Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
or launch an original Sino-Latino orientation to global justice, which
may advance or dilute the existing Northern interpretation.
China's Pendulum: Domestic Rights and Abuses
Before speculating on how China's overseas operations are trailing,
meeting, or exceeding Northern standards and on how Southern activists
and NGOs are mobilizing in response to China's presence, this section
introduces China's domestic policies with regard to labor and the envi-
ronment in order to shed light on its global operations. In China, for
example, the ongoing arrests of political activists, inadequate labor safe-
guards, inequitable distribution of resources between rural and urban
populations, and a legacy of environmental negligence paint a dismal
picture. If transported overseas, these practices could prove disastrous
for ecosystems and communities near oil facilities.
Labor Struggles
In China, protest gatherings of more than 100 people have risen from
nearly 9,000 in 1993 to approximately 74,000 in 2004, with the majority
involving laid-off workers chanting communist slogans against oppres-
sion, farmers protesting land seizures and environmental contamination,
and ethnic minorities resisting repression (Shirk 2007, 56-57).
4
Rural
peasants and/or migrant laborers in urban factories describe thirty-hour
shifts and physically abusive workplaces, while older workers identify a
disinvestment in the workplace and a subordination of skill building, due
to an increasingly capitalistic orientation to production (Lee 2007).
In contrast, workers in China also have the right to unionize, to fi le
grievances, and to form representative committees (Lee 2007; Guthrie
2006), while multinationals, such as Wal-Mart and McDonald's—which
have resisted union formation in the United States—have agreed to
support the state-run union in China (Barboza 2008). In addition,
Chinese citizens view human rights as including “guaranteed jobs and
wages” as “part of the larger bundle of rights” (Guthrie 2006, 24), which
are not realized in the United States. Yet in spite of these rights, incon-
gruities exist. For instance, the sole union available to workers is the All
China Federation of Trade Unions, while “underground unionists” have
been arrested and imprisoned (Lee 2007, 192).
The balance between worker rights and national need is precarious
in a less socialist and more capitalistic marketplace that includes joint
ventures between foreign fi rms and local governments (Lee 2007). In the
