the other press flews Section Editor: Eileen Velthuis fipril 2, 2003 eileenv@telus.net Students Worried About Job Prospects in Eileen Velthuis News Editor War in Iraq is causing companies to make cutbacks, and some post-secondary stu- dents are gravely worried about their futures. North Island College tourism student Nia Thompson has been following the cuts and is concerned about what she feels are her virtually non-existent job prospects. “No one’s really traveling as much since September 11, so the jobs are few and far between. Travel was picking up again and then Iraq happened,” she said. This past month Air Canada announced it would be cutting 3,600 jobs. Robert Milton, President and Chief Executive Officer, was quoted in a March 20 press release as saying, “The outbreak of war confirms our pressing need to achieve our target of $650 million in labour cost savings in addition to the job reductions announced today.” Another large airline, | Qantas, announced a large reduction in interna- tional flying, after passenger numbers dropped as much as 30 percent on their Japan and Europe routes, blaming it mostly on the war in Iraq. “I graduate in a couple of months and I’m really worried that there won't be any jobs at all now because of the war,” Thompson said. According to another student, Jenn Reed, travel isn't the only industry that’s affected when there’s a war. She says that the war is affecting her job outlook too. “It’s hard to find a job anyway. And now with the war we are worried they might not need to hire anyone else. I think everyone's cutting back, no matter what Wartime industry, but it will pick up again,” she said. An article in Saturday’s Zoronto Star said that while the markets soared last week, hopes for a quick resolution to the war were dashed as people realized the war wasnt going to be as short as anticipated, and financial markets in the US sank to their biggest weekly declines in months. However, the Canadian dollar benefited from a sell-off of American dollars, gain- ing 1.01 cents and closing the week at 67.93 cents US. “T do see the light at the end of the tun- nel,” said Thompson. “I’m not going to let the fact that I see less jobs out there right now stop me from trying to get one that I went to school for.” Expert Says Slavery Not Truly Abolished Bales examines social and economic relationship to slavery erry Precht The Gateway DMONTON (CUP)—TIwenty-seven illion people worldwide are enslaved. hey work in the cocoa, sugar, and steel ndustries; some are domestic labourers in he United States and others are sex work- ers in Thailand. In 2003, how did we get o this place? Dr. Kevin Bales, the world’s leading authority on contemporary slavery, nddressed that question for a packed rowd at the Horowitz Theatre Monday ight in the University of Alberta’s fifth annual Visiting Lectureship in Human Rights. “T want to make it clear that we're talk- ng about slavery,” he said. “We're not alking about sweatshops [or] people who ave really bad jobs. We're talking about people who are truly enslaved, who are ontrolled by violence, and who receive O pay.” director of Free the Slaves, a US-based anti-slavery non-governmental organiza- ion, Bales knows what he’s talking about. His book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy was a Pulitzer Prize ominee, and in 2000, he was awarded e Italian Premio Viareggio award for service to humanity. Bales said slavery cannot be reduced to a simple equation of good versus evil if it is to be understood. “Slavery is actually a relationship. It’s a social and an economic relationship, which is grossly unequal, marked by vio- lence [and] horrific exploitation.” the last 50 years, the slavery relation- ship has changed in ways “that are greater, more dramatic, and in many ways, more deadly than in all the history of slavery,” explained Bales. Slavery used to be a long-term relation- ship, but today, slaves are disposable. In 1850s America, a 19-year-old, healthy, male, agricultural worker cost the equiva- lent of $38,000, and generated an annual profit of five percent. Today, men of the same description are bought for as little as $40, even though they generate profits of higher than 800 percent each year. Bales noted three key reasons for this recent transformation: the population explosion in the developing world, the economic transformations of moderniza- tion and globalization, and corrupt gov- ernments and police forces. The products of slave labour are part of North American living, but boycotting particular companies is not an effective way to fight slavery, Bales said. The prod- ucts of slave labour are generally found at the basest levels of production and are integrated with supplies of raw materials not produced by slaves. Instead, Bales encouraged the audience to create awareness and find likeminded individuals with whom to take collective action. “What good is the enormous economic and political power that we hold if we can't use it to end slavery?” said Bales. “Our job is to make sure that countries enforce their own laws and that slaves, when freed, have an opportunity for reha- bilitation, reintegration, and education.” Free the Slaves has recently seen success with the Chocolate Protocol, which will see chocolate producers taking responsi- bility for their production chain and bankrolling the removal of slave and child labour from their organizations. Bales said the job left for this generation is an easy one, because the abolitionists of the past have already won the legal, eco- nomic, and moral battles. Despite its persistence, slavery is illegal everywhere. No economies will crumble if slavery is ended tomorrow. And morally, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights asserts no one should be victimized by slavery, said Bales. “You have the phenomenal good fortune to be living in the generation that could actually be the generation that is able to say, through all of human history, slavery has ridden on our backs like an ugly spir- it, but we're the generation that brought it to an end.” page 3 ©