Labor is Not a Commodity

Happy Halloween!

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  This year, US consumers are expected to spend $2.1 Billion on chocolate, but child labor continues to occur on cocoa farms throughout West Africa.  Here are three simple ways to take action TODAY to tell the chocolate companies that you have had enough of their tricks!

1) Participate in Reverse Trick-or-Treating: You can download, print and distribute informational flyers from your doorstep to trick-or-treaters, while walking around your neighborhood or at Halloween parties!  Download flyers here! 2) Send an E-mail to Nestle: Click here to send an e-mail to Nestle tell them to stop using child labor in their supply chain.  Then, tell 5 friends to send e-mails too! 3) Check Out Our Action Kit:  For more ideas on how to stop child labor in the cocoa industry, check out our cocoa action kit here. Keep reading for more!

GAP found using child labor

Trina Tocco, Campaigns Coordinator, International Labor Rights Forum

Its been one tough day for the GAP, Inc. as they have had to defend why they wouldn't have known that child labor was being used to produce a line of girls blouses to be sold over the holidays.  I'm sure its been an even worse day for the workers at the factory that were producing for GAP because I'm sure the factory just lost all of its orders which means more working class people are out of a job.  The story was first reported in the Observer yesterday.

Some footage of the factory can be seen in this ABC news coverage.

I am shocked at just how often child labor and other unacceptable labor violations are found.  Even more alarming is the lack of response from companies most of the time.  Or the concern that a company will just take their orders to another bad factory.   Companies have learned that the best response is to announce yet another initiative that will give scholarships to factory workers and train management on safety laws.  What I don't see is a recognition from companies that they must act not in a superficial save face kind of way but in a way that truly changes how the garment industry functions.

You see, the global apparel industry has been broken for quite some time.  Companies can gallivant around the world searching for the day's lowest prices and consumers flock to the sale rack.  Yet the questions and concern often only come when a company is outed because of really really terrible labor violations.   More about this is in a recent press statement by ILRF and Global Exchange.

China's Real Toy Story

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

Have you been following the recalls of toys produced in China?  So have we!  Unfortunately, much of the media coverage does not address the effect these products are having on the health of workers who produce them.  Also, what about the retailers (for example, Wal-Mart) who put so much pressure on suppliers to produce cheap goods that health, environmental and labor protections get brushed aside?

For a different perspective on this hot topic, check out the testimony given by ILRF Executive Director, Bama Athreya, before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation today.  The hearing focused on "Sweatshop Conditions in the Chinese Toy Industry."

ILRF Critiques Wal-Mart's Sourcing Practices

By Michelle Jacome, ILRF intern

Today, on the second year anniversary of the “21st Century Leadership" speech made by Mr. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart CEO, the International Labor Rights Forum is releasing a report on Ethical Standards and Working Conditions in Wal-Mart’s Supply Chain.  The report raises awareness about the harsh working conditions that many Wal-Mart workers suffer worldwide. 

ILRF questions “Wal-Mart’s role in providing accountability for activities within factories that it purchases from, and its responsibility to find solutions as opposed to merely identifying problems.”   

The report concludes that Wal-Mart has not invested the necessary resources or taken the necessary actions to ensure that its Ethical Standards Program is not only on paper but actually enforced. 

The report is available at: www.laborrights.org/publications/WMEthicalsourcing102407.pdf

Make Your Halloween Fair Trade!

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

This year, children across the United State will be reversing the Halloween tradition by handing Fair Trade chocolate back to adults while Trick-or-Treating door-to-door on Halloween!  The candy will be accompanied by information about social justice issues in the chocolate industry, and how Fair Trade chocolate provides a solution to these concerns.

 Join us, and together, we will inform tens of thousands of households!

Sign up to go "Reverse Trick-or-Treating" here!   (Make sure to note in the online form that you are working with the International Labor Rights Forum)

Keep reading for more Halloween ideas!

Nestle: Harmful to Kids Around the World

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

Nestle, the world's largest food corporation, have declined to join an industry agreement to limit advertising of unhealthy foods to children.  Congressman Ed Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, sent letters to Nestle and a few other companies that have not decided to participate in the Council of Better Business Bureau's (CBBB) Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative.  Companies involved in the initiative agree to adopt nutrition standards for all marketing aimed at children as well as to devote at least half of their kids' advertising to promote healthier products, good nutrition and healthy lifestyles.  Read the full story here.

Of course, this is just the latest development in Nestle's long history of harmful policies toward children.

Philippines Blacklists Human Rights Advocates

Tim Newman, Campaigns Assistant, International Labor Rights Forum

Last week, Human Rights Watch released an official blacklist created by the government of the Philippines to bar over 500 international human rights advocates from entering the country.  Number 408 on the list was ILRF staff member Brian Campbell.

Check out the ILRF statement here and keep reading to find out more information and see the list.

Policy Contrast: Lead Paint vs. Child Labor

By Robert Senser (reposted from Human Rights for Workers blog)

"The discovery of lead paint in a wide range of Chinese goods exported to the U.S. (from toys to jewelry) raises difficult public policy questions," Economist Dani Rodrik writes in the September 11 entry on his blog.  He goes on to think about the policy positions taken toward two different issues: unsafe imports vs. imports made in sweatshops --"issues which seem quite distinct, but are actually quite analogous in many respects."  Among the similarities in characteristics shared by the two kinds of imports:

• In both cases, exporting countries have domestic regulations and standards which on paper are sometimes stronger than those in the U.S., but enforcement is weak. 
• Both types of substandard production make goods cheaper and create a competitive advantage.
  
• The final consumer in the U.S. cannot tell whether the toy contains lead paint or has been manufactured using, say, child labor under exploitative conditions.
  
• We are less likely to buy the product, all else being equal, if we know it contains lead paint or has been made by children.

In view of such parallels, "we might think that the policy response to the problems in these two areas would be similar," Rodrik speculates. But it is not.