For the past two years, the Canadian government has had
knowledge of gross workers’ rights and child-labor law violations by companies
contracted to help with post-tsunami construction in Indonesia. The violations
of international labor conventions include using child labor and
neglecting to pay workers. There have also been allegations of human
trafficking.
The project has been funded by Canadian taxpayers and
carried out by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Canadian
Red Cross. Alex Asselin, a spokesperson for the CIDA, stated that the agency
learned that workers were not being paid in April 2008. In 2007, a CRC employee
reported dangerous working conditions and the withholding of salaries by
contractors.
The CRC appointed Ernst and Young, an accounting firm, to look into the
allegations but so far has refused to release the full report. Under
capitalism, even humanitarian projects are characterized by the never-ending
drive for profit at the expense of workers.
