Labor is Not a Commodity

Colombian soldiers convicted of trade union murders

By Charity Ryerson, Program Coordinator, U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project

Last Tuesday’s announcement that four Colombian soldiers had been sentenced for the killing of three trade union leaders in Arauca was welcomed by many in the global trade union movement, including Colombia’s largest labor federation, the CUT.

The three leaders, Jorge Prieto, Leonel Goyeneche, and Hector Alirio Martinez, were killed on August 5th, 2004 by members of Colombia’s 18th Brigade.  Since 2002, this brigade had been receiving training in counterinsurgency from the US Special Forces to protect an oil pipeline that is partially owned by US-based Occidental Petroleum. The soldiers reportedly stripped the union leaders down to their underwear before killing them. They then put guns in their hands to create the illusion that they died in battle.

Smithfield Tar Heel Workers Want a Union

Trina Tocco, Campaigns Coordinator, International Labor Rights Forum

Today I had the privilege of participating in the UFCW-organized interfaith service and rally in response to the Smithfield shareholder meeting in Williamsburg, VA.  This strong show of solidarity invalidated any doubts that the labor movement in the US has been weakened.  What I saw were union members and staff across various unions (both AFL and Change to Win) articulating that they would not rest until Smithfield agreed to card check.  And even more powerful was the strong showing of faith leaders from Atlanta to Chicago.  Many of the speakers spoke of the connection to the current immigration struggles in the US indicating that labor rights was an essential component to immigrant rights.

I was pleasantly surprised to run into Lorena Gomez who had taken part in an ILRF sponsored speaking tour to talk about the Smithfield struggle.  You can access her blog here. 

Support freedom of speech and freedom of association

Clean Clothes Campaign alert posted by Liana Foxvog, National Organizer, SweatFree Communities

Legal action is being used by a company producing garments in India to silence organisations in India and the Netherlands who are speaking out about severe labour rights violations in factories producing jeans for companies including G-Star, Armani, RaRe, Guess, Gap and Mexx. Instead of working with local organisations to improve labour conditions and labour relations, the jeans supplier is trying to stop labour rights groups from distributing information on the situation at FFI/JKPL and have filed restraining orders and libel lawsuits to silence them. The workers' rights advocates are committed to pursuing justice for the women and men who stitch our jeans, but support is needed in the face of the huge legal campaign mounted by FFI/JKPL.

Immigration from the Source

By Denise Riley, Political Director, Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO

It takes several hot and bumpy hours to drive to the town of Morales more than 128 miles from Guatemala City.  It is the home of the banana workers’ union, Sindicato de Trabajadores Bananeros de Izabal (SITRABI), Guatemala’s oldest and largest local union. We are here to see the impacts of globalization and CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) on the workers in Guatemala on a delegation coordinated by STITCH, a non-profit that unites Central American and U.S. women to fight for economic justice. 

We meet with SITRABI leaders Carmen Molina and Selfa Sandoval. They highlight what their union has done for Morales.  Decent pay for the workers feeds the economy and union dues support community programs, sports leagues, and those in crisis. 

Labor Rights in Pakistan

By Manfred Elfstrom, Program Officer, ILRF

Pakistan’s political turmoil has suddenly seized the attention of Washington’s think tanks and policy wonks and made a brief, clumsy splash in the sparring between Democratic presidential hopefuls (with Obama, Clinton et al debating the wisdom of attacking Al Qaeda across Pakistan’s border).

However, up until now, Pakistani politics have been dealt with mainly as a question of “stability” versus terrorism, with a secondary emphasis on the prospects for the country returning to civilian rule.   Vague White House pronouncements on the need for further market “reforms” aside, Pakistan’s economy has been largely absent from the debate.  Needless to say, the challenges facing the country’s working class have been entirely absent.

In July, I traveled to Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot to meet with labor activists and other civil society groups, as well as some factory managers.  I passed through busy cities and wide open fields and met with campaigners who deal daily with child laborers in brick kilns, women sexually harassed in textile mills and bonded laborers on cotton plantations.  The tactics employed by the organizations I met with varied widely, from interactive theater to rehabilitation programs to interfaith dialogue to research.

Tracing School Uniforms

By Ashanti Slater, student at Cesar Chavez Public Policy School in DC, intern at ILRF

My name is Ashanti Slater. I attend Cesar Chavez and I am in the tenth grade. At my school we have to do a project called CAP. CAP stands for Community Action Project. For this program, we work once a week at an activist group. This is required in our tenth grade year because our school is a public policy school. The goal of this program is to get students involved with the community.

At the beginning of this project, I was assigned to attend at the International Labor Rights Fund. Before I came here, I already had learned a little bit about sweatshops at school. But I never learned that my school uniform was made by a company that is associated with sweatshops. Gildan makes my school uniform in Haiti. Gildan already had a factory called El Progresso in Honduras. It got shut down because the workers complained.

NEW Firestone Campaign Video

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, ILRF

Check out the NEW video for the Stop Firestone campaign!  You can see more of our videos on our YouTube page. 

On July 26, 2007 the Stop Firestone Coalition organized a National Call-In Day, demanding that Firestone respect the workers and protect the environment. The company recorded a voicemail for callers defending their record in Liberia. This video contains clips from Firestone's voicemail and our response.

ILRF Statement Regarding Wal-Mart’s 2006 Ethical Standards Report

By Trina Tocco and Manfred Elfstrom, ILRF

15 August 2007 - Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. released its 2006 Report on Ethical Sourcing today, touting increased factory audits and “new approaches” to guaranteeing basic labor rights for its massive workforce. In the report, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott acknowledges that “improvement of factory working conditions in our supply chain remains a challenge.” Unfortunately, the report plays with numbers (reducing, for example, the target percentage of unannounced inspections), ignores plants that have been of particular concern, gives only a vague sense of how exactly it codes factories, and avoids clear goals for the future,. Most importantly, without a commitment to paying the price required to lift up the company’s exploited workers, Mr. Scott’s attempt at frankness about challenges comes across as a gross understatement.

Union Genocide

By Charity Ryerson, Campaign Coordinator, U.S./Labor Education in the Americas Project

Carlos Rodriguez, president of Colombia’s largest labor federation, the CUT, recently told a Financial Times reporter that the widespread killing of union members in Colombia was significant enough to be called "genocide ." It’s true that nearly 2.500 unionists have been killed in that country since the early 90’s and that more union members are killed in Colombia annually than the rest of the world combined. But can it be called genocide? Technically, the term genocide refers to ethnic, national, racial or religious groups, but does not include social or political groups. This has been the source of much controversy and raises questions about the categories we create for systematic killings.    

Firestone's sub-par score on human rights

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

Bridgestone recently sponsored a PGA tour golf tournament at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.  The tournament was the second in a five-year sponsorship agreement with the World Golf Championships.  The irony of this company's sponsorship of a golf tournament, while it keeps the workers who extract the rubber which forms the basis of its wealth in near-slavery conditions, should not be forgotten.

When many of us heard about the Bridgestone Invitational, it reminded us of how on Firestone's rubber plantation in Liberia, the managers have huge houses with all the modern amenities as well as access to golf courses.  Meanwhile, the rubber tappers and their families are crammed into one-room shacks with leaky roofs and no running water or electricity.

This photograph is of a Firestone manager's house in Liberia.
(Courtesy of the Save My Future Foundation)

This photograph shows the house of a typical rubber tapper employed by Firestone in Liberia.  Even the most recently remodeled houses still lack running water, electricity and indoor latrines.  (Courtesy of the Save My Future Foundation)

This is a photograph of one of the golf courses made for Firestone managers in Liberia.  While they play golf, Firestone rubber tappers and their children carry buckets of latex weighing 75 pounds each for miles, with no protective gear to shield them from toxic chemicals used in production.  (Courtesy of the Save My Future Foundation)

What does Tiger Woods have to do with it?  Keep reading to find out more!