Our response to "This phone would be even fairer if it were made by a union member."

Discuss The Industry
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21

It is very unfortunate then that the LabourStart campaign ultimately ended up being little more than spam. Getting engaged in a discussion is great, but the campaign as it is feels too much like a hollow statement, where people post this one-liner because they’re just parroting each other without truly understanding what FairPhone is about.

I think it’s important to have a discussion about things like union workers, but it should be done in a controlled, well thought through way. I guess “brute forcing” your way into the discussion like this did have the effect of there being talk about union workers, but if you look closely, 90% of that discussion is about the campaign itself rather than the subjects that are truly important.

Where LabourStart completely missed the point is that if there’s one crowd that’s already aware of union issues and such, it’s the FairPhone crowd. A little effort into investigating the FairPhone community and FairPhone itself would’ve helped LabourStart to understand the way the people at FairPhone and its community look at such issues. Pretty much everyone here is aware that FP1 (the FairPhone phone itself) is not a goal in itself, nor that it is fair. It’s a means to an end and we’re all very much aware that we’re not even close to reaching the end of this tale.

22

Dear Esp1Lok1,

LabourStart has many e-mails because local unions have given him access to their members. This is how I got on his mailing list, and yes, in the beginning I have also clicked the agreement to be on this list, as was advocated by the federation of unions (FNV) that my union belongs to. I know I can unclick myself from this list at any time. But my point is that Eric Lee is using the Unions - and therefore me, whether I receive his calls or not.

Now the most sad part of your sad reply is: “It would be ridiculous to ask 100.000 people if LabourStart should do a campaign” The point is that this is not ridiculous at all; at the contrary, it is an easy thing to do in these internet-times. This arrogance at the top of whatever Union-structure is what is now killing the Unions, as I perceive it.

I have had issues with Mr. Lee’s calls to action before. In the Cambodian stand for the unions positions, and in the call related to an Malaysian worker in a fast-food restaurant. The fact is, that it is impossible for me to give feed back. Or, I do send some feed-back to Mr Lee and to my own FNV, but I get no response. The fact is that there is no channel to discuss LabourStart´s campaign as there is one here at the FairPhone Site. I have seen that Mr. Lee has reacted (defensively) to my posting earlier: but on the Fairphone forum, and not within the LabourStart structure.

Labour Start is not EricLee, you say, and I have a faint suspicion, that you are not asp1lok1 too. So it turns out that I am now having a discussion with an anonymous group that is dealing with criticism on the site of some employer they are attacking for not defending the rights of the unions, while this employer is defending the rights of the workers in a better way than LabourStart is able to do.

Now you and your Mr. Lee (who is not Mr. Lee) are retracking your position into some semantic fight overr the word ‘fair’:
“Personally I think the Fairphone idea is excellent, but to call a phone fair without including labour rights, would make the whole idea uninteresting and very strange for me.”

Don’t you see how ridiculous this position is?

Since some time now I am advocating in The Netherlands that the prehistoric fight between ‘workers’ and ‘Employers’ is completely passé. The new frontier of battle is between the anonymous international Giants and the small companies like (indeed) Fairphone, and that these small employers are in fact natural allies of the workers, rather than their adversaries. The unions will have to readjust their policies because workers in these small companies are more loyal to their companies then they are to their own unions.
Have you ever thought about the question whether the Dutch workers within FairPhone are unionized? Well, they are not. Why not? because they have never had the feeling that the Dutch union is relevant to them. Why not? Well, I think it is exactly because the first line I quoted from you, because the FNV in Holland has the same approach to its members: It would be ridiculous to ask 900.000 people if the union should start a campaign.

I am not a part of the active volunteers within LabourStart, but I am an active volunteer within FNV-KIEM, a board-member of the Drama&Dance section. Whithin this Union I have the same problems of finding platforms for discussion policy with the levels that consider themselves to be ‘leaders’. As we result we loose members, and do not gain new members.

In fact the ‘leadership’ of the Unions is not accessible for their members, there is no internal democracy, and the leadership considers this idea, as you do, to be ‘ridiculous’. What is left, then are members that are willing to parrot their leaders, as is demonstrated by the action against Fairphone. And this kind of members are a dying species.

What happened is, that Mr. Lee (Who is not Mr. Lee) started a campaign without having read the necessary documents that were available at Fairphones site. After he has shown this, he does not apologize - because the Union is always right. At the contrary, he uses the fact that Fairphone gives his problem a place on their forum as a Success of his campaign. This too is a part of the passé tricks of our unions: after loosing a fight, one picks some small detail and present it as a success to the members. I am in the union, I have seen this, and you, esp1lok1, know what I am talking about.

What I propose is this: You, as whoever you are in LabourStart, open a Forum like this within LabourStart, where members of your mailinglist can discuss evaluations of campagns and proposals for campagns. A Forum where your members can have the right to think. This would make this rather embarrassing discussion on the site of an employer, that tries its best for his employees, to have some useful result.

My greetings to Mr. Lee (Who is not Mr Lee)!

Marc-Jan Trapman
FNV-KIEM

23

Very odd that you can with one breath admit you know nothing about LabourStart and then with the next describe (inaccurately) how we make decisions, especially the decision to launch a campign. Even a friendly one like this.

24

You write about Fairphone’s position on labour rights as though it is immutable. The LabourStart effort was meant to, in a friendly way (which is how it was received and perceived by Fairphone as far as I can see) was meant to remind the people who make and the people who use Fairphones that there is still a way to go. And to push for positive change. It is a fact that the phone is made in a particular place and by non-union workers. What is wrong with pointing that out and why should Fairphone be immune to constructive criticism?

25

Why should Fairphone be immune to constructive criticism?

26

Hello Derek!

Glad to have you aboard!

The breath in which I ‘admitted’ that I Know nothing about LabourStart? I have no idea when it happenend. The problem is that I have some experience with LabourStart.
And yet again: you speak of ‘we’, so I am to suppose that you are part of the decision-making team for launching LaboutStart Decisions. Then: I never described ‘how you make decisions’. I did criticize this process, however, since there seems no way to get back at you people when I have a problem with one of your campaigns. Then, Finally, you describe the campaign against Fairphone as ‘a friendly one’. I beg to differ. Again, I see this as framing after the fact.

You write to Fro “Why should Fairphone be immune to constructive criticism?”

My point is that Fairphone has demonstrated here to be open for criticism, even if it is not constructive, or even damaging, as your campaign is/was - but that your criticism of Fairphone is hypocritical, since you are not able to deal with criticism on your campaign. Let’s take this discussion to the LabourStart-forum? Can you give me the link?

27

@Marc_Jan_Trapman
Don’t know why, but the ‘Like’ function doesn’t work for me… I just want to state that I heartily agree with what you’ve written here.
Being a union member for 40+ years I do regret, however, that so many young labourers, both blue-collar and white-collar, choose to opt out from union membership. It is true, here in Sweden too, that the top level seldom listen to the rank and file, but the only way to change this is to join the union. And even if it turns out to be impossible there are opportunities for important union work on the local level.

28

I know nothing about the ins and outs of unions and LabourStart, but @Marc_Jan_Trapman sounds sensible to me.

Regardless of the way LabourStart works, the campaign comes across as rather passive agressive and is aimed at the wrong target. I think it would’ve been far more constructive if LabourStart contacted FairPhone and invited them for a (public) discussion on unions and such (with a select group of representatives from both parties rather than an unmanagable community), and offered FairPhone help with making plans for improvements in this area. That would’ve been constructive. Right now I see LabourStart people dismissing the entire FairPhone initiative just because of the union issue. That is not constructive.

29

Hi All

This is a very interesting debate, and thank you all for joining in.

It is nice to see new faces appearing on the forum as a result of the debates - and it will be even nicer to see those that are joining getting more involved in the Fairphone initiative.

Whatever your standpoint on the larger industrial scale problems being brought up in this debate, it is clearly an emotive subject. In aid of keeping the debate constructive, it would be best to avoid using overly emotive (or emotionally loaded) language and to not target individuals.

30

My question to @esp1lok1 and @Derek_Blackadder

What meaningful action is LabourStart taking to address the problem of worker exploitation in the Technology market?

It would be useful for us (and Fairphone I guess) to know what actions the organisation is taking to try and address the issues that were thrown up by the Design a day campaign (I do use the word campaign as this was in effect an attempt at lobbying Fairphone which is why I think it has been seen by others as SPAM. To me this wasn’t active engagement in the Fairphone debate, through dialogue with the company, which should always be the first step)?

More general points - the Unions are in decline across much of the western world (UK certainly has problems) and I think we need to make sure we choose to fight the right people, which is the employers rather than between ourselves.

We also need to make sure we nurture, support and encourage companies that try to take the right actions and to use constructive criticism wisely. The world isn’t perfect, and saying so won’t make it better. Choosing to help do something about it can, and being part of movements like Fairphone can help us take the steps needed to address the wider problems we’re discussing. The industry can’t be changed overnight, nor can we force regimes to change their ways, but we can find effective ways of making the difference, one step at a time.

31

There has to be an independent union to represent workers. Otherwise, they’re at-will employees, thus serving entirely at the whims of the bosses. Unions aren’t about asking for more than what’s fair, but a voice at work and dignity on the job.

Anything else is just not fair.

32

What I find most troubling about this is that the pro-union people seem to honestly believe that employees without a union could never have a job where they’re treated fairly.

Fact is, quite a few people inside and outside of Europe are not represented by a union and have no trouble dealing with their employers themselves. Here in the Netherlands, the entire computer software development sector (in which I work myself) isn’t unionized and in general that’s not a problem at all.

I know there’s a difference between the status and rights of employees in the Netherlands and in China, but I’m not sure LabourStart limits its concerns to China and similar countries.

To clarify: while a union would be a welcome change for the factory workers in China, it might not be the only solution to the problems they’re having. The workers welfare fund seems to me like a very good initiative for workers in a country where unions are basically illegal.

33

@Derek_Blackadder No one should be immune to constructive criticism. Unfortunately, the campaign was anything but constructive. Not one post asked Fairphone what they are doing about the working conditions, but instead repeatedly said the same line over and over again. Worse, some comments were assuming that Fairphone is basically preventing factory workers in Guohong from joining a union.

I quote:

“How can this phone possibly be ‘fair’, when the term ‘fair trade’
implies respecting workers’ rights, and you are denying your workers
representation through union membership!”

I’ve seen it repeated in the 200+ comments “you are denying your workers union representation” “allow your workers to unionize” etc… etc… which tells me that a lot of the people who joined this campaign did not read any of the information on the website. (which @Marc_Jan_Trapman started linking to eventually, as a reply to those posts, in hopes of informing the posters).

Instead, what is seemed like, was they were told “Hey, post this “slogan” on this thread, you don’t even have to open an account, Fairphone is not allowing their poor factory workers to join a union.”

That in itself doesn’t give a very positive view of LabourStart, it either shows that its members are lazy and couldn’t be bothered to research the subject (Fairphone itself) or that they blindly follow orders given to them by a “leader”. @Marc_Jan_Trapman is correct, with a mob attitude like that, how can anyone expect people to find joining a union to be attractive?

If there’s any one positive outcome from this campaign, is that LabourStart members will hopefully think for themselves first, looking at exactly what they are about to do, and then say to themselves (and hopefully to other members) “uh, guys, maybe we should rethink this campaign.”

I honestly never have heard of LabourStart, much like a lot of the LabourStart members seem to not have heard about Fairphone. And although I think LabourStart’s goal is noble in its own right, bias is quickly created through actions and now I’m biased to be weary of LabourStart and its campaigns.

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34

That is quite a strong thing to say.
You’re implying nothing else than a union could protect workers from the evil bosses.

I would advise you to read about FairPhones “Workers Welfare Fund”. Or the thousands of Cooperative organisations in the world (mostly in Africa). I think these are examples of how people can voice their opinions without unions. At least, I think it is more interesting to have a WWF than being member of the official Chinese union…

35

I thought Fairphone’s response to this (blunt and not very well informed) campaign was mature and graceful, and far better than I would have managed! I hope those who took part focus their efforts in the future on larger companies with considerable labour issues (such as Apple).

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36

Hi @esp1lok1,

thanks for engaging here. It was perceived as spamming by me and a bit to hostile for my taste. I hope we can all have a better discussion here in the forums.

:thumbsup: