Workers in Alor Setar bury some of the 106 unidentified bodies found in a traffickers' camp in May, 2015
On Friday, Malaysia was considered one of the world's worst human trafficking offenders. The nation is also one of twelve currently in negotiation over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and their status as a State Department designated
Tier 3 nation has greatly complicated Obama administration efforts to include Malaysia in the new network of favored trading partners.
As of Monday, that's no longer a concern. In its newest trafficking report the State Department upgraded Malaysia from Tier 3 to Tier 2, a move that would circumvent Congressional efforts to block the nation known as a hotbed of sex trafficking and forced labor from participating in the compact until substantive reforms were made.
David Dayen:
There is little evidence that anything has changed for Malaysia’s foreign workers. Just a couple months ago authorities discovered a mass grave of 139 Rohingya Muslims, who fled discrimination in Burma and were sold into slavery upon their escape. Trafficking enforcement remains weak; in April, U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia Joseph Yun criticized the country for doing too little to stop slavery. The Wall Street Journal found persistent forced labor abuses on Malaysian palm oil plantations in an article published Sunday.
The State Department’s 2015 report reads almost exactly like last year’s with a few words changed, the way middle-school students avoid plagiarism for book reports. But they allege that, while “The Government of Malaysia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking… it is making significant efforts to do so.”
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—Democrats introduce bill to raise minimum wage to $9.80:
More than 100 House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday to raise the minimum wage. Rep. George Miller's proposed legislation would raise the minimum wage to $9.80 over three years, 85 cents per year, then link it to inflation, so that raising it wouldn't have to be a giant political fight every few years. Tipped workers, who haven't seen their $2.13 minimum wage increased since 1991, would get 85 cent raises until the tipped minimum was 70 percent of the full minimum wage.
"Anyone who works hard and plays by the rules should not live in poverty. Yet 47 million Americans now qualify as the working poor. Raising the minimum wage helps families make ends meet," Miller said in a statement accompanying the bill. |
If you work at the current minimum wage for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with no time off at all, the $15,080 you earn puts you $50 below the poverty threshold for a family of two. That—and the fact that many minimum wage employers keep workers at part-time levels—is why so many working people are forced to rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid and other aid programs. It shouldn't be controversial to say that if you work, you shouldn't be poor. But to today's Republican Party, that counts as a radical statement.
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