I Wasn't Making It Up

A study by the International Labour Organization of 50 countries indicates that more than a quarter of the world's workforce works more than the ideal maximum of 48 hours.

Top of the list of the most overworked countries is...Peru. Yes, despite the popular perception of layabout Latinos, the study found that 50.9 percent of Peruvians work more than 48 hours per week.

Well it's striking that Peru is in very first place, I'm unsurprised that it's there or thereabouts. As I've described before, long, arduous working hours are the lot of the majority in Peru. The working week is six days long, with very few exceptions. And the most common work day is 10--12 hours in length, rather than eight. For those that must reply on informal work to get by, the day is as long as it takes to scrape together the required handful of soles.

The BBC report on the study says that:

The ILO blames the growth of service industries, such as tourism and transport, plus an expansion in informal working arrangements, for the excess of global working hours.

In general this is probably true. In the case of Peru specifically, another important reason is, ironically, the sheer lack of jobs. People who are employed in any kind of stable arrangement consider themselves fortunate, and are not in a position to demand kinder working hours or conditions. And many people are employed by small businesses that are themselves struggling to get by in the oversupplied marketplace. The hours worked by employees are driven by the hours the business needs to operate to break even.

This rather puts into context the concerns about labour standards in the trade agreement that Peru has recently negotiated with the United States. As reported in a previous post, a key element of the compromise reached by Democrat legislators and the Republican executive to allow the agreement to pass was a requirement for parties to ratify ILO labor standards. This didn't satisfy many grassroots Democrats, who angrily questioned whether the standards will be enforceable.

But while the criticisms were at times coated with a veneer of internationalism, they were, understandably, really about US internal politics and concerns. Not a lot of the critical reaction was motivated by an appreciation of Peru's position (or that or Colombia or Panama, about which I know a lot less).

Now, I fully agree that it's a good thing to have labour standards written into agreements. Jobs created by trade should be decent ones, and the right of workers to share in the benefits of increased commerce should be fundamental.

But Peru has already signed up to all the ILO principles and standards, and the general ideological mood -- unlike in the US -- is that they are fully desirable. For the meantime, however, these are less relevant than the need for more and better jobs.

It's true that the US State Department found that in Peru the existing labour regulations are poorly enforced, up to 30,000 people do forced labour, and tens of thousands of children are working.

But all this happens in an environment where people feel they have little choice. The government could certainly be more active in enforcing the employment regulations. But there's little it can do about the children sent off to wander the streets at all hours selling sweets and shining shoes. It's not multinational corporations exploiting these kids, but their unemployed mothers sending them out to help ends meet (you might ask where the fathers are, but that's another story altogether).

Peru is not Colombia, where trade union leaders have suffered the unfortunate setback of being frequently murdered (in part due to the real and imagined connections of trade union leaders with the FARC). Peruvian unions do exist, exert some muscle, and from time to time have some success in winning concessions. There's no question that the lot of miners, for example, could be greatly improved. But the most arduous conditions and worst abuses are suffered by those who can't count on a stable job, or have to work for themselves. I can't give you the stats at this point, but I would guess that the physical risks faced regularly by a Lima taxi driver would make a New York policeman blanche.

Only when there more genuine, decent sources of employment will the negotiation of a fair balance between employer and employee become the critical issue. Finding ways to raise productivity, add value to primary products and improve internal communications and infrastructure is vital to development. All these things happen in the presence of the kind of opportunities offered by stable access to large markets, which is what a trade agreement secures.

While countries like Peru shouldn't have to suck eggs and accept conditions as over-reaching as the intellectual property requirements in the original US deal, there would be very few who would argue that they'd be better off with no trade deal at all, or with an indefinitely stagnated one. In the absence of a trade agreement, extractive industries like mining and forestry (not to mention the drug trade) will carry along happily, there being generally few trade barriers to raw materials. And well-meaning people will continue to have little chance of influencing the labour standards in those industries.

Activists might beat up on Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel for 'selling out' to the Republicans, but themselves have few constructive suggestions for how to support responsible development in countries like Peru. Say what you like about Pelosi and Rangel, but you could credit them with being influenced at least in a minor way by what is really needed for Peru to improve the living standards of its people.


Categories: free trade, United Statess, Peru, FTA, trade agreement, labor

Mercado Santa Anita: After the Fall

In the end the outcome was perhaps the best possible alternative to potential tragedy -- farcical anticlimax. Three police bulldozers broke down the back entrance of the Mercado Santa Anita, and in flooded the more than 1,000 police officers that had gathered outside in a show of overwhelming force.

First in were the the stormtrooper-like 'robocops', with their 10 kilos of electric shock-delivering body armour, who were later fawned over at length by the female TV reporters. Amidst a few salvos of teargas, and some half-hearted attempts by the occupiers to set fire to their stalls, it took just 20 minutes to clear the compound.

The tubthumping leader Fernandino Nieto, who had promised 'rivers of blood', shaved off his moustache, slicked back his hair, and tried to fade off admidst the exodus. But he was recognised by police and detained.

Official sources were eager to talk up the violent defenses that the occupiers had apparently been preparing. La Republica's reporter Alfredo Pomared put it in context with a nice piece of subtle scepticism:

As evening fell, Minister Alva Castro showed the supposed weapons that the occupiers had intended to use in their defense: grenades, shotguns, revolvers, and molotov cocktails, among others. What's certain is that La Republica was the only print media in the compound at dawn, and after a long walk, was witness to the discovery by the police of a bucket of water mixed with chili pepper and vinegar, two swords, and an air rifle for hunting small animals.

In an effort which doubled as a public relations exercise, a wave of female police officers were sent to 'rescue' the children who had been stuck in the market. Some were taken to hospital, although it was unclear how their need was assessed. It was originally intended to detain and charge the parents, but this plan was thankfully later scrapped after the judge ruled that the children hadn't, after all, been used as 'human shields'.

As the bedraggled occupants streamed away from the area clutching the few things they managed to salvage (blankets or a radio here; a live chicken there) the TV reporters from 90 Segundos were keen to ensure they didn't escape without having it rubbed in. "What did you manage to take with you?" and "are there any children?", they asked. Some people, visibly upset, shouted "don't film!" and pushed at the camera, actions which were noted as confirming their uncouthness.

With the market cleared, hard-working agricultural wholesalers in the chaotic, overcrowded La Parada area of central Lima, where around 80 percent of the city's produce is sold, were looking forward to moving to new improved premises in Santa Anita.

For those who had been occupying the premises , it was a different story. A rag-tag group clutching their few remaining possessions found their way to a small park in the barrio of Ate Vitarte. There they huddled on what was the coldest night of the year, and the next morning struggled to scrape together breakfast for the children.

Some of the Santa Anita refugees had only arrived in the market a few months previously and were bewildered by what had happened. Many had wanted to leave the compound previously, but had been prohibited from doing so by their 'leaders'. One man with a face full of woe explained how he had sold his dwelling in the countryside and paid land pirate Herminio Porras 5,000 soles ($1,600 USD) for his spot in the market.

With many residents of the area around the park quickly growing impatient with the invasion of their neighbourhood, the refugees from Santa Anita were left facing, like so many others in Peru, an uncertain and perilous future.

Categories: mercado Santa Anita, Peru, Lima

The Mercado Santa Anita: Law and Order or Crushing the Little Guy?

Peru faces two great social problems that, though distinct, spring from the same roots and feed off and complicate one another. The first is the obvious one that you can read about in the statistics: poverty. Nearly 50 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line; only around 30 percent have formal employment.

Moreover, not much has changed as the economy has stabilised and grown in recent years, exacerbating the sense many people feel of exclusion from the formal system. Without employment, property, or credit, a large section of the population has to get by however it can.

The second big problem is the disorder and insecurity which plagues much of the country, and especially Lima. The headlines feature high-profile crime such as murders or holdups of interprovincial buses. But for many people, it's the low-level annoyances that grate most. The rampant petty theft. The dirt, rubbish, and pollution. The dirty, noisy, unlicenced kombis causing accidents through dangerous driving. Disrespect for laws and regulations; poorly maintained premises with exposed wiring. Strikes and marches that block roads, cause delays and damage property.

For many Peruvians, the second problem is even more pressing than the first. This is not just an attitude of the elite or the middle classes; on the contrary, it's often those with very little who are most driven to despair by what they sum up as 'all the informality'. This is because the disorder undermines their tranquility, security and dignity. With these qualities, material hardship can be managed. Without them, it verges on the unbearable.

The current, potentially tragic situation playing out in the Mercado Santa Anita in Lima, and the public response to it, exemplifies the confusing collision of these two problems.

The Mercado Santa Anita is an 82-hectare compound on the outskirts of Lima. It's currently the scene of a stand-off between local authorities and several hundred stand-holders who have operated their businesses there for around five years, and for nearly four weeks have been resisting a court order that they vacate the premises.

The court says the land belongs to the Municipality of Lima, who are planning to construct a modern wholesale market on the site. Those currently occupying the area say that they have rights through their occupancy and investment in their businesses, and claim that the Municipality plans to sell the land off to the Peruvian's favourite bete noire - 'Chilean interests'.

As the police prepare to storm the premises to eject the occupants, there's been a sense of foreboding and worries that if blood is spilled, it will create a lingering, bitter rent in the country's already strained social fabric.

I'm indebted to Peruvian blogger Peruanista for a fuller historical account of the market's background than can be gained by perusing official sources.

The idea for a wholesale market in Santa Anita was first conceived in the 1960s, and in 1974 ex-president Fernando Belaunde signed a decree expropriating the land for use as an agricultural wholesale market. The terrain passed into the hands of the Municipality of Lima in 1984, but - as tends to be the case with grand projects in Peru - development plans made little progress. It was in 2002 that the market was occupied by several thousand agricultural producers and wholesalers, who, despite efforts to remove them, established themselves, invested in their stands, and more or less prospered.

As always in Peru, it's more complicated than just the struggle of common people to get ahead. A Machiavellian figure called Herminio Porras, one-time congressman in Fujimori's party, has been prominently involved in illegitimate sales of land in and around the market. He's currently under house arrest, but his dealings have already sparked a couple of violent incidents, and no doubt have a part in the poisition some of the occupiers find themselves in.

With all legal recourse now exhausted, the occupiers of the market have turned, unsuccessfully, to various sources for intercession. The People's Defender begged off the case, and Catholic bishop Luis Bambaren quickly gave up a mediation role. President Alan Garcia has also washed his hands, saying that 'if someone invades your house, you don't negotiate with them about the conditions under which they will stay'. Not quite a fair analogy - people don't normally leave their house abandoned for thirty years!

One hesitates to throw around the expression 'corporate media' as a slogan. But much as I appreciate the contribution of TV channel 90 Segundos to keeping me up to date with events in Peru, their coverage of the issue has ben less than balanced. The sight of attractive, smartly-dressed young TV presenters haughtily bemoaning the disorderliness and 'bad manners' of simple countryside people leaves a slightly sour taste in the mouth.

The occupants have routinely been described as 'the invaders' and accused of using their children as 'human shields' to avoid ejection from the market. The occupiers argue, quite reasonably, that their children must stay with them because they're not handing them over to anybody else.

As the occupiers in Santa Anita became more entrenched and hostile to the media, coverage has become a mix of the slightly Orwellian and the laughable. Unable to get access the compound, the 90 Segundos reporters drove around the exterior for a while, then resorted to showing viewers 'satellite images' of the area (thanks to Google Earth) and models of what the market would look like when it is redeveloped ('complete with bank branches and offices'). We watched drills undertaken by squads of riot policeman as they practiced moving forward against a 'violent rabble'.

In recent days, weapons caches have been 'found' near the market and 'linked' to the occupiers. (They may well be genuine finds, but after reading Mario Vargas Llosa's brilliant depiction of the manipulation of public opinion in Conversacion en la Caterdral, it's hard to take such televised uncoverings entirely seriously). A connection has also been claimed between an NGO supporting the occupants and the Venezuelan embassy (involvement of Venezuela is the 21st-century equivalent of a Communist plot).

But the media can't be entirely blamed for the hardening of public opinion towards the occupiers. Many people see the situation as a test case for the rule of law. Some of the views expressed on the situation on a Peruvian website include:

It's time that authority is imposed in this country; Peru suffers because of the informality and disrespect for rules and laws...sadly it seems that everything is done through marches and blocking highways - we're part of a country of savages. (Eduardo Ojeda)

It's time that somebody got this house in order. It's not possible that, as much as people might think themselves "poor", they do whatever they feel like with that excuse....If we want the country to progress and for the people to have a better standard of living, we must start by complying with the laws and rules. (Jorge Torres)

The occupants' leader Fernanidino Nieto has hardly helped the situation by declaring that "rivers of blood will flow" if they are ejected. But there was also some nobility in his response when the water and electricity inside the compound were cut off a couple of days ago. 'We don't have electricity in our farms in the countryside", he laughed to reporters. "Our light shines from our eyes'. If ever a Naomi Klein-type voice was needed to tell the other side of the story, it's now.

The glimmer of hope amidst all the tension is that Peruvians never quite lose their sense of humour, or of absurdity.

In one recent TV clip, a young man on security duty for the market occupants was closing a gate to the market compound as a young TV reporter tried to peer in. "Hey, what are those tyres for?" she asked, pointing to a pile of old tyres inside the gate (the presumed intention is that they would be burned as part of resistance to any police invasion). The young guy glanced over his shoulder. 'Those tyres, señorita?', he asked innocently. For a moment, you could see him figuring whether he should try to deny that any such tyres existed, or come up with a totally implausible story about their innocent purpose. Then he remembered he was supposed to be a tough guy, grunted "I can't tell you", and shut the gate.

And if anything (temporarily) trumps the struggle against poverty and disorder, it's the chance of a spectacle. By the weekend crowds had gathered around the market, expecting that the police would be coming along to dislodge the occupants. As it happened, they had decided to put if off for another day. This left a lot of people milling around, attracting many itinerant vendors, who were able to sell screeds of gum, cigarettes, and soda.

A middle-aged man in the classic yellow uniform and mobile trolley of D'Anafrio ice creams was doing a roaring trade among the throngs of bystanders. He confirmed that the possibility of a market being stormed was good for business. "This is how we make our living" said the D'Anafrio man.

Categories: mercado Santa Anita, Peru, Lima