SWARTHMORE — Even as 33-year-old Kalpona Akter faces a potential death sentence in her home country of Bangladesh, she traveled halfway across the globe to talk about the working conditions in her homeland with the hope of creating an atmosphere of respect, dignity and a better life for her fellow citizens.

Aleya Akter, 26, journeyed with Kalpona to tell the tale of working 14 years of 11-hour days sewing jackets with 400 employees at a Dhaka factory for Walmart.

by Abdulai Bah

Radio Interview on WBAI New York.

To listen click on the link to the archives below and then scroll to the show: Global Movements, Urban Struggles on March 31, 2011. The interview goes from 15:05 - 28:08.

In a room bound by silence, the voice of one woman in NYU's philosophy building reached a stunned audience with the help of an interpreter.

"My name is Aleya. I come from Bangladesh," said Aleya Akter, a sewing machine operator in a Bangladeshi factory. "I've been working for Wal-Mart since 1994. When I started I used to get $7 per month for 208-hour work and now I get about $80 a month for 26 days a month. I was working 14 hours in a row and sometimes up to 3 a.m. shifts."

When we think of heartwarming tales, they tend to be of the sort like "Miracle on 34th Street," where little Susan Walker gets the house she wanted for Christmas after all, or "It's a Wonderful Life," where George Bailey's neighbors and customers put self-interest aside to save his bank. Those are yummy treats of magical doings and brotherly compassion that the season inspires. But in real life happy endings don't often come so easily or tidily.

A 24-hour strike call to press public sector claims for a 50 percent pay rise in Niger was widely followed Thursday in the capital Niamey, trade union sources said.

"The strike is being well followed, even if there are places where people are working," Amadou Harouna Maiga of the USTN, a federation of trade unions of Niger, told AFP.

Administrative offices, banks and many shops were closed. However, public transport was running normally in Niamey and traffic levels were normal, an AFP correspondent reported...