Labor is Not a Commodity

Protests in Tunisia and Response from the Labour Union UGTT

By Jeremy Liu, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Tunisia has been in the news lately for the wide spread protests.  There is an important side of all of this that isn’t being covered by the media and at ILRF we think it’s necessary to look at moments like this with a critical eye towards the impact of labor.

Photo to the right is anti-government demonstrations during the 2010–2011 Tunisian uprising. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caravane_de_la_lib%C3%A9ration_4.jpg

The recent instability across North Africa started with a street vendor named Mohamed Bouaziz. Bouaziz was a street vendor who was constantly harassed by local police officers.  On December 17th, 2010, Bouaziz was beaten and spat upon by a female police officer. Frustrated with the way he was treated, Bouaziz went to the local government office to file a formal complaint. The government refused to grant him an audience.  Therefore he threatened the government that he would burn himself to death if they did not listen. Unfortunately, the government did not take him seriously enough, Bouaziz doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. Ultimately according to Bouaziz’s sister, Bouaziz killed himself not because of the poverty but because the humiliation he suffered day in and out.

High School Students Demands Accountability from Sears

By Jennifer Wolan, Student at Dundee-Crown High School 

The Youth Labor Committee is a high school student led anti-sweatshop organization started in August 2010 at Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville IL, and is believed to be the only high school anti-sweatshop activism group of its kind.  We have worked tirelessly to help spread awareness of such oppressive and miserable working conditions that shackle people into wage slavery and oppression. As an organization, we have developed a complete set of teachable lesson plans (roughly 80 full school days worth of material), launched our website and opened up a dialogue with Sears Holdings Corporation, a global leader in retail. 

To date we have held two meetings with executives from Sears, taking place on the 10th of December and, most recently, the 20th of January. The main purpose of these meetings was to discuss Sears' Global Compliance Guidelines, which can be viewed at the following link: http://www.searsholdings.com/govern/docs/Global_Compliance_Requirements_Poster.pdf.

Stop trade-union repression in Dole Philippines’ plantation!

This statement has been issued by Elmer "Bong" Labog of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU)

The Kilusang Mayo Uno labor center condemns the continuing harassment and repression of members and officials of the legitimate labor union in Dole Philippines’ plantation in Polomoloc, South Cotabato - the Amado Kadena–National Federation of Labor Unions–Kilusang Mayo Uno (AK-NAFLU-KMU). We call for an immediate stop to such harassment and repression and for a clean and honest certification election in the coming months. We demand that the trade-union and human rights of about 20,000 workers in Dole Philippines be respected and upheld.

The objective of the ongoing harassment and repression in Dole Philippine is very clear: to weaken, if not eliminate altogether, the pro-worker and militant union AK-NAFLU-KMU and to replace it with the pro-management unions UR Dole and LEAD PH. The perpetrators of the harassment and repression in Dole Philippines are likewise clear: (1) the management of Dole Philippines, which wants to quash the workers’ demands for higher wages, job security and trade-union rights, in order to extract greater profits from the workers, and (2) the national government, which wants to promote its so-called “industrial peace” by any means including the deployment of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to better service the rapacity of big local and foreign capitalists for superprofits.

Moving Knowledge to Action: The Colombian FTA

By Rebecca Van Horn, Program Coordinator, USLEAP

A wave of 2010 reports on Colombia points to a cold reality: things might be getting better, but they’re
still bad. In early December, the Latin America Working Group (LAWG) and the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC) released a report entitled Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia’s Disappeared, which draws attention to the more than 32,000 people who have been forcibly disappeared in Colombia. Among other grim statistics, the reports highlights the 1,130 cases of forced disappearances documented in the last three years alone, a number that discounts the many cases that remain unreported or unregistered in the government database. Armed actors, including the Colombian army, right-wing paramilitaries, and left-wing guerrillas, are alleged to disappear people in order to maintain control. While the families are left to wonder, the victims, many of whom are human rights defenders, trade unionists, campesinos, Afro-Colombians, indigenous people, the homeless, or members of the LGBT community, become pawns in a game of armed-inspired terror.

Clean Clothes Campaign Gains Widespread Recognition in Amsterdam

By Bonnie Stinson, Intern, SweatFree Communities

Each year, the city of Amsterdam holds a competition to elect a Citizen of the Year whose contribution to society has had the greatest impact.

Last week, Marieke Eyskoot of the Clean Clothes Campaign came in second place among a selection of impressive candidates for her phenomenal work on raising visibility and creating momentum for the CCC at home and abroad.

Marieke's background includes film and television studies, voluntary work with Amnesty International and the AMC hospital, and professional work for Cinekid; an article about the competition describes her as “geen harde tante, maar ook geen 'lieve ree met grote ogen',” or “not a tough lady, but also not a 'sweet doe-eyed' lady either.”

The Clean Clothes Campaign (or Schone Kleren Campagne in Dutch) is a coalition of European-based organizations that aims to improve labor conditions for workers around the world in the garment and sportswear industries.

Its international secretariat is based in Amsterdam and, since 1989, the CCC has collaborated with networks of labor rights groups in garment-producing countries to offer direct support for their initiatives while also directing energy toward finding legislative solutions to labor issues.

Valentine's Day Hershey Campaign Actions Launched on National Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Kelly Mills, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

As Valentine’s Day draws near, many people will consider buying chocolate gifts for their loved ones. Unfortunately, many of those chocolate treats have been tainted by forced, trafficked, or child labor. Today, National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, ILRF and our campaign partners launched new cocoa campaign actions that allow consumers to tell the Hershey Company that we do not want our Valentine's Day gifts to come at the expense of worker rights globally.

Many cocoa farms, especially in West Africa, use forced and trafficked child labor and major chocolate companies source much of their cocoa from these farms. Some chocolate companies have made efforts to end this injustice by providing products that are certified to meet certain labor standards. However, in a recent report published by ILRF and our campaign partners, the Hershey Company was exposed as lagging behind its competitors in committing to respect international labor rights. The report concludes that Hershey should shift to Fair Trade Certification which would provide greater transparency in the company’s supply chains and help provide a better income and stronger protection for worker rights. 

This Valentine’s Day, you can tell Hershey that you do not want your chocolate to come at the expense of worker rights by sending CEO David J. West a Valentine or by hosting a screening of The Dark Side of Chocolate. Watch a trailer here of this powerful documentary which exposes the continued exploitation of trafficked child labor in the cocoa industry. You can order a copy of the powerful documentary and download a screening kit here. ILRF and our campaign allies are especially encouraging supporters to host screenings of the film as part of a national week of action leading up to Valentine's Day from February 4-14, 2011. 

The Environmental and Social Cost of Pineapples in Costa Rica

By Anahi Malig, Volunteer, International Labor Rights Forum 

Since the 1960s, worldwide pineapple production has quadrupled and exports have tripled. Before then, Hawaii was the number one pineapple exporter; however, production has since expanded to regions throughout Africa, Asia, and Central America.

Today, most of the fresh pineapple found in European and US supermarkets comes from Costa Rica. A non-traditional crop in Central America, the pineapple eventually became the country’s second most important agricultural export. This expansion is the result of a state policy which aims to favor an export economy by providing incentives for domestic and foreign investment through tax exemptions.