Women, Solidarity & the Global Factory

[Excerpt] For many of us who are concerned with international labor issues, a new image has come to represent our collective understanding of the global economy. It is an image of women in Third World nations toiling under sweatshop conditions in huge assembly plants owned by U.S.-based transnational corporations (TNCs). Yet what does international solidarity really mean in practice? Who does it include, and how? From a U.S. standpoint, if so many women workers are not organized into unions, how can they be included in international networks? If their voices are not heard, what can these networks hope to accomplish? This article explores these questions by looking at the experience of several groups in promoting international communication among women workers in the nonunion sector. It is excerpted from The Global Factory: An Organizing Guide for a New Economic Era. The complete publication, developed by the American Friends Service Committee, surveys the efforts of many different kinds of groups, inside and outside the trade union movement, to build international labor networks

This Is How It Starts : Women Maquila Workers in Mexico

[Excerpt] In the United States, where news about Mexico is sporadic at best and usually rife with stereotypes, Mexican workers are largely invisible, portrayed mainly as competitors for U.S. jobs — whether as undocumented immigrants or as laborers in international runaway shops. Women workers are doubly invisible, discounted as a marginal element of the paid workforce. Yet it is women who are taking the most initiative to break through the barriers of silence and invisibility, seeking friends and allies on the other side of the border and drawing support from church, community, labor and women\u27s groups in the United States. Such efforts, while still in their infancy, could play a major role in strengthening the hand of the labor movement against transnational corporations and in building coalitions among these groups

Design approach for photovoltaic power stations for demand-side requirements and competitive energy cost

[Abstract]: Photovoltaic (PV) plants can be constructed of different sizes capable of delivering the same rated power, however for different operation times. A scoping-factor is being introduced reflecting the peak power the plant is able to supply. The presented design approach allows determining the resulting energy cost on the basis of manufacturing cost of solar cells, solar cell efficiency, other system cost and utilization factor (plant capacity factor). Similarly, due to competitive energy environment this method allows determining required design parameters, such as solar cell efficiency, allowable plant component cost, size of the photovoltaic plant etc. The impact of the scoping factor on the plant capacity factor, the cost of the installed power and on the cost of the produced energy is discussed

Cost per kWh produced and payback time of a PV -solar -thermal -combined roof top collector at different locations in New Zealand

[Abstract]: This study presents an economic evaluation of three types of solar applications: a) grid-connected photovoltaic system, b) grid-connected photovoltaic system combined with a solar water heating system and c) solar water heating system only. The operational data of an 1.3m2/120-litre tank evacuated tube solar thermal collector and the data of an average1kWp grid-connected crystalline photovoltaic solar generator are taken as a basis for the calculation. The annual amount of energy produced, the incurred cost and the resulting savings over the system lifetime are used to determine the cost per kWh and the payback time of the system at different geographic locations in New Zealand.. The analysis presented in this paper for a combined solar installation including a grid-connected photovoltaic system and a solar thermal unit at a typical domestic house has shown that such a system will present realizable benefits compared to simple grid-connected photovoltaic systems operated separately. The calculations demonstrate the shortest payback time and the lowest cost per kWh for the pure solar water heating system compared to the two other alternatives, the combined system and the sole GC-PV