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Poverty and Employment
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Globalisation
reaches every aspect of our lives. We buy
t-shirts made in Asia, tropical fruits from around the world and our football
teams are a worldwide swap-shop but globalisation has a profound effect on
workers and trade unions.
We are now facing the reality that jobs are also
moving around the world as employers seek the cheapest labour and manufacturing
costs. Can we as trade union members ignore this?
The struggle for workers rights, for
decent work and decent wages, has to be taken up globally to ensure that
everyone gets a fair share.
Facts -
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20% of the
worlds population, 1.2 billion people, live in absolute poverty.
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2 billion people don't have
access to clean water and sanitation, with huge consequences in death and
disease.
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One child dies every 3 seconds
in the developing world from preventable causes.
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2 million workers, most of
them in developing countries, die or are injured each year from accidents in the
workplace or from work related illness.
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30 million people in Africa
are HIV-positive.
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One mother dies in childbirth
every minute.
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2 million women and girls are
subjected to female genital mutilation each year.
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America spends $10 billion on
pornography each year - as much as it spends on foreign aid.
Large employers are looking to
exploit poverty by taking work to the places in the world where earnings are the
lowest. As economies improve or decline that work will continue to move. Unions
can only hope to address this by working together, across constituencies, across
industries and across borders.
The Aid News Website -
Website
Stamp Out Poverty -
a network of more than 50 UK organisations,
including Oxfam, Christian Aid, AMICUS and War on Want, who have pioneered
initiatives such as a stamp duty on sterling currency transactions, which can
raise billions to help provide clean water, healthcare and education.
Working as part of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY in 2005 the campaign
made significant progress with an agreement in February 2006, by several
countries including the UK and France, to set up an Air Ticket Levy to finance
development .
Website
Alma Hospital Trust -
A trust promoted by the CWU to build and equip a hospital in a remote part of
Pakistan. Website
CWU Humanitarian Aid - CWUHA take aid to
where it is needed most (please help if you can).
Many underprivileged children have benefited from your generosity over the past
10 years
Website
 FAIRTRADE
- The Branch Committee have taken the decision to, wherever possible,
purchase FAIRTRADE goods for use in the Branch Office. This is something
that anyone can do to help reduce poverty, case-studies
show how Fairtrade sales can benefit Third World farmers and their communities.
Click on the logo to go to the FAIRTRADE website.
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Together We Can Make A Difference |
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Royal Armouries
- Leeds
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Feed the starving
at no cost to you -
Every 3.6 seconds someone in the world dies of
hunger. You can help feed them in 10 seconds at no cost.
Two thirds of the 25,000 daily
deaths are children. Yet there’s a way to feed
them which won’t cost you a penny, it’s called The Hungersite.
Take a click on the logo above and amid a
pile of banners you’ll
see a yellow button in the middle of the site’s front page. The emblazoned
message is ‘Click here to give, it’s free!’ Do so
and a cup of a staple foodstuff is bought for someone, somewhere, who is hungry.
The
food is paid for by the site’s sponsors. In return their
names are prominently displayed after you’ve clicked. The more sponsors on any
given day,
the more donated per click; though only one click per computer per day counts.
The hungersite,
like most sites doing this sort of thing, is
US
orientated, but 70% of the donations from the hungersite go to alleviating
hunger in the developing world.
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