It's CNY, but labor away anyway

About two weeks prior to the Chinese New Year every year, the “chunyun”, or Spring Festival travel season, is a spectacle to behold, as migrant workers return to their rural homes in droves on airplanes, trains, and motorbikes. If you think the Thanksgiving traffic jam in the US is massive, know that the human migration during chunyun is seven times that. Yet, recent years have seen an increasing number of migrant workers staying at their jobs in the city during the Chinese New Year. For some, it is to earn triple their usual pay by working, for others, the trip home is simply unaffordable.

Speaking of workers in colossal numbers, approximately a month prior to the celebration of the Year of the Pig, an estimated 150 million Indian workers went on a two-day strike against the Narendra Modi government for its “anti-labor” policies. Making headlines late last year was the Google walkout across the globe over the company’s (mis)handling of sexual harassment against women employees. Rewind to a year ago, teachers across the US, from West Virginia to Arizona, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Los Angeles, walked out in protest of budget cuts and stagnant pay. As of writing, 600 out the 900 unionized China Airlines pilots have been going on strike for the sixth day, demanding less workload and a pay rise.

Across the world, however, there are workers who are not allowed to unionize, such as workers at Amazon.com, Inc., as well as migrant workers, many of whom are victims of modern slavery. But the future might just be looking a little brighter for migrant workers, with more governments committing to the UN goal of ending modern slavery and forced labor through their public procurement practices, cities like Athens piloting a project that sees the municipality working solely with companies that monitor their supply chain and take actions to prevent modern slavery, and Unilever has recently shared details of suppliers for all its British tea brands to end worker abuse.

Fairly recently, a three-year landmark legal case saw Thailand’s highest court ordering compensation for 14 migrant workers from Myanmar who were forced to work overtime, paid less than the minimum wage, and confiscated of their passports. Happening in Thailand soon is a pilot program by data analytics platform Verifik8 of eMin, a blockchain-based app developed by Diginex and the Mekong Club to reduce the chances of migrant worker exploitation by engaging the private and public sectors. In Bangladesh, a scheme will soon be put in place to compile a list of certified recruitment agents to curb the abuse and trafficking of Bangladeshi migrant workers.

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