Janitors who clean multiple Target stores in the Twin Cities area began a 48-hour strike, Monday. The work stoppage is the latest in a spate of walkouts by low-wage workers in the discount retail and fast food industries. The janitors are demanding parity in pay and benefits with the cleaners who look after Target’s local corporate headquarters. The cleaners at corporate HQ are Target employees represented by SEIU; and they earn over $13 an hour, plus benefits. Whereas their subcontractor counterparts earn just $8.50 with no benefits.

As past Sidney Award-winner Dave Jamieson explains, the workers are also striking over unfair labor practices, namely, management’s alleged interference with their right to organize and bargain collectively. The janitors say that two of their co-workers were fired for attempting to organize. It is all too common for large retailers like Target and Walmart to subcontract the cleaning of their stores to smaller companies that keep their prices low by scrimping on pay, benefits, and job security for their employees. 

[Photo credit: Mr. T. in DC, Creative Commons.]

Past Sidney winner Dave Jamieson tweeted this heartbreaking story about how driving a bus in Guatemala became one of the world’s most dangerous occupations:

There, in the crowded office, the phone lit up. A man’s voice came on the line. It was calm, almost pleasant. You’re going to pay us taxes now, the voice said: 8,000 quetzales a week—about $1,000. If you don’t, we’re going to start killing your bus drivers.

Palo and the rest of the owners looked at the phone, then at each other. Anyone could get a cell phone, drop it off, and make demands. “We thought someone was just trying to take advantage of us,” Palo said. [TNR]

Saul Elbein, the author, explains how the seemingly bizarre killing spree is one of the far-reaching consequences of a U.S.-backed coup in 1954, the ensuing 40-year civil war in Guatemala, the U.S.’s chilly immigration policy towards refugees displaced by the U.S.-fuelled conflict, gang warfare in Los Angeles, and the deportation of gang-affiliated Guatemalan teenagers from the U.S. to a “home” they had scarcely known. All of these factors, plus extreme inequality, created a fertile breeding ground for organized crime. Post-war reconstruction has been all but overshadowed by crime and corruption, and the U.S. bears much of the blame.

The Chicago Sun-Times announced this morning that it was firing its photo department. Some 30 photographers and editors lost their jobs, three photo staffers reportedly survived the cuts but will be reassigned to new duties. From now on, the paper plans to make do with freelance contributors. 

What could possibly go wrong? Graphic designer Ian Arsenault can think of a few things, as shown above. 

[Image credit: Ian Arsenault, twitter: @ianwarsenault.]

Dubai, like other Gulf States, is heavily dependent on foreign guest workers. Guest workers make up over 90% of the private sector workforce in the Gulf. They perform hard labor for low wages and have few rights in their host countries. Most hail from poor countries like Bangladesh and the Philippines. 

Nearly 500 guest workers are facing deportation after a strike in which they clashed with the Arabtec construction company, demanding to be paid their food allowance in cash instead of meals. “Paying” guest workers in overpriced food and housing instead of cash is a classic exploitative practice that crops up regularly in guest worker programs all over the world. The strike ended when police and immigration officials stormed the camp, handing out deportation notices. Both unions and strikes are illegal in Dubai.

If you designed a perfect scheme to exploit workers, it would look a lot like a guest worker program. These programs import workers to do a specific job, for a specific employer. Under the terms of their visas, guest workers can’t get another job in-country, even if they discover upon arrival that their job isn’t all they were promised. As you might expect, unscrupulous bosses and labor brokers exploit this leverage to the hilt. To make matters worse, workers often borrow to pay their labor brokers. If they don’t stay and work, they can’t keep up their payments to local loan sharks, who may threaten their families. It’s not clear whether the Dubai construction workers facing deportation were deceived, but these kinds of abuses are endemic in guest worker programs worldwide, including in the United States. 

[Photo credit: Dubai from the air, by Tom Olliver, Creative Commons.]