KARMA GLOBAL AIMS TO FIND A RADICAL APPROACH FOR A CHANGE IN MINDSET, METHODS AND EMPLOYMENT LAWS BENEFICIAL TO THE TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD OF TODAY!
Karma has now become Karma Global which was incorporated in the year 2004, having now completed almost 19 years of its existence.
As late as April 2021, Karma Global took a very bold step of venturing into foreign shores in terms of shoving up its business prospects in countries like US, UK, UAE, Canada, South East and South East Asia.
It has already made its mark in terms of providing excellent services in the areas of payroll, outsourcing, recruitment and talent acquisition, facility management services and regulatory compliances including immigration, negotiations and employment contracts in these foreign countries as well.
The major services provided by Karma Global include Regulatory Audit, Management Consulting, Strategy Consulting, Financial & Tech Advisory, Risk Advisory, and Legal.
Towards the end of April and the first fortnight of May 2023, Pratik Vaidya, MD & CVO of Karma Global was in the U.S. and Canada attending the Select USA Investment Summit 2023 which came to a close, marking the largest Investment Summit in Select USA history, with 4,900 attendees spanning 83 international markets that was well represented.
There was a lot of interactive sessions at Bay Area Houston where the delegates were briefed about business divisions in Franchise, Business Brokerage, Consulting, Education, Technology and Business Immigration and assistance was also offered to the delegates in buying or selling businesses with more than 400 franchise opportunities.
This delegation in association with the Consulate General of India, US Commercial Service of Dallas, IACC of Greater Houston, the Greater Houston Partnership and Economic Development Offices is another step in IACC’s development of relations with the United States of America.
Canada launches an inquiry into allegations over the use of the Chinese minority Uyghur forced labour in Nike and Dynasty Gold operations.
Canada’s Watchdog comes down heavily on the use of Uyghur forced labour
Canada’s corporate ethics watchdog launched separate investigations into Nike Canada (NKE.N) and Dynasty Gold (DYG.V) to probe allegations that they used or benefited from forced Uyghur labour in their supply chains and operations in China.
The investigations were launched on Tuesday after an initial assessment of complaints about the overseas operations of 13 Canadian companies filed by a coalition of 28 civil society organizations in June 2022.
A report by the U.N. human rights chief said last year that China’s treatment of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in Xinjiang, in the country’s far west, may constitute crimes against humanity.
Beijing has repeatedly denied the use of forced labour against Uyghurs, a position the Chinese embassy in Ottawa reiterated in a statement on Tuesday that added the rights of workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang were duly protected.
This is the first such investigation launched by the Canadian agency since it launched its complaint mechanism in 2021. No other Canadian agencies in the past has launched investigations of this kind.
Complaints against the other 11 companies were still being assessed, with reports expected in the coming weeks, according to a statement from the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE).
Nike Canada and Dynasty Gold are alleged to have or have had supply chains or operations in China identified as using or benefiting from the use of Uyghur forced labour, the Ombudsperson said in the statement.
Dynasty Gold said in an emailed response that the allegations were “totally unfounded”.
“While there are factual inaccuracies in their latest report, we’ll continue to participate (in discussions),” Nike said on Wednesday in response to a Reuters’ query.
“I have not pre-judged the outcome of the investigations. We will await the results and we will publish final reports with my recommendations,” Ombudsperson Sheri Meyer Hoffer said in the statement, adding that the watchdog is “very concerned” about how these companies have chosen to respond to these allegations.
Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) was launched in 2017 to monitor and investigate human rights abuses mainly by Canadian garment, mining and oil and gas companies operating abroad.
CORE has no legal powers to prosecute and if companies are found guilty, the watchdog said it could refer the findings to a parliamentary committee for further action.
In the last couple of years, several large U.S. and Canadian multinational companies have been accused of using Uyghur forced labour either directly or in their supply chains.
Earlier this year Reuters reported that a bipartisan group of U.S. representatives called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to halt the initial public offering of Chinese-founded fast fashion firm Shein until it clarified that it does not use forced labour.
The initial assessment into Nike details supply relationships with Chinese companies identified as using or benefiting from the use of Uyghur forced labour.
In March, an activist shareholder called on Nike to offer more transparency on the working conditions of its supply chain.
Nike maintains that it no longer has any ties with these companies and provided the watchdog information on its due diligence practices, according to the watchdog’s statement.
The complaint against Dynasty Gold is that it benefited from the use of Uyghur forced labour at a mine in China in which the company holds a majority interest. In a statement last year, Dynasty said it does not have operational control over the mine and that these allegations arose after it left the region.
CONCLUSION – The Government of Canada expects companies to take every step possible to ensure that their supply chains conform to Canadian law with respect to the prohibition on the import of goods produced by forced labour.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines forced labour as “the extraction of work or service from any person under the threat of penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.” [1] The international community, including Canada, condemns forced labour. It is a long-standing and persistent global issue.
What is forced labour?
In the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), the ILO defines forced or compulsory labour as: “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.
Forced Labour in Xinjiang, China
The Situation
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the largest Chinese province, situated in the northwest of China.
The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group that has origins and cultural roots within Central and East Asia. The Tarim Basin in southwest Xinjiang has been home to the Uyghurs for more than 1,300 years.
When the area came under the control of China in 1949, Xinjiang’s population was over 75% Uyghurs and 2.5% Chinese. After decades of Han Chinese in-migration, the Uyghurs now make up less than 50% of the region’s population of 26 million but comprise 85% to 90% of the population in and around the ancient city of Kashgar, near the Kyrgyzstan border.
In the Xinjiang Region, the People’s Republic of China is using otherwise legitimate programs for retraining and relocation of unemployed workers as instruments of a broader campaign of oppression, exploitation, and indoctrination of the Uyghur Muslim population into Han Chinese culture.
Non-voluntary participation in retraining and relocation programs provides forced labour to the bottom of the supply chains for textiles and apparel, food products, and semiconductor-based products, including solar panels.
The forced labour allows cheap raw materials (e.g., cotton, quartz sand, polysilicon, tomatoes, etc.) to be offered (along with tax breaks and subsidized coal-fired electricity) to companies the next step up the supply chain, who in turn make products for the next step up the supply chain, etc.
Canadian companies should be aware that the most common ways that they will be linked to forced labour in Xinjiang is not through direct partnerships and relationships with factories and suppliers in Xinjiang but rather through indirect relationships deeper into their supply chains.
Proprietary blog of Karma Global
This blog has been collated and compiled by the internal staff of Karma Global with the knowledge and expertise that they possess, besides adaptation, illustration, derivation, transformation, collection, and auto-generation for its monthly newsletter Issue 14 of August 2023 and in case of specific or general information or compliance updates for that matter, kindly reach out to the Marketing Team – Kush@karmamgmt.com / yashika@karmamgmt.com