Issue: Dec 31, 2011 Asian Development Bank’s new plan insists on the private sector answer to water woes

TAKING stock of its water operations, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has set guidelines for an investment of US $2-2.5 billion annually in the water sector for the next 10 years. The guidelines, called Water Operation Plan, however, do not define the exact approach to water operations.

Critics say the plan gives countries the option to seek financial help and expertise from the private sector on water projects. This facilitates and encourages governments like India to allow private investments to address the issue of water scarcity and find markets for companies based in donor countries.
The first-of-its-kind guidelines, approved in October, are based on the understanding that water has an economic value. “These guidelines prove that ADB’s plans have been unsuccessful until now due to public opposition to water service charges,” says Hemantha Withanage, executive director of Centre for Environmental Justice, a non-profit in Sri Lanka. An ADB evaluation of its water projects in 2008 found that attempts at tariff reform, achieving cost recovery in services, initiating regulatory reforms and involving the private sector remained “intractable”. Another assessment in 2010 found that nearly half of the projects failed to meet targets like increased tariff and cost recovery.

The guidelines make clear that countries cannot risk waiting for investments, and can seek to advocate projects involving investment and expertise from the private sector. “They are attempting to commodify water in Asia,” says Withanage.

ADB has for long held that limited participation of the private sector in water services is a cause for concern because of the limitations of the public sector to expand investments. The drive to foster a culture of payment for water as a service has suffered from a general unwillingness to charge. Providers therefore remain short of capital. “The public and private both have failed,” says Avilash Roul, executive director of NGO Forum on ADB, a network of 250 non-profits formed to make ADB accountable to the impacts of its projects. The governments cannot outsource their responsibility to provide basic services to the people. Private players can at best invest their money for such activities which must be controlled, managed and owned by the public sector enterprises, adds Roul.

Through the guidelines, ADB intends to make the relationship between water, food and energy stronger. “Many Asian countries are experiencing chronic water shortages. Since nearly 80 per cent of the region’s water is used in agricultural production, water shortages can contribute to shortages of food,” says Alan Baird, senior water supply and sanitation specialist with ADB.

Combined with energy insecurity, the increasing shortages in water and food may reverse Asia’s hard-won gains in poverty reduction, he adds. Therefore ADB is committed to funding hydropower development. “Integrated water resources management has transformed into this so-called nexus which ADB adopted last year. This points to how smoothly ADB policies can morph, for instance, to support hydropower structures in the eastern Himalayan rivers,” says Roul.

According to ADB, the water-food-energy “nexus” is critical in achieving equitable water security across Asia. “It is not an exercise to promulgate dam building,” says Baird. ADB works with a broad range of stakeholders. In 2010, 80 per cent of loans, grants, and related project preparatory technical assistance approved included some form of participation from civil society organisations, says Baird. “Despite ADB’s proclamation of a multi-stakeholder to help prepare this ‘magna carta’ on water, its definition of stakeholders mainly involves governments who oblige the bank, private sectors and institutions who have already partnered with the bank’s funds in implementing its activities,” says Roul.

[WASHINGTON, DC]: Today, the World Bank launched a new partnership with global corporations including Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Veolia. Housed at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), the new venture aspires to “transform the water sector” by inserting the corporate sector into what has historically been a public service. The new partnership is part of a broader trend of industry collusion to influence global water policy.
The venture — called the 2030 Water Resources Group Phase 2 Entity —  aligns global corporations that have major financial stakes in water governance with the World Bank, one of the world’s leading development institutions. Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has been appointed to chair the Water Resources Group, which has already received $1.5 million in IFC funding. Nestlé is the world’s largest water bottling corporation.

Advocates for people’s access to water point to this as the latest example of water corporations’ efforts to interfere in legitimate, democratic water governance. The Water Resources Group presents a conflict of interest to the World Bank’s goal of poverty alleviation. It also advances an approach to water governance that is in incompatible with the U.N. recognized human right to water.
“This is an unmistakably activist campaign by the private water industry to gain funding and credibility for a radical power grab, with the help of the World Bank,” said Corporate Accountability International’s Senior Organizer Shayda Edwards Naficy. “According to the World Bank, 34% of private water contracts are in distress or terminated before maturity. Last April, the IFC’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman reported that an astounding 40 percent of complaints received from all regions and sectors were water-related. This is evidence that water privatization has been fraught with a range of problems, including broken promises for expanded service, wasted public funds and threats to human rights, especially for the lowest income families. For the Bank to sanction this approach despite a track record of failure points to compromised decision-making at the Bank due to pervasive partnerships with and financial stakes in corporations.”
Currently, 90 percent of the world’s water-users access water through public delivery. Turning these systems over to private corporations would result in rate hikes, cutoffs  and significant layoffs of water sector employees. Focusing on the private sector also distracts from the need to support governments in protecting human rights.

The Water Resources Group aims to “develop new normative approaches to water management,” paving the way for an expanded private sector role into best and common practices, worldwide. In order to be eligible for support from this new fund, all projects must “provide for at least one partner from the private sector,” not simply as a charitable funder, but “as part of its operations.” The group’s strategy is to insert the private sector into water management one country at a time, through a combination of industry-funded research and direct partnerships with government agencies. Currently, the Water Resources Group is formally working with the governments of Jordan, Mexico, and the Indian state of Karnataka, and discussions are ongoing with the governments of South Africa, China and several other countries slated for participation in the next phase.

“Corporate Accountability International has consistently demonstrated the World Bank’s inherent conflicts of interest, acting as an investor, a government advisor, an arbitrator and a public relations vehicle in support of profiteering in the water sector,” said Naficy. “Global water corporations must not be allowed to tap into public ‘development funds’ to promote their private agenda because case after case shows that profitability and fulfillment of human rights in the water sector are at odds.”

Corporate Accountability International (formerly Infact) is a membership organization that has, for the last 34 years, successfully advanced campaigns protecting health, the environment and human rights. Through its Campaign Challenging Corporate Control of Water, Corporate Accountability International is playing a leadership role in the global movement to secure the human right to water, and people’s access to water; prevent corporate control of water; preserve and protect water resources and systems for the public good; and preserve water resources as an ecological trust.

CY GONICK

1. Profit maximization is the iron rule of capitalism, setting limits to ecological reform. A profit-based economy that requires continuous economic growth makes ecological catastrophes inevitable.
2. Voluntarism, technological fixes and market incentives as they have been constructed cannot achieve even the weak Green House Gas targets gov­ernments have committed to. Even so, many govern­ments such as ours and that of theUSA, haven’t even initiated these market mechanisms like carbon taxes or cap and trade.
3. We need to accept that we WILL pass the terrible tipping points that climate scientists like James Han­sen have been talking about for at least a decade now. And that the catastrophes they predict will happen, gradually at first and then rapidly as the feedbacks kick in.
4. As the consequences of passing the tipping points eventuate, with droughts, floods, rising sea levels, growing numbers of climate refugees – states every­where will begin to exercise authoritarian measures to preserve order and to ensure that increasingly scarce water, food and energy resources are pre­served for the rich and to feed the material require­ments of corporate enterprise. Robert Heilbroner predicted this outcome back in 1974 in his Inquiry into the Human Prospect. Joel Kovel discussed the prospect more recently.
5. We can already see the beginnings of the move towards authoritarianism – the xenophobic response to immigration throughout Europe, the attempt to destroy unionism in the USA, the harsh way protest­ers against austerity measures are being treated, to say nothing of police repression against G20 pro­testers inToronto. And Stephen Harper’s deliberate efforts to silence his critics by shutting down or reori­enting research and advocacy organizations.
6. It is essential for us to be critiquing market-based solutions and those, including most mainstream environmental organizations, who promote these solutions and insist on working within the system. We need to expose environmental organizations who accept funding from corporate-based foundations that are extensions of the energy industrial complex and thus allow themselves to be used by the perpetrators of climate change and bolstering their legitimacy.
7. We need to be putting forth more structurally based solutions such as stopping the tar sands, massive investment in solar, wind and geothermal renewables and expanding public transit. Yet, we should accept that these solutions are and will be totally rejected by capitalist states and that, in any case, renewable energy cannot meet the mass energy requirement of consumerism and relentless economic growth especially in the light of ongoing neoliberal globalization.
8. We need to be talking now about how we will respond to the ecological catastrophe as it unfolds and to the authoritarian actions of capitalist states to repress popular resistance against harsh austerity measures and to increasingly destructive methods of extracting oil and natural gas from less accessible sources.
9. It will be essential to show how the economy can be transformed so that it does not require continuous growth and yet provides for the basic requirements of all citizens.
10. Intellectual argument is not sufficient. Our move­ment will have to turn towards widespread forms of direct action to stop the ecocide and the austerity measures that shift the burden of the ecological crisis onto the lower and working classes.

The United Nations says that the world’s population will reach 7 billion people this month.

The approach of that milestone has produced a wave of articles and opinion pieces blaming the world’s environmental crises on overpopulation. In New York’s Times Square, a huge and expensive video declares that “human overpopulation is driving species extinct.” In London’s busiest Underground stations, electronic poster boards warn that 7 billion is ecologically unsustainable.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s bestseller The Population Bomb declared that as a result of overpopulation, “the battle to feed humanity is over,” and the 1970s would be a time of global famines and ever-rising death rates. His predictions were all wrong, but four decades later his successors still use Ehrlich’s phrase — too many people! — to explain environmental problems.

But most of the 7 billion are not endangering the earth. The majority of the world’s people don’t destroy forests, don’t wipe out endangered species, don’t pollute rivers and oceans, and emit essentially no greenhouse gases.

Even in the rich countries of the Global North, most environmental destruction is caused not by individuals or households, but by mines, factories, and power plants run by corporations that care more about profit than about humanity’s survival.

No reduction in U.S. population would have stopped BP from poisoning the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Lower birthrates won’t shut down Canada’s tar sands, which Bill McKibben has justly called one of the most staggering crimes the world has ever seen.

Universal access to birth control should be a fundamental human right — but it would not have prevented Shell’s massive destruction of ecosystems in the Niger River delta, or the immeasurable damage that Chevron has caused to rainforests in Ecuador.

Ironically, while populationist groups focus attention on the 7 billion, protestors in the worldwide Occupy movement have identified the real source of environmental destruction: not the 7 billion, but the 1%, the handful of millionaires and billionaires who own more, consume more, control more, and destroy more than all the rest of us put together.

In the United States, the richest 1% own a majority of all stocks and corporate equity, giving them absolute control of the corporations that are directly responsible for most environmental destruction.

Read more from Angus and Butler in their new book Too Many People?A recent report prepared by the British consulting firm Trucost for the United Nations found that just 3,000 corporations cause $2.15 trillion in environmental damage every year. Outrageous as that figure is — only six countries have a GDP greater than $2.15 trillion — it substantially understates the damage, because it excludes costs that would result from “potential high impact events such as fishery or ecosystem collapse,” and “external costs caused by product use and disposal, as well as companies’ use of other natural resources and release of further pollutants through their operations and suppliers.”

So in the case of oil companies, the figure covers “normal operations,” but not deaths and destruction caused by global warming, not damage caused by worldwide use of its products, and not the multi-billions of dollars in costs to clean up oil spills. The real damage those companies alone do is much greater than $2.15 trillion, every single year.

The 1% also control the governments that supposedly regulate those destructive corporations. The millionaires include 46 percent of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 54 out of 100 senators, and every president since Eisenhower.

Through the government, the 1% control the U.S. military, the largest user of petroleum in the world, and thus one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Military operations produce more hazardous waste than the five largest chemical companies combined. More than 10 percent of all Superfund hazardous waste sites in the United States are on military bases.

Those who believe that slowing population growth will stop or slow environmental destruction are ignoring these real and immediate threats to life on our planet. Corporations and armies aren’t polluting the world and destroying ecosystems because there are too many people, but because it is profitable to do so.

If the birthrate in Iraq or Afghanistan falls to zero, the U.S. military will not use one less gallon of oil.

If every African country adopts a one-child policy, energy companies in the U.S., China, and elsewhere will continue burning coal, bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe.

Critics of the too many people argument are often accused of believing that there are no limits to growth. In our case, that simply isn’t true. What we do say is that in an ecologically rational and socially just world, where large families aren’t an economic necessity for hundreds of millions of people, population will stabilize. In Betsy Hartmann’s words, “The best population policy is to concentrate on improving human welfare in all its many facets. Take care of the population and population growth will go down.”

The world’s multiple environmental crises demand rapid and decisive action, but we can’t act effectively unless we understand why they are happening. If we misdiagnose the illness, at best we will waste precious time on ineffective cures; at worst, we will make the crises worse.

Read more on population. Check out our series 7 billion: What to expect when you’re expanding.The too many people argument directs the attention and efforts of sincere activists to programs that will not have any substantial effect. At the same time, it weakens efforts to build an effective global movement against ecological destruction: It divides our forces, by blaming the principal victims of the crisis for problems they did not cause.

Above all, it ignores the massively destructive role of an irrational economic and social system that has gross waste and devastation built into its DNA. The capitalist system and the power of the 1%, not population size, are the root causes of today’s ecological crisis.

As pioneering ecologist Barry Commoner once said, “Pollution begins not in the family bedroom, but in the corporate boardroom.”

Ian Angus is coauthor of Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis. He is editor of the ecosocialist journal Climate and Capitalism.Simon Butler is coauthor of Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis. He is editor of Green Left Weekly.

BYD may face class action lawsuits if unable to solve dispute.

15/10/2011

Globalization Monitor

Yesterday, October 14, about three hundred “redeployed” BYD’s sales workers protested against BYD at the front gate of its plant in Pingshan, Shenzen. The protest was soon stopped by the company security. BYD, the Chinese battery and auto maker backed by billionaire Warren Buffett, started to restructure its sales department and “redeploy” its employees to other departments or stop their duties in September this year.

October 14, about three hundred "redeployed" BYD's sales workers protested against BYD at the front gate of the plant and they was soon stopped by the company security.

The “redeployed” employees are still very angry with BYD’s arrangement and its refusal to admit and announce its layoffs openly. Recently, BYD called the employees to offer them back their positions; however, the employees do not trust BYD anymore and think they will be laid off after they come back to work.

The workers raised the following questions and demands to the management, as follows:

1.  The company should admit that it has violated labor Contact Law when the management unilaterally modify labor contract to repositioning employees.

2.  The management must fix the above problem by:

a. paying financial compensations to those leaving the company because of its decision to redeploy them.

b. for those who wish to stay in the company BYD should ensure that their wages and work post should remain the same as enshrined in the contract.

3.  Employees who have joined protest shall not be penalized by BYD

4.  Re-election of union representatives is needed to ensure trade union representing employees’ interest.

The employees claim that BYD has violated the Labor Contract Law as they were unilaterally “redeployed” without their prior consent. At first the employees wanted collective bargaining with the management to force BYD to give a concrete response to their complaints, but there was no reply from BYD.

BYD employees have called for a joint class-action lawsuit against BYD. They also call for the reelection of the workplace union.

BYD’s share price has fallen significantly since June this year, dropping from 33 yuan (US$5.17) to 17.98 yuan (US$2.81), falling below its issuance price of 18 yuan (US$2.82). If BYD does not address the workers’ grievances properly, it may face another big financial crisis.

This is the video made by workers after strikes:

To ThyssenKrupp Elevator (HK) Limited,

Work 33 hours a Day? No More Toleration! Strike and Get What We Deserve! Fight for Reasonable Pay and Secure Public Safety

ThyssenKrupp Elevator (HK) Limited is one of the three biggest elevator production company in the world and the sales record was 5.2 billion euro last year. While the company earns tremendous amount of money, she fails to treat her workers fairly.

During past few years, inflation erodes what workers can benefit from the enforcement of the statutory minimum wage. However, what we get is even worse than average workers in Hong Kong. Our salary has only increased by 0.5% in 2010 and 3% in 2011.

Generally in elevator maintenance industry, the salary of a newly-admitted assistant technician is 8500 HK dollars per month, while that for 4-to-10-year experience technician and 10-year experience technician are 12000 dollars and 14000 dollars respectively. Yet our salary is much lower than the average standard. A worker with 8-year experience only gets 7100 dollars per month. On the other hand, a newly-hired technician can get 8500 dollars. It is simply unfair. The company knows she can only compete for other company by increasing the salary for the new-comers, but this amounts to exploitation to the current workers who work so hard for the company.

As an elevator maintenance technician, our job is to ensure smooth operation of the elevator so that the people can use it safely. If we can work in pairs, not only the maintenance can be operated more smoothly, the working safety of workers can also be ensured. The company fails to enforce the labour law, since we often have to work alone, which tremendously increase the danger of operation. Three years ago, the company promised to increase workforce so as to enforce what labour law requires. Nevertheless, the company fails to do so and the problem persists.

As there is not enough workforce, we have to work overtime at night in case of any emergency. We also work to get overtime pay to compensate for the extremely low salary. As the company will not compensate a full-pay leave for our overtime work, we have to work continuously for 33 hours if we have to be on duty at night shift. This obviously threatens our health. What’s worse, this adversely affect the quality of services provided and may mean an increase of chance of elevator operation problem, which may in turn increase the chance of accident and impede public safety.

We strike to get what we deserve and a reasonable pay. We also fight for the safety of ourselves and of our society. Belows are our demands:

1.      Increase salary to a reasonable level

2.      Increase the number of workforce and make sure we can work in pairs

3.      Limit the working hours to less than 24 hours without lowering the salary

Thyssen Elevator Staff Union

Contact: Mr. Simon Leung (Union Organizer / 6443 5090), Mr. Cheng (Union Representative / 9833 5737)

What You Can Do:

You can support workers by contacting Mr. Peter Walker, the CEO of ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Asia/Pacific) Limited or Mr. Guenther Rittner, the Chairman of ThyssenKrupp Elevator HK Limited. You can either send an email to or telephone them to voice out our demands.

Their contacts are as follows:

Mr. Guenther Rittner

Chairman of ThyssenKrupp Elevator HK Limited

Tel: +852 3181 7888  Fax: +852 2861 2521

Email: tkhk@thyssenkrupp.com

Mr. Peter Walker

CEO of ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Asia/Pacific) Limited

Tel: +852 3511 0688   Fax: +852 3511 0678

Email: peter.walker@tkeasia.com

The Chairman of the Executive Board is Dr. -Ing. Heinrich Hiesinger, P.O. Box, 45063 Essen,

Below is a sample letter for your reference:

Dear Mr. Guenther Rittner / Mr. Peter Walker,

I hereby write to you to support for the union strike. I fully support the three demands by the Thyssen Elevator Staff Union and I urge you to response their requests immediately.

Yours sincerely,

Your name & your organization

Here is the latest news of today’s action: http://www.worldlabor.org/eng/node/494

China’s most famous “dam immigrants” are surely the 1.4 million people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam, completed in 2006. This report, however, will tell the stories of less well-know dam immigrants in the Dongjiang river basin of Guangdong province.

The area has a relative abundance of water resources, and local authorities generate substantial income by selling water to large cities such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan and Hong Kong. These water transfers are necessary to sustain the region’s large industrial centres, but as this report outlines, reservoirs in the Dongjiang basin have been expanded three times since 1974, and as a result many villages have been displaced by reservoir expansions and efforts to protect water supplies from human pollution. Water is being transferred to industrial cities where it can generate the greatest profit, at the expense of people displaced from the reservoir area.

This report documenting those dam immigrants’ daily life in two resettlement sites in Guangdong’s Dongjiang basin: Researchers carried out interviews with residents of both sites, and documented how their quality of life and access to water have been negatively affected by resettlement.

Download the Full Report

Published by Globalization Monitor Limited

June 2011

ISBN: 978-988-18039-8-6

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Ex-GP workers win new compensation deal after six years of struggle

New developments in the campaign for just compensation:

A. Lawsuit and public actions of the ex-GP workers

16 August 2010, a group of ex-GP workers gather at the entrance of Huizhou City Court
In September 2010, 152 former workers from GP’s Huizhou factory all with excessive cadmium levels won their lawsuit against Gold Peak Ltd. The court found in favour of the workers’ claim for RMB 6.03 million cash compensation. Apart from the 152 workers who filed the claim, the award also included a further 110 workers with excessive cadmium levels who did not file the lawsuit but were in a similar situation. Each worker received between RMB 15,000 - RMB 25,000 making it the largest amount of compensation awarded since 2004. Most of the workers involved consider the award a victory. At the time of writing, the total compensation won by the GP workers amounts to more than RMB 50 million.

Inspired by the compensation package GP won by affected workers following the closure and relocation of GP’s Jet Power plant in 2009, the 152 workers filed their claim[1] on 27 January 2010. In June 2010, the lawsuit came to a stalemate and both the court and the Huizhou government insisted that GP and their former employees negotiate an agreement. However, on 19 August 2010, GP left the negotiation table leaving the workers with little option but to organise collective action. During the following weeks, the workers petitioned the GP plant, the court and the city government office and occupied the Huizhou City Petition Bureau for two weeks.

Workers violently assaulted

On 24 August 2010, six worker negotiators were brutally beaten by a group of local hooligans. One negotiator was seriously injured and was hospitalised for a week. No one has been arrested for the attack. However, following the violent assault and subsequent demonstrations at GP’s Hong Kong offices by supporting labour groups, GP agreed to return to the negotiating table. Agreement was finally reached in early September. The agreement includes:

1. The amount of compensation will be based on the Shenzhen Jet Power compensation package.

2. The annual checkup for the affected workers will continue until 2014.

15 August 2010 ex-GP workers demand compensation in front of GP plant in Huizhou.

While many workers consider the compensation a significant victory, a minority believe that the final agreement is an “unfair agreement” because it overturns GP’s previous commitment, made in 2004, to take full responsibility for the health of adversely-affected former workers for the rest of their lives. The current agreement terminates annual checkups on cadmium levels after 2014 in what is a clear violation of GP’s original commitment. The current practice is “annual checkup and immediate treatment of cadmium poisoning and reimbursement”. However, after 2014, the workers have to pay for their own checkups. If their health is problematic, they are required to inform GP and apply for diagnosis first before getting medical treatment. That means it will become more difficult and take longer time for workers to get medical treatment and reimbursement.
In addition, some of the workers’ major demands have not been included in the agreement. For example, GP are not required to contribute to the social security scheme (a maximum of 15 years) for the affected workers, so that in the future if the workers have health problems at least they will get some medical protection.[2] The workers will continue to fight for this demand.

One of the injured workers Ms. Yang is helped to go to hospital for treatment by a fellow worker after the attack. The attackers remain at large.

2 October 2011, 90 GP workers take part in a celebration dinner. Worker representatives summed up the experience over the past six years and reminded everyone that the success was not accidental but down to workers’ sweat, tears and blood as well as courage and persistence.

On 31 December, 2009, GP fired Ms. Wang Fengping without compensation on the grounds that she had violated the regulations of the GP factory rulebook. Ms. Wang petitioned GP’s headquarters in Hong Kong in early 2010.

Wang Fengping wins her appeal against police detention

In early 2010, Wang Fengping also filed a court case against the Public Security Bureau of Huizhou City. The PSB locked up on an administrative 10-day detention order on the wrongful grounds that Ms.Wang had gathered crowds to disturb public order. The charge resulting from a demonstration organised by workers from two GP plants in Huizhou on 9 December 2009 striking against GP’s salary system. The PSB detention led to GP’s decision to fire her.

On 15 February 2011, the court finally revoked the detention order and she sued GP RMB 259,830.5 for compensation for wrongful dismissal. On April 15, Wang won the case awarding her RMB 192,700 in compensation. However both GP and Wang have appealed.

Wang Fengping is suffering from renal failure
Wang Fengping was an engineer at Huizhou GP and had worked there for 16 years before being fired. In October 2004 when the cadmium poisoning case broke out, her medical checkup arranged by GP confirmed that she had excessive cadmium levels in her urine. However, a month later, a second examination showed that her levels were back to normal. Two years later, she began to feel sick and went to hospital to have a thorough checkup - she was shocked by the results.

Doctors told her that she was suffering from chronic kidney failure - renal atrophy. Wang believes that her kidney failure was caused by exposure to cadmium in her working environment. However, the medical reports made by the OSH institutions never informed her about it. She was told that medical report only once with excessive cadmium levels is no problem.

Since 2006, Wang has demanded that her ex-employer GP and the OSH institutions many times to provide evidence to confirm her chronic renal failure is caused by her work so that she can use them to demonstrate that her illness was caused by her exposure to cadmium.

During April 2011, approximately 200 workers with excessive cadmium levels came back to Huizhou for their annual body checkup. The experience over the past few years shows that the annual medical examination is an important measure to monitor and pick up workers whose previously excessive cadmium levels have deteriorated to levels that constitute “cadmium poisoning”. Moreover it helps to identify workers with previously normal who develop to return to “excessive cadmium levels” again. This shows that capping the year of medical checkup to 2014 is not realistic.

Globalization Monitor Ltd.
May 1, 2011

Please download full version in PDF here: GP_battery_workers_campaign_update_082011

[2] To enjoy pension for life after retirement, workers have to contribute to pension scheme at least 15 years before retirement. The workers demand GP the pay their pension scheme up to 15 years so that they receive better protection after retirement.

Globalization Monitor

July 2007

(Notes: In July 2007, in the preparation for the Chinese version of the book Reclaiming Public Water, a joint publication by TNI and CEO, we conducted an interview with an activist from the Government Waterworks Professionals Association, Hong Kong. The activist chose to remain anonymous.)

The water supply in Hong Kong has been run by the government since the British occupation. Recently a book authored by Lam Pun Lee raised many criticisms about the publicly run water supply. In it he argues that water supply suffers from low productivity if compared to other public enterprises, low profitability etc. As a public servant in the waterworks department, how would you respond to these complaints? More importantly, do you think Hong Kong’s water supply should remain in the public’s hands?

Firstly, the author of the book in question hypothesized that water is a commodity. Yet water services are a basic human right and an indispensable responsibility for a government, and there is consensus among many people and experts over this. Hence the author of the book passed his judgment based on profitability is in itself questionable. He simply dismissed out of hand that for decades the government has not intended to make a profit from the water supply in the first place; it merely wants to cover the basic costs. The government supplies water to remote villages where most often the residents are underprivileged. It may cost several ten thousand dollars to set up the water mains but this is a basic right for these citizens. Therefore it is not appropriate to judge this question according to profitability.

Another hypothesis of the author was that private water supply is more efficient than public water supply. I don’t know what sorts of data are provided to support his argument. One must looks at objective criteria though. And the fact is that our current performance has already reached the standard required by the WHO, with a water supply coverage reaching 99%. Over the past years our work has gained public recognition and we have strived to improve our services.

Keeping the water supply in public hands also implies more quality control over the services. The government has set out many regulations to control the operation of the public services in general, ensuring the justice, openness and transparency of the work. Whereas in the private sector decisions will be more discretionary and there is much less public monitoring, hence it is vulnerable to insider trading, secret exchanges of benefits, or a monopoly. In our view, if Hong Kong’s public water supply becomes privately run, the first threat to the public would be the monopolization of the water supply by a private supplier. We have witnessed this phenomenon in gas and electricity etc. In the face of problems, the government is unable to coerce the private corporations to charge reasonable levies. If the water supply is privatized, the private company would inevitably raise the prices to maximize its profit.

Regarding the question of efficiency, the Water Supplies Department has already achieved very high standards, with 99 percent of compliance rate with WHO standards. For countries such as the UK and France, compliance is much lower than HK. Some may have compliance as low as 80 percent or even 70 percent.

In addition, I think we should first ask every resident if they are dissatisfied with the current water supply. In terms of quality, stability, customer service or crisis management, do they find the water service at present satisfactory or not? We understand that there is always a possibility for further improvement but there are lots of other ways to achieve this other than privatization. I personally don’t understand why the author thinks that privatization is the only way.

In fact, back in 1998, the Department was already looking into room for improvement. Later, the Department came up with proposals including procedural simplification, cost reduction, personnel shuffles and so on. The number of employees was cut from 6000 to 4500. At the time, the Department was one of the ten departments which had the greatest number of employees. This is no longer the case now.

Can you describe what kinds of standards are involved concerning the quality of water supply? For example, what is the standard for permissible level of colon bacillus in a certain volume of water?

My colleague from the laboratory is more qualified than me in explaining these standards. Basically they are used to monitor the safety of fresh water, to check the amounts of harmful substances and health-threatening bacteria in the water to see if they exceed the permissible level. I am not quite familiar with the names of the bacteria but they must include colon bacillus, malaria bacteria etc. WHO has made several dozens of standards and we have complied with all of them.

The Water Supplies Department has claimed that the current water supply’s tap water is reasonably drinkable without boiling. Is that so?

We agree on this point. Of course, we have to point out that the public pipe lines only run through public spaces and they stop at private buildings. If residents want to make sure that their tape water is clean we need their cooperation, namely to have good maintenance [of their water tanks and pipes]. The Water Supplies Department has been promoting residents’ awareness of this issue through its “quality water service” program.

The quality of our water is not a problem at all. What citizens should pay attention to is the water tanks of their building, and related apparatus and equipment. If these things are well maintained and cleaned, there shouldn’t be any problems. Yet if they are not, you will be sick after drinking no matter how clean the water we supply has been.

The book also mentions that the cost of publicly run water is just too high, so the return rate is too low. Is it true that the Department has been suffering from losses?

I think one must first ask: do you think the Social Welfare Department is an unprofitable department? The Social Welfare Department spends a lot of money every year, so does education. We adopt a different approach from the author’s: water supply, like social welfare and education, should be viewed as basic human rights, so they should not be compared to profit making enterprises. How is it possible to compare an orange with an apple? By the same token, if water is not regarded as a commodity, returns should not be stressed. We should of course try to be cost effective, but this is different from focusing on the return rate.

Speaking of costs, much of it simply cannot be cut at the discretion of the Water Supplies Department. Firstly this is because costs involve the salaries of the employees and this is not flexible because the government is committed to a social contract with its public employees. Secondly, we have to purchase water from the mainland [and this part of the cost is not flexible either]. Lastly, there are the running costs such as expenditure on electricity and chemicals, the operation and maintenance of offices and factories etc. Roughly speaking, each of these three main expenditures account for one third of the total cost.

The Department has tried hard to cut the running costs. We understand that citizens have expectations of us to achieve this. But we must also take the issue of electricity costs into account. The Department is actually one of the largest customers of the two electricity corporations. Reduction in electricity charges is almost impossible, however. We are aware that clean fresh water is more and more scarce and therefore we have been testing the desalination of sea water. In fact, we have brought in the latest technologies, but its success hinges on electricity costs. If it can be lowered, a cost-effective mode of desalination would be practical. For now, this is hindered by high electricity costs.

How much does the Government subsidize the Department every year?

The sum total of subsidies remains unknown. But you can get some idea from the fact that each household is charged 4 HKD for each cubic liter of water while the cost for the same volume is 17 HKD. But when we charge incoming and outgoing ships for the same volume of water – they need to re-fill their fresh water reserves during embankment – it is 9HKD per cubic liter. They are not HK citizens hence we charge them more.

You just mentioned that Hong Kong’s water quality is of a higher international standard than many countries. But how about the water bill? For instance, is Hong Kong’s water bill higher or lower than Macau?

It is very difficult to make comparisons concerning cost without considering that some regions face unfavorable environments and/or lack natural resources, meaning that the cost of acquiring fresh water must be higher. I think, to make a fair comparison, we should compare Hong Kong with a place which is similar, such as Singapore. Singapore purchases water from Malaysia due to lack of natural water resources. Even here, however, there is a big difference between the two. When Malaysia supplies water to Singapore it has already been purified to a large extent, namely it already achieved the third phase of water treatment. The first phase refers to the simplest sedimentation and removal of surface substances. The second is physical and technical treatment, while the third is chemical processing and the fourth is biological processing and sterilization. Biological processing is only required in sewage management, rarely in fresh water management. While Singapore only needs to finish the last step of sterilization with ozone and chloride, Hong Kong has to complete the full processes of water treatment.

How unclean is the un-treated water from Mainland China as Hong Kong is required to carry out the full processes of water treatment?

The condition has become better now. With the adoption of sealed mains for transportation [of water] to Hong Kong and the introduction of a biological treatment system in the New Territories, the quality of un-treated water from Mainland China has been stabilized. A few years ago, a rainstorm could inflict a big change to the substance and bacterial indices of the water. Now the situation is much better. Yet don’t forget that the cost of the sealed mains and other infrastructure were covered by the government. It is an indirect cost in order to guarantee water quality.

I would like to return to the subject about comparing Hong Kong with Macau in this regard. Whereas Hong Kong has developed a complex system of collecting rain water in the mountains to provide fresh water for its citizens, Macau’s water supply does not have this option [because they do not have mountains – editor notes]. In fact it is quite rare around the world because it raises the cost.

Unlike Hong Kong, whose water supply has always been in public hands, Macau has always been in private hands. Yet the service provided by the first generation of the private water company was pretty bad. So it was sold in recent years to another company. The service there was taken over by New World Development and French-based Sino French Water Development and the new company had to invest a lot of money to renew equipment. So in this case I think it is acceptable for the company to make a profit because it needs an incentive to raise the quality of tap water to international hygiene levels. Surely there was concern over the company’s practices of charging a fixed fee of 30 Macau dollars, regardless of if the household’s consumption of tap water is zero.

This new company in Macau has only a 10-year history of water supply. It is now hard to evaluate fully on its performances. It will be even harder to compare it to Hong Kong whose water supply has always been in public hands for the past 150 years. Despite the geographic proximity, the two regions have different histories and different systems of water storage and infrastructure, which makes a precise comparison implausible.

I think fresh water is an essential life-sustaining factor. If the quality of the water supply is already good enough, why should we make profound changes to the present system? Who knows how much risk involved in this kind of change? Are citizens really discontented with the service now? If not, why take such a high-risk venture?

So you don’t think the Government needs privatization in its water supply?

Honestly, there is no reason at all to take such a risk. Secondly, the privatization proponents have not given details about their plans, so we just don’t know how far they want to go: do they want just a part of the water supply to be privatized or do they want to privatize the whole service? I should say that in some areas, we should maintain an open attitude, and will like to have open dialogue, but we do not prefer a profound change.

Has the Department ever published any document concerning privatization proposals?

The Hong Kong Government once conducted research for the Department. A proposal was made to execute the re-construction of Shatin Water Treatment Works in PPP (Public Private Partnership) mode. The project was suggested to be sub-contracted to a company along with its operation over the next 10 to 20 years. We think it is too much. Shatin Water Treatment Works treats 40% of all freshwater in Hong Kong, covering a population of 3-million. The risk is too high. They should consider starting some experiment first in some smaller water plant.

Without the knowledge of the employees, the Government in fact conducted one more piece of research into the private operation of the water supply in southern Shatin. It suggested turning the whole water networks of Shatin, Kowloon and Hong Kong Island over to private hands. (All of them?) Yes. So, if the pipe at your home is damaged and requires immediate repairs, you have to call the contractor. We have asked the Government if this is what they want, we always get the same response: “we have not yet reached any decision”, but we know they are very proactive in promoting privatization.

Our observation is that even if the first proposal aims only at partial privatization under PPP mode, their real intention is always aimed at wholesale privatization in the end.

Has the Department disclosed this document?

Yes in part. Two consultant reports are available on the website of Environment, Transportation and Works Bureau. But the second part of the report which includes some data provided by interested private companies to explain the feasibility of privatization was not publicized.

Reviewing the consultant reports, we can spot some hints about how they are going to make profits. Solely relying on the water supply is not enough. We suspect that they really have their eyes on the land where the water plants stand, to make extra profit from the land so as to compensate for the low level of profit from the water supply. The government has always given favors to private companies by providing cheap land to them for their operations, for instance taxi LPG stations. But the problem is that very often when the companies themselves benefit from cheap land, this benefit, or part of it, has not passed to consumers. We worry that the same thing will happen if the water supply is privatized.

The running of public service by private enterprises often involves the reward of cheap land from the government. Take Towngas for instance. Many high-priced properties are now situated on sites where there used to be company gas-tanks. So we may ask where the gas-tanks are now. They are all underground now. Some years ago the Government allowed Towngas to enlarge its underground pipes, making the operation of huge gas-tanks superfluous, and then the government allowed Towngas to turn the land into residential buildings and profit from it.

Your union protested against the government’s plan to privatize the water supply in 1999. Are you able to stop it?

After our protest they were no longer able to avoid the proper procedure of consultation with the Legislature and the public. But there is still a lack of transparency.

It was said that one of the factors which led the Housing Authority to privatize the management of its public housing was to create jobs for retired high ranking officials from the department. And it seems to be true that today many top managers of major property management firms in Hong Kong are retired public employees from this department. Does a similar thing exist in your department?

Once I encountered a high ranking official from my department who tried to persuade me into accepting PPP by saying, “introducing private ownership to the water supply is actually not too bad. We might become directors or something like that in private firms one day.” Then he raised many similar overseas examples. This is of course a big temptation [for high ranking officials]. But if you talk about retired officials setting up a new water company then it is not quite possible because the scale of the water supply is too large for individuals to be able to own or operate.

Since your union’s protest in 1999, do you find your union members more united than before?

I think yes because different unions now have a common enemy and interest. The Housing Authority is a bit different. If I remember correctly, they have nearly 30 unions, causing internal competition. We only have seven unions so this makes it easier for us to unite. Also during the whole process we disseminated the news and information to concerned Legislative Councilors and the public, so we were able to win some of their support. We spent a lot of time on lobbying the Councilors. This was important. If the unions of the Housing Authority had done this they might be able to slow down their process of privatization. We won’t claim we are the victor. We just raised questions for our discussion [on appropriate tactics]. And that doesn’t mean they have to agree with us.

Book Review: No Choice But to Fight

Anyone remotely interested in workers’ rights in the developing world should get this book! Because it is self-published by Globalisation Monitor it does not appear in Amazon and probably few people in the big developing economies have seen it. It is really easy to get a copy – GM sells it for a song or you can simply download it in PDF format off their website.

Clearly this is not a book written to make a profit; it’s been written because the story is just so extraordinary and needed to be told.

The book describes the appalling neglect of the operators of the Gold Peak battery factory in Huizhou in China’s Pearl River Delta Manufacturing area, whose workers suffer cadmium poisoning after coming into direct contact with the poisonous chemical. The workers largely self-organise to find justice, bypassing the official union and going directly to the authorities and to the press. Only very late in the game do they receive support from groups across the border in Hong Kong. It is all rather tidy: The owners of Gold Peak and their major customers are in Hong Kong, only a few dozen miles away from the factory.

I finished the book feeling upbeat for the future of China’s workers. Injustice transcends cultural barriers, and they weren’t going to take it laying down.

The site management had poor health and safety controls from the beginning. Rather like big tobacco, they did not respond to it and tried to duck the issue when workers began to realise something was wrong. For a considerable time workers attempted to obtain cadmium blood level tests only to have the results altered or not released at all. At one point the factory owners even go so far as to conspire with local hospital officials to thwart people attempting to have tests from a third party.

Not directly relevant but one snippet was a revelation for me and may be for other Western readers: Did you ever wonder how China’s one child policy is enforced? It is done through the employer. The paperwork associated with employment includes family planning permits(!) Anyone who has more than one child suffers demotion or dismissal. This is why people in rural areas are less affected – they don’t work for registered employers, they just work their own land, thus the Central Government has no means of interfering.

Astonishingly the mainly female workforce are undeterred by management’s continued ducking and dodging, first striking and then presenting their case to all who will listen including several ministries in Beijing. Their case attracts media attention and thus the assistance of Globalisation Monitor, who organise direct action against Gold Peak and its chairman.

While GM’s involvement was helpful I was pleased to see that the most effective action occurs when the company is taken to court (in Mainland China, not Hong Kong) and many of the workers receive compensation settlements. It may not be well known outside the country that China actually has comprehensive health and safety laws – they just don’t have many occupational lawyers! The struggle continues though, with many workers still uncompensated, however I’m heartened that it didn’t endwith them being “rescued” by rich-world NGOs. They are finding their own path.

I’ll finish with an extract that I was particularly touched by. It doesn’t relate to the cadmium issue per se but speaks volumes about daily life in the factory:

“Just after I put on the face mask given to me by the line supervisor, I saw that my workmate sitting across from me was crying. I was shocked and asked her what was wrong, but she just kept crying and didn’t say a word. Then a workmate nearby told me what had happened.

After SARS broke out in 2003, we were each allocated two 3M masks per week by the line supervisor. When this workmate got her mask, she found it was a little too tight and tried to loosen it, but the tie broke. She asked the line supervisor to trade it for another one, but the line supervisor said, “I don’t have any extras. Go ask the general line supervisor for another one.” The general line supervisor was a well-known grouch, so the workmate was afraid to ask for a new mask. Later, the general line supervisor passed by, saw that she had not started her machine and asked why. When the workmate said that the tie to her mask was broken, the general line supervisor yelled at her, “How could you be so careless! Do you realize that these masks cost money? And you think you can just waste them!” The workmate then started crying. I felt bad for her, went over to wipe off her tears, and said, “Don’t cry over this. If you cry, people will look down on you. Let me see if I can take care of it for you.” I went over to the general line supervisor and said, “Ling, would you do me a favor and exchange this for a new one?” The general line supervisor looked at me and said with a sigh, “Look, I can’t do anything about it. You know the higher managers are stingy with the masks – the line supervisors get one mask every four days.” I said, “Well, you shouldn’t be so harsh. We’re all migrant workers here. You don’t have to act so severely.” Later, the general line supervisor went to console the workmate for a while. As for the mask, I came up with a solution – we made a hole in the edge of the mask and strung it together with a piece of elastic.”

Read more here: http://fairforall.org/2011/07/27/book-review-no-choice-but-to-fight/

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