Labor Day in Hell
The world's most repressive workplace environments -- where trade unions are suppressed, workers' rights are ignored, and forced labor is not unknown.
Belarus: Workers in Yurievo sort grain after a wheat harvest this August. Belarus's Constitution theoretically protects the right of workers to form and join trade unions. But the Trade Union Law of January 2000 and subsequent presidential decrees have created an atmosphere in which independent unions face harassment and their leaders are frequently arrested and prosecuted for peaceful protests. The authorities favor the Belarus Federation of Trade Unions, a pliant holdover entity from the communist era with which the government maintains close ties, and they pressure workers not to join independent unions -- which is easy enough to do because more than 90 percent of Belarusian workers have fixed-term contracts and the government, the major employer in Belarus, can end their employment for any reason when the contract expires. Collective bargaining does not exist, and workers who protest conditions are ignored by the court system.
Burma: Burma's military junta systematically violates workers' rights and represses union activity. Independent trade unions, collective bargaining, and strikes are illegal, and labor activists are routinely arrested; several are serving decades-long prison terms. International observers have confirmed that the government and military still use forced labor, despite having banned the practice in 2000. The junta typically targets ethnic minorities for work on roads or military infrastructure projects. Children, even below the legal minimum employment age of 13, are subject to forced labor and military service. Above, a Burmese woman unloads bamboo at a lumber camp on the Irrawaddy River in February 2007.
Cuba: Cuban peasants harvest tobacco in Pinar del R�o in February 2008. Cuba's 1959 revolution obliterated labor rights in a society that once boasted a rich tradition of labor activism. Workers are not permitted to organize outside the state-controlled labor federation, and Cuban law does not grant workers the right to strike. Those who do join independent trade unions face beatings, loss of employment, confiscation of property, and imprisonment; a number of the current generation of political prisoners are locked up for workplace dissent. Because the state controls the labor market, it determines pay and working conditions for almost all workers. In the small private sector, foreign investors are required to contract workers through state employment agencies, which pocket up to 95 percent of their salaries. The minimum wage in 2008 was about 225 pesos -- about $9 -- per month. Workers are also required to keep an eye on their colleagues and report any "dissident" activity.
Eritrea: The Eritrean regime uses the same tactics common among authoritarian states -- controlling unions, crushing strikes, suppressing collective bargaining -- but goes a step further by imposing forced labor and national service on its citizens. This harsh system effectively renders meaningless the country's legal protections for workers; citizens between ages 18 and 50 can be made to perform compulsory labor in any given year and are required to serve in the military or civilian work programs for an indefinite length of time determined by the government. Those who try to escape the system face imprisonment or heavy fines, as do their families. The government justifies these rules by arguing that the threat posed by Eritrea's neighbor and former ruler, Ethiopia, compels the country to remain in a perpetual state of readiness for war. Above, Eritrean women from the Red Sea village of Hirgigo walk home from work at a mangrove plantation in November 2007.
Equatorial Guinea: Women catch fish in Ureka in November 2008. Dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema makes little effort to conceal his contempt for trade unions. Several years ago, his government told the International Labor Organization that "there were no trade unions in the country because there was no tradition of trade unionism." Obiang -- reelected last November with 96 percent of the vote -- and his cronies have enriched themselves on oil revenues while ordinary citizens subsist on less than $1 a day. The government has refused to recognize several nascent labor organizations and has violently repressed protesting workers.
Laos: Like other unreformed post-communist societies, Laos is a one-party state in which practically all significant institutions, including the Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU), are controlled by the Lao People's Revolutionary Party. The LFTU's quasi-state function gives it a dubious dual role, controlling workers while it is supposedly defending them. The government, meanwhile, unilaterally sets compensation for government workers; for private-sector employees, collective bargaining, while called for under labor law, barely exists in reality. Above, a cobbler fixes shoes in Vientiane this March.
Libya: A Libyan carpet maker works in Tripoli's old city this March. Civil society and freedom of association were among the first casualties of the 1969 coup that brought Muammar al-Qaddafi to power. Qaddafi's brand of socialist revolution has meant the elimination of unions that aren't controlled by the regime. The government sets minimum wage rates, work hours, night-shift rules, and other workplace laws. Collective bargaining barely exists, and strikes are illegal. Foreigners, constituting about one-third of the workforce, are victims of systematic discrimination.
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