REDEYE 4/19/17

Bangladeshi tanneries expose child-workers to toxic chemicals
GW, 3/31 — Children as young as eight working in the tanneries of Bangladesh producing leather that is in demand across Europe and the U.S. are exposed to toxic chemicals that…shorten their lives, a report says.
Approximately 90 percent of those who live and work in the overcrowded slums of Hazaribagh and Kamrangirchar, where hazardous chemicals are discharged into the air, streets and river, die before they reach 50….
[The report was] triggered by “the widespread industrial negligence and apathy of owners of tanneries and other hazardous material factories” towards the more than 600,000 largely migrant workers who have no access to…healthcare….
…250…tanneries In Hazaribagh…discharge 6,000 cubic meters of toxic effluent and 10 tons of solid waste every day…flouting…Bangladesh’s own laws…in the employment of children under 18 in work that is harmful or hazardous.
The factories douse animal skins in cauldrons of chemicals a part of the processing of “Bengali black” leather which is exported to leather goods manufacturers in Italy, Spain and elsewhere….Workers are soaked to the skin, breathing the fumes most of the day, and eat and live in these surroundings throughout the year.
Trump’s war on miners
NYT, 3/20 — Trump’s vow to bring back the coal industry’s heyday is a delusion….inspiring…legislatures in Appalachia to resurrect…loose safety laws that endangered miners’ lives and protected owners’ profits….
…Trump….is moving to help surface mine operators by eliminating protections for Appalachian streams and hamlets inundated by mine wastes.
The Kentucky Legislature…will cut back the four annual inspections now required at a working mine to as few as one….
West Virginia….state safety and health standards, developed across years amid the grief of repeated mining disasters, would be eliminated….a…retreat from the statehouse safety concerns voiced in 2010 when the Upper Big Branch disaster took 29 miners’ lives….
…In Appalachia…the coal industry has…intimidated generations of lawmakers to favor mine owners….This latest bout, launched in tandem with Trump’s fantasy job promises, can only leave remaining miners in greater danger on the job.
Haiti: UN caused cholera atrocity, now fails to fight it
NYT, 3/20 — …the leader of the United Nations apologized to Haitians for the choler epidemic that has ravaged their country for more than six years — caused by infected peacekeepers sent to protect them — [and]….announced in December…a $400 million strategy to combat the epidemic….Under its secretary general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, the organization had resisted any…blame for the epidemic, one of the worst cholera outbreaks in modern times.
Since then…the United Nations’ strategy to fight the epidemic…has failed….A trust fund created to help finance the strategy has only about $2 million….
…Mr. Ban’ successor, António Guerres, asked for financial commitments to the trust fund by March 6. He…raise[d] the possibility of a mandatory dues assessment if there were no significant pledges.
The deadline came and sent without much response….
…Diplomats and UN officials said he had shelved the idea, partly because of strong resistance by some powerful members, including the United States….
Cholera…has killed nearly 10,000 people and sickened nearly 800,000 in Haiti…since it was introduced there in 2010 by…a UN peacekeeping force. This year, as of late February, nearly 2,000 new cases have been reported, amounting to hundreds a week.
‘Why Social Justice and Capitalism Don’t Mix’
NYT, 3/24 — …Thinx, the…feminine hygiene company…entered the growing canon of employers that have fail[ed] to live up to their socially conscious branding. Former Thinx employees, many of them women in their 20s and 30s, allege some very un-feminist practices, including substandard pay, verbal abuse and sexual harassment….
Some former employees saw their experiences…as personal betrayals, given the company’s ethos of female empowerment….Ms. [Miki] Agrawal [Thinx founder] has been accused by a former employee of unwanted physical contact…a violation of everything the company stands for….
Thinx’s story…exposes the logical limitations…about employment and profit in [a] market-driven society: that profit-seeking can be compatible with social justice….
The popular myth that profit and social justice can go hand in hand underlies every would-be ethical business venture….The problem is that the market makes entrepreneurs choose between maximizing profit and transferring to workers the full returns of their productivity….
…If Ms. Agriwal had paid…higher salaries…she might have lost business to more ruthless competitors. Instead, she [paid]…her staff what she did because of a socially entrenched wage gap, a weak job market for young workers and her employees’ willingness to work long hours and sacrifice pay for a cause….
…To uphold a profit-driven society willingly, workers must believe…that such a society “is worth their creative energy and passion” and that it “meets their need for justice and security.”
That belief…part of the culture of Thinx…eventually crashed into reality.
Imperialist war drives Afghan kids out of school and into poverty
NYT, 3/24 — When the first day of school starts in Afghanistan…3.7 million boys and girls won’t be in attendance, because of increased violence, displacement and poverty. The total number — roughly one in three school-age Afghan children — is expected to grow this year as violence between Afghan forces and the Taliban intensifies and Pakistan forces Afghan refugees to return home….
[As an example] Lina, 12…lives in a refugee camp in Kabul….
“I loved going to school, but we don’t have enough money to buy notebooks and other things….Without notebooks it was not possible to study and do homework.
“If I don’t go to school, I will become nothing in the future….“We live in…two tents. I sleep with my five brothers and sisters in one tent and my father and mother and two small sisters sleep in the other.
“For breakfast, if something is left over from dinner, we eat that. If not, we eat bread with tea. After breakfast I bring water from the well which is a one-hour walk away….Two or three times a day, I also collect small pieces of wood and plastic to burn for heating our home.