Word: wages
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...There was, however, ennui. Many Australians were bored with Howard, uneasy at the prospect of his handover to Treasurer Peter Costello, which the P.M. had been postponing since 2001, and mistrustful of new labor laws that made wage negotiations individual rather than collective affairs. Many voters, too, bridled at the government's tendency to treat politics as a branch of economics. They wanted a sense that politics was about other things...
...Democrats have failed repeatedly to pass any restrictions on Bush's ability to wage the war he sees fit, and the White House shows no sign of backing down this time around. In fact, the chances of the Administration subscribing to any kind of restrictive legislation grows dimmer as the situation on the ground in Iraq continues to improve. "To pull the rug out from under them now seems irresponsible," White House press secretary Dana Perino said last week. Indeed, the betting inside the Pentagon is that the Democrats will fold in the coming weeks, once they feel comfortable telling...
...into a back-and-forth, which finally wakes up the crowd. By the time Obama moves on to immigration ("These are people who are trying to make a living. I understand they broke the law. But let me tell you something: if the minimum wage in Canada was $100 an hour ..."), he is, to steal a phrase, fired up. And the crowd, which cheers so loudly that he doesn't need to finish the sentence, is won over. The passionate response has answered their electability questions. As for the plus? On her way out of the event, even Svoboda offers...
When the Ambootia Tea Group bought the 437-acre (177 hectare) Happy Valley tea estate in March, its tea bushes were old, its machinery was obsolete, and its workers had not been paid regular wages for months. Seven months on, the estate's new owners have hired new managers, started regular maintenance of the plants and soil and begun a move to organic farming. Perhaps most important, productivity is inching up. In addition to a guaranteed minimum daily wage of $1.38, workers get incentives to pick more. Darjeeling's oldest tea estate is turning its original factory into a working...
Everything that happens in the tea industry, of course, depends on its workers. The Plantation Labor Act of 1951 guarantees not just a minimum wage for workers in tea, coffee and rubber but also housing, education, medical care and drinking water. Those benefits add about 11% to production costs and are the main reason Indian tea costs about $1.62 a kg to produce, compared with $1.23 in Sri Lanka, $1.16 in Kenya and 84¢ in Malawi. Strong unions in India's tea-growing regions have fought to preserve those benefits. Tea-estate workers are paid on average...