Companies and NGOs in Indonesia have formed a Health and Business Roundtable to build the relationships, trust, and learning needed for partnerships to improve workplace and community health. Health & Business Roundtable Indonesia (HBRI) was formed in January of 2008 by companies and NGOs. They developed guidelines for the process that allows members to freely exchange information on their interests, concerns, activities, challenges, and ideas for addressing health issues such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child health, as well as health related issues such as clean water. Members also discuss how they can partner effectively with each other and with local governments to ensure sustainable services and programs to improve health.
China's exports are declining as world demand slows. China's exports have dropped into their biggest decline in a decade. Exports in December were down 2.8% from the same time last year, a bigger decline than November's 2.2% drop, the China Daily said. The numbers provided fresh evidence of a serious trade slump that has caused a wave of factory closures and staff layoffs, analysts said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China faces surging protests and riots in 2009 as rising unemployment stokes discontent, a state-run magazine said in a blunt warning of the hazards to Communist Party control from a sharpeconomic downturn. The unusually stark report in this week's Outlook (Liaowang) Magazine, issued by the official Xinhua news agency, said faltering growth could spark anger among millions of migrant workers and university graduates left jobless.
Child Labour in Vietnam Figures compiled by the HCMC Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs show that 758 children under 16 years of age from 34 cities and provinces were doing heavy menial work around Ho Chi Minh City.
Jan 16: Sri Lanka: Factories flouting environmental laws
As many as 56,000 out of 70,000 factories in Sri Lanka have not obtained the required permits under the environment protection laws for conducting their activities, according to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Ministry. When factories are not constructed, equipped and runing in accordance with the laws laid down for ensuring public safety and environmental protection, the problems created are many and varied. Apart from large scale factories, there are thousands of small workshops that are run by individuals in towns and villages in violation of all rules and regulations laid down for strict observance. While some among these businessmen are ignorant of the law, others wittingly evade the requirements of the law for their convenience. In some instances the state authorities are unwilling to intervene for fear of financial loss, particularly when errant enterprises happen to be those launched by foreign investors
Jan 16: Vietnam reports first wildcat strike of 2009
Hanoi - Some 4,000 workers at a Taiwanese-owned shoe factory in Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province went on strike over the weekend, protesting alleged misconduct by the management in the first wildcat strike of 2009, police and trade union officials said Monday. 'This is the first wildcat strike in our province this year,' said Tran Thi Gioi, president of Thanh Hoa province's Trade Union.
Jan 16: Expat Bangladeshis need protection, says adviser
The new government must ensure rights of 1.7 million Bangladeshi workers abroad years who have earned the state $17 billion in the past two years, said foreign affairs and expatriate welfare adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury on Monday. "We have expanded the labour market abroad and successfully executed memoranda of understanding with five new nations for labour export," the outgoing adviser said of his ministry under the caretaker government's tenure.
Jan 16: India: Gujarat steps back from CSR regulation
The government of Gujarat has, in its newly announced industrial policy, refrained from making corporate social responsibility (CSR) mandatory. It has also rechristened CSR as “Wealth with Social Health" (which is probably more accurate given the remits in which the regulation was being discussed). Previously the Gujarat government had made it mandatory for state-run public sector enterprises to contribute 30% of profit before tax for social causes as part of their CSR that is now optional in the new industrial policy.
Taiwan: Listed companies must disclose on social responsibility
Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has said that firms listed in the country must make greater disclosure on social responsibility to help investors see which are making better progress towards sustainability. The move is intended to help attract investors dealing with specialist socially responsible investment funds. The FSC has said that it also intends to take action where company board members have not provided the expected oversight and defence of investor interests by strengthening the accountability of management and external auditors.
(source:Mallien Baker blog)
India: Government to launch product label as guarantee over child labour
The Minister of State for Women and Children, Renuka Chowdhury, has said that there is to be a new product label which will be made available for products where it can be shown that no child labour has been involved in their manufacture. Companies will have to be able to show that children have not been involved, including via subcontractors through the entire supply chain. The government is seeking endorsement of the proposal by all potentially affected industries. In spite of laws to the contrary, India is still believed to have more children employed of any other country. Child labour runs from light factory work in apparel industries through to extremely hard manual labour in illegal stone quarries. Chowdhury said: "Children in any form of labour is unacceptable whether employed in hazardous or non-hazardous work."
(source:Mallien Baker blog)
Japan: Are companies using CSR to hide unsavory business activities? - 18 Dec 2008 From Japan Today
No longer limited to philanthropists and those generous ˜ and slightly eccentric ˜ CEOs, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become somewhat of a PR exercise for corporations, as consumers and investors alike become more conscious of where they put their money. Japan has been practicing CSR since the 1970s, but the term has generally been either a demonstration of sustainability of a major corporation, or a convenient means of damage control after an accident or scandal. These professional window dressers and green-washers have perfected the art of making proverbial lemonade, but consumers are becoming increasingly aware of just how much mileage well-known companies are getting out of their CSR.
N. Korea: Google, YouTube to Promote Human Rights in N.Korea
America's Radio Free Asia reported on Tuesday that internet company Google and online video site YouTube promised to cooperate in promoting the human rights of North Koreans and democratization of the nation via internet broadcasting. According to the RFA, the two companies discussed measures to distribute documents and videos containing human rights' issues in undemocratic countries including North Korea, Burma and Cuba at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit held by the U.S. State Department in New York last week. Officials from some 17 NGOs from 15 countries, including Crossing Border, a relief organization for North Korean defectors, attended. An official at the U.S. State Department reportedly said, "It is important to use the Internet to promote North Korean's human rights."
China: Workers soon to be able to transfer pensions
Workers will retain the accumulated amount of their pension fund even if their accounts are transferred to another province or region, says a draft law. The draft social security law, submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC) yesterday for second reading, calls for unifying pension funds across the country so that individuals' accounts can be transferred and renewed anywhere. The pension fund clause was added to the draft law after the first reading by the country's top legislature.
The head of China's judiciary calls on courts to maintain social stability amid the economic crisis.
HONG KONG—As waves of laid-off migrant workers continue to head home from China's once-booming coastal cities, the authorities are bracing for a winter of discontent sparked by the global economic downturn. Wang Shengjun, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), called at an annual conference of China's top judicial officials for courts to maintain social stability amid the global economic slowdown. "The most urgent task is to resolve economic, civil, and administrative disputes caused by the financial crisis," Wang told the conference, citing "a large number" of financial disputes in coastal areas.
