Thursday, June 4, 2015

CHRIS STONE, In New York: VPO Press Release - The Open Society Foundations Name Head of Economic Advancement Program

VPO Press Release - The Open Society Foundations Name Head of Economic Advancement Program:



un 04, 2015 12:36 ET
The Open Society Foundations Name Head of Economic Advancement Program
The director will oversee an innovative approach to the challenges of economic inequality
NEW YORKJune 4, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Open Society Foundations today announced Sean Hinton as the director of the new Economic Advancement Program and chief executive officer of the Soros Economic Development Fund. From September 2015, Hinton will lead the Foundations' economic advancement agenda, which aims to encourage sound economic policies and wise financial investment that drive shared, equitable growth. Hinton will start in Open Society's New York office and will be based in the London office from the second quarter of 2016.
"Sean Hinton's leadership will help my foundations create opportunities for people and businesses where the need for socially sound investment is greatest," said George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations. "The countries we work in need not only aid but also investment."
Hinton joins Open Society from Terbish Partners, a strategic and investment advisory firm that he founded in 2007. His focus has been on the energy and minerals sector in ChinaMongolia, and Africa. Hinton has 26 years of experience inAsia, particularly in Mongolia, where he has been deeply involved in economic development, working with the government, local communities, and global and national companies. He has been a longterm senior advisor to Goldman Sachs Asia and the Rio Tinto group, and was formerly a consultant with McKinsey & Company.
Chris Stone, president of the Open Society Foundations, said: "Sean will lead an all-sectors strategy for economic advancement, working with government, business, and civil society worldwide. The Economic Advancement Program will have the widest array of tools at its disposal, giving Sean the ability to make equity and debt investments alongside more traditional grants, the ability to sponsor research, advise governments, and advocate for sensible economic policies, that serve companies, and American companies only.
"With his deep experience in Asia and Africa, and his belief that the best strategies are grounded in local context, Sean is just the person we need to lead this new effort within the Open Society Foundations."
"The Open Society Foundations work to create sustainable improvements in the social and material wellbeing of communities around the world. Economic advancement is a key part of this vibrant mission and can create conditions for people to become protagonists of their own development, thereby building flourishing and prosperous open societies. I look forward to taking part in such meaningful work," said Hinton.
At the helm of the Economic Advancement Program, Hinton will lead Open Society's advocacy and grant making efforts to build the economic foundations for open society. He will fully integrate the Soros Economic Development Fund with the Open Society Foundations, further aligning the Fund's social impact investing with Open Society thematic and geographic priorities.
"Sean Hinton is a creative thinker who has shown an ability to work across many disciplines. He will be able to draw from his broad experience to bring innovative approaches to our work. We are excited to engage a person of such unusual talents to lead the Soros Economic Development Fund," said Michel Zaleski, chair of the board of the Soros Economic Development Fund.
"The search was extensive with dozens of candidates with great experience from all over the world. Sean Hinton emerged as the strongest candidate for the Open Society Foundations. He will take the work to another level," said Maria Cattaui, head of the search committee and a member of the boards of both the Soros Economic Development Fund and the Open Society Foundations.
Established in 1997, the Soros Economic Development Fund invests in businesses that provide employment, products, and services for underserved populations in countries open to the development of their economic, political, legal, and civic institutions. Organized as a nonprofit, private foundation, SEDF has approximately $130 million in capital committed to program related investments and another $200 million available for future investments.
The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant societies whose governments are accountable and open to criticism, whose laws and policies are open to debate and correction, and whose political institutions are open to the participation of all people. Working with local communities in more than 100 countries, the Open Society Foundations seek to strengthen justice and the rule of law; broaden respect for human rights, including the rights of minorities; encourage pluralism and a robust diversity of opinion; deepen democratic practice; expand economic equity; support good governance; and invest in individuals and organizations that advance these goals in both the public and private sectors.
SOURCE Open Society Foundations










B. ECONOMY & WORK

Free Trade Agreements Fail Workers at Home — And Workers Abroad

This post first appeared on the United Steelworkers blog.
It’s all the rage now for Republican presidential candidates to spurn the Royal Romney approach and, instead, to fawn over workers.
When former US Sen. Rick Santorum announced his presidential bid last week, he did it from a factory floor and called for increasing the minimum wage. Former New York Gov. George Pataki, who also launched his candidacy last week, named as his political inspiration Teddy Roosevelt, a corporate trust-buster and working class hero. US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who entered the race in April, said that to win elections, “You’ve got to get the people who work for the people who own businesses.”
That is true – if the businesses are in America. There’s not much point in American candidates soliciting votes from workers at factories that US corporations closed here and moved overseas with the help of free trade agreements (FTAs). Decade after decade of free trade, presidents promised workers that the deals set the highest standards for labor. And decade after decade, the federal government failed at enforcement, placing Americans in competition with child laborers, underpaid and overburdened foreign workers and victims of human trafficking.
On trade, Sen. Paul got it right for working people. He opposedFast Tracking approval of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress. He was on the losing side of that vote, though. So the Fast Track plan for Congress to relinquish its responsibility to review and amend trade agreements awaits action this week in the US House of Representatives. House Republicans who believe in supporting American workers, not just pandering to them, should join Sen. Paul in voting no on Fast Track.
From Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, Republican and Democratic presidents have pledged to workers that some new free trade scheme would protect Americans from unfair and immoral foreign competition.
Clinton claimed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the first deal ever containing teeth to enforce labor standards. George W. Bush’s US Trade Representative (USTR) contended the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) had the strongest labor provisions ever negotiated. Obama administration officials assured Americans that the Peru, Colombia and Panama agreements, and now the TPP, have the greatest worker protections of all time.
They all swore the standards would be strictly enforced. But none of it was true. The deals did not protect American workers. And they didn’t protect foreign workers either.
Now American workers overwhelmingly oppose the free trade brand of globalization. They’ve seen its terrible results for them. They’ve suffered as corporations closed American factories, destroyed American jobs and communities, and shipped that work overseas.
Americans have found themselves competing with children coerced to work in foreign factories, trafficked and forced laborand foreign workers so mistreated that they jump to their deathsfrom factory buildings. American consumers find themselves buying products made in unsafe buildings that collapse or burn,killing thousands of foreign workers.
The USTR, who is supposed to enforce the labor provisions of trade agreements, along with the US Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of State, has failed. That’s according to two reviews by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). After a damning GAO report in 2009, the USTR promised action. A second GAO analysis in 2014 reported little change.
Here’s the bottom line from that report: “Since 2009, USTR and DOL, with State’s assistance, have taken steps intended to strengthen monitoring and enforcement of FTA partners’ compliance with FTA labor provisions, but their monitoring and enforcement remains limited.”
In other words, no matter what those agreements say about labor, it’s not being enforced.
For example, five years after Guatemala entered CAFTA, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) named Guatemala the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. That’s because of the large number of union activists murdered, tortured, kidnapped and threatened there.
This was a startling development because Colombia had a lock on the inglorious title of most dangerous for years. Colombia dropped from first place even while murders of trade unionists continued there.
Since Colombia finalized a free trade agreement with the US in 2011, two dozen Colombians trying to improve the lives and wages of workers through collective bargaining have been murdered every year. And these murders are committed with impunity. There are virtually never arrests or convictions for killing trade unionists in Colombia. Colombia’s trade deal with the US and its “enforcement” by the USTR, DOL and the State Department have done nothing to change that.
And as in Guatemala, trade union activists in Colombia continue to be threatened, tortured and kidnapped. The free trade agreement is no shield for them. For example, a paramilitary group threatened the daughters of Martha Cecilia Suarez, the president of the Santander public servants association.
In 2013, the paramilitary group Comando Urbano de los Rastrojos sent her two dolls marked with her daughters’ names. They were covered in red paint, one missing a leg, the other an arm.
The 14 free trade agreements that the United States has signed with 20 countries contain provisions allowing groups or individuals to file complaints about such violations of the labor standards. The 2014 evaluation by the GAO suggests that only a tiny number of complaints have been filed because the Labor Department has failed to inform stakeholders of this process and few within the foreign countries know about it.
The GAO also found that the Labor Department has failed to meet its own deadlines for investigating and resolving the complaints it has accepted. Serious allegations, including human trafficking and child labor, remain unsettled for years.
In addition to the critical 2014 GAO report, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) detailed the failure of the United States to implement FTA labor provisions in a report issued by her office late last month titled Broken Promises. It says, “the United States repeatedly fails to enforce or adopts unenforceable labor standards in free trade agreements.”
Admittedly, this is a titanic challenge. What the United States is trying to do is tell other countries, often ones far less wealthy, how their businesses should treat workers. The United States hardly would take kindly to Guatemala telling it that the US minimum wage is so low that it amounts to forced labor.
But president after president has promised American workers that the United States will compel foreign nations to meet high labor standards established in FTAs.
They haven’t accomplished that. They probably can’t. They should stop saying it. And American workers and politicians should stop buying it. The United States can sign trade agreements with countries after they stop murdering trade unionists and countenancing child labor. Entering agreements with countries that permit these grotesque practices demeans American workers and consumers.

'via Blog this'

No comments:

Post a Comment