Labor is Not a Commodity

Sign a Petition to Stop Uzbek Child Labor on Cotton Fields

Brett Eisenbrown, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Please Join the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and other organizations to call for an end to forced child labor in the Uzbek cotton industry.  Help send a message to the Uzbek government by signing a petition today!  Supporters that sign the petition by October 2nd will have their names put on a quilt that will be the center piece for a rally that will be held outside the Embassy of Uzbekistan on October 14th in Washington, DC. 

Forced child labor is used every harvest season in Uzbekistan and its time to send a clear message that this can't continue.  You can download posters about child labor in the cotton industry here.

The human rights concerns surrounding Uzbek cotton production in the United States has lead to not only a call for a boycott of Uzbek cotton from consumers, but also my major retailers.  In a article, published in the LA times by U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, it stated that: “More than 25 major brands and retailers have joined the campaign to end forced child labor in Uzbekistan, including American Eagle Outfitters, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap Inc., JC Penney, Kohl's, Levi Strauss & Co., Limited Brands, Nike, Nordstrom, Timberland, TJX Cos. Inc., Phillips-Van Heusen Corp., Target, the Walt Disney Co. and Wal-Mart.”

400 Cut-Flower Workers Strike and Take Plantation Over Mistreatment

Eva Seidelman, ILRF Program Assistant

Over 400 cut-flower workers (mostly women) from the company Benilda, S.A. in Facatativa, Colombia have been on strike for nearly 20 days. They've faced substandard working conditions for years and are finally demanding that as the company fires hundreds of workers, it at least pay them what they are owed in back compensation! Over 60% of cut-flowers sold in the U.S. are from Colombia, with  women occupying the majority of the poorly paid, hazardous positions. See ILRF's Fairness in Flowers campaign page for more on the general working conditions for cut-flower workers and visit this website (in spanish) especially created to support the Benilda workers. The mobilization efforts against the Benilda company have been organized by Colombia' independent flower workers' union, Untraflores, and supported by other agricultural unions such as Sintrainagro (in Colombia) in the international union of food workers, IUF. The local Diocese and other community groups are also supporting groups.

Benilda has failed to pay for workers' health coverage and pension (as mandated by Colombian law) even after the company made deductions from their wages. This has resulted in workers falling ill from cancer, thrombosis, carpal tunnel syndrome and other life long illnesses caused by the hazardous work of cut-flower cultivation and production, as they satisfy U.S. consumers' demand for cheap, perfect flowers. Flower workers across the world have seen their production quotas get higher, increasing risks of injury and pesticide exposure, as companies squeeze workers in search of profits.

Impunity in Colombia: One Woman's Story with Yessika Hoyos Morales

Carol Hansen, USLEAP

Another great USLEAP speaker tour is coming to a city near you, if you live near Chicago, IL or Madison, WI on September 28-30.

Yessika Hoyos Morales, Human Rights Activist and Attorney, will speak about the systemic violations of human and labor rights that plague Colombia. Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist with more than 2,700 assassinated union members in two decades and an impunity rate of 95%.

Colombia is also home to Latin America’s longest running armed internal conflict with 4 million people internally displaced.  Today, various Colombian government departments, members of military, politicians, and members of Congress are under investigation for their links to illegal armed groups.  The Colombian government’s chief intelligence and security service has once again been implicated in illegal activity against trade unionists and human rights leaders, illegally gathering intelligence information from these organizations, including the law firm where Ms. Hoyos works.  The Colombian military and police forces receive nearly $700 million in aid each year from the United States. 

ILO Mission to the Philippines to probe labor violations launched today.

Brett Eisenbrown, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

The International Labor Organization (ILO) will begin its first high level mission to the Philippines today to investigate charges that the Philippine Government, under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has violated ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association, and ILO Convention 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining.  You can learn more about the ILO and ILO conventions here.

The ILO mission will be in the Philippines from September 22nd to 29th when, according to Lito Ustarez, of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and the National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU), it will investigate the killing of 92 labor union leaders since 2001. They will meet with families of victims and survivors of unexplained killings, enforced disappearances and labor-related harassment, and they will inspect two major manufacturing plants in Central and Southern Luzon.

Comments Inform USTR on Labor Rights Violations

Eva Seidelman, ILRF Program Assistant

On September 15th, hundreds of organizations, members of Congress and individuals submitted comments to the USTR regarding U.S. engagement on pending Free Trade Agreements with Colombia and South Korea. The FTAs were negotiated by Bush but have yet to be ratified by Congress. ILRF submitted comments on labor rights issues in both countries.

 
ILRF's comments emphasized the same points as other groups such as USLEAP, the House Trade Working Group (in the U.S. Congress) and Senator Sherrod Brown: violence, impunity and labor subcontracting must end in Colombia before the consideration of an agreement. Since January of 2007, over 75 unionists have been murdered in Colombia and hundreds of death threats, arrests and forms of harassment ensued. Additionally, over 500,000 workers are still blatantly denied the right to join a union (and denied other basic rights enjoyed by regular workers) as they are forced into "labor cooperatives." View the ILRF's brand new Freedom at Work toolkit to find more case studies of violations of the right to organize worldwide.

Cambodian Labor Rights in Jeopardy

Brett Eisenbrown, intern, International Labor Rights Forum

On September 10th, Mr. Tola Moeun, of the Community Legal Education Center went before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission to discuss Cambodian labor rights issues.  Upon reading his testimony, there are many points that deserve to be highlighted.  Mr. Moeun’s testimony sheds light on the fact that workers rights in Cambodia are beginning to deteriorate and unless something is done, Cambodia could undercut many of the labor rights advances that have occurred in the last ten plus years. 

Cambodia has the reputation of being one of the more socially responsible nations when it comes to labor rights.  This is because of the passage of the 1997 labor law that was co-written by the International Labor Organization, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and the Cambodian Government.  Additionally, in 2003 Cambodia established an independent Cambodian Arbitration Council and now receives funding from the U.S. Department of Labor to help support its Better Factories Project.

US Dept. of Labor Releases List of Goods Produced by Forced, Child Labor

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

As part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the US Department of Labor (DOL)  released today a list of 122 goods from 58 countries that are produced by forced labor and child labor.  Find out more and see the list here.  Included in the list are many of the products that ILRF recommend to the DOL during our testimony in 2008, for example: cocoa in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, cotton from Uzbekistan, rubber from Liberia, tobacco from Malawi, cottonseed, stones and soccer balls from India, sugar from Guatemala and surgical instruments from Pakistan.  You can check out ILRF's press release here and our press release about Uzbek cotton with the American Federation of Teachers and Calvert here.

Reminders of Why We Need to Protect the Right to Organize

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

Last week, ILRF released a new toolkit about the right to organize globally in advance of Labor Day here in the US.  As ILRF Board President Bill Fletcher, Jr. noted in his Labor Day article on the Huffington Post:

Anti-worker efforts come in various forms. There are the more blatant and barbaric forms of repression such as the assassinations of pro-union activists. A case in point is Colombia which, per capita, has the highest number of union activists murdered in the world. Yet the repression is not always so blatant, and it is also not simply a problem that happens "...over there..." in some other country. The repression is very evident here in the USA.

Since we released the toolkit, there have been a number of examples around the world of the types of intimidation workers face when they attempt to organize.

Freedom at Work toolkit launched for Labor Day

Eva Seidelman, ILRF Program Assistant

On Labor Day we get excited about our three day weekend, sales and BBQs. This year we might ask ourselves, what does Labor Day mean for the rest of the world of workers who produce the back to school clothes and food we enjoy on this day dedicated to labor rights? Truthfully, most workers around the world, including in the U.S., face systematic barriers to freely joining unions at work to improve working conditions. In effect, workers worldwide face exploitative conditions, poverty wages and countless other issues because they have no voice on the job. In light of Labor Day, ILRF is launching its Freedom at Work campaign, along with a new campaign toolkit that outlines cases studies of freedom of association violations worldwide. See the press release here. ILRF has broadened its End Violence Against Trade Unions campaign to demonstrate the numerous tactics used by companies and governments to prevent workers from freely organizing at work, though violence remains a serious problem.