Labor is Not a Commodity

Remembering the 1911 Triangle Fire by Planning an Activity in Your Community

By Bonnie Stinson, Outreach and Advocacy Assistant, SweatFree Communities

This March, ILRF is collaborating with the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition to commemorate the Triangle Factory Fire in New York City with a week of public performances, art exhibits, speakers, and other collective activism. SweatFree Communities and ILRF invite you to participate in this week of remembrance by hosting an event in your own community. By remembering the Triangle Fire, we honor the victims of that tragic event and re-focus our energy on the current struggle for labor rights around the world. For more information on the Triangle Fire, and for SweatFree Communities and ILRF’s events in New York City and Washington D.C., check out sweatfree.org/trianglefire.

Essential labor rights and human rights are still under threat all over the world today. Unionized public workers in the state of Wisconsin are struggling to defend their right to collective bargaining. Egyptians, Libyans, and Tunisians have showed immense courage in the face of official opposition to their demands for respect of core human rights. Workers in China and Bangladesh continue to struggle for basic collective bargaining power and a safe workplace.

Labor rights are human rights, no matter where in the world you are or what your line of work. You and your neighbors can unite in solidarity to protect your inalienable right to a safe workplace.

This March presents a phenomenal opportunity to educate, involve, and inspire your own community in this global moment of remembrance and call to action.

Wisconsin Workers Deserve Respect for Their International Labor Rights

By Megan Caska, Intern, SweatFree Communities

This week workers in Wisconsin have erupted in protests that have captured national media attention. Last week Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin introduced a plan to solve the budget crisis currently being faced by the state of Wisconsin. The plan called for increasing the costs of health care and pensions for state workers. However, unassociated with budget matters, the plan also called for the banning of all collective bargaining around any workplace issue except wages.

There was immediate outrage from working families. Tens of thousands of workers from across Wisconsin traveled to the capital building to protest this attack on their rights. With a 19-14 Republican majority in the state senate there was no hope of voting down the bill. The Wisconsin legislature requires a quorum of 20 senators for votes on fiscal matters. So, to give time for the protesters to make their voices heard, Democratic state senators fled across the border to Illinois. 

This amazing act of resistance is a sign of the current need for labor activism across America. Wisconsin is not the first state to propose a ban on collective bargaining. In 2007 the International Labor Organization (ILO) ruled in favor of a United Electrical Workers (UE) complaint filed to their Committee on Freedom of Association. The complaint argued that North Carolina’s ban on public worker organizing violated Conventions 87 and 98. According to Convention 98, only high level public employees can be denied the right to bargain collectively – not rank and file public employees.

Behind the Kitchen Door: A Summit on the D.C. Restaurant Industry

By Elisabeth Springer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

On February 14th Eatonville Restaurant, located in the historic U Street district, hosted an event to discuss the findings of “Behind the Kitchen Door: Inequality & Opportunity in Washington, D.C.’s Thriving Restaurant Industry.” This report, conducted by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington, D.C., Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and the Washington, D.C. Restaurant Industry Coalition, is the most comprehensive ever conducted on the state of the District’s restaurant industry and its implications for the economic development, public health, and working conditions of the community.

ILRF was eager to take part in this event and stand in solidarity with ROC members.  ILRF and ROC are both members of a new coalition called the Food Chain Workers Alliance and thus its important to connect issues of workers all along the food chain.

Killer Jeans, Sandblasting and Fashion Victims

By Kelly Mills, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum 

Your jeans may be hurting more than just your wallet, especially if they were purchased with an already worn or faded look. The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), an alliance of European organizations, International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation and other organizations around the world are calling for an end to the denim treatment process of sandblasting, a process that is used to soften and lighten jeans and create that worn-in look.

Sandblasting is a process used to treat denim that involves propelling a stream of abrasive material against the fabric at high pressure to gradually soften and lighten the material. In many factories, natural sand is used to sandblast jeans. This natural sand contains a mineral called silica, which is known to harm workers regularly exposed to it. In the US, sandblasting is only allowed when the sand used contains less than 0.5% silica and in the EU, the material may only contain up to 1% silica. However, the majority of denim sandblasting today takes place in other countries where labor standards are not very strongly enforced. You can learn more in this recent CCC report.

A Call for Respect from Wal-mart in the District

By Elisabeth Springer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum 

On Monday February 7, 2011 Respect D.C. held a rally with various civic and business organization leaders at the John Wilson building on Pennsylvania Avenue, which houses the Washington D.C. Council and Mayors offices. The rally took place at 12:30pm so as to follow scheduled meetings with council members inside the building.

ILRF participated in the rally as we wanted to make the connection between the concerns that those in the D.C. community have about Walmart AND the workers that produce the products sold at Walmart.  ILRF has focused on the destructive impact of Walmart's sourcing model on workers around the world.  You can learn more at www.laborrights.org/creating-a-sweatfree-world/wal-mart-campaign.

Respect D.C. is a project out of Living Wages, Healthy Communities, which is a coalition of grassroots organizations and community members who are committed to securing decent, living wage jobs so as to preserve the quality of life in Washington D.C. Respect D.C. is specifically focused on fighting to make the opening of Wal-Mart a positive addition to our neighborhoods, and they believe each community should get to decide whether or not to open their community to the mega-store and on what terms.

Take action to support cocoa workers this Valentine's Day!

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

It is expected that US consumers will spend $1.5 billion on chocolate this Valentine's Day. Before you pick up chocolate kisses for your sweetheart for Valentine's Day today, don't forget about the continued use of forced, trafficked and child labor in the cocoa industry. To find out what different companies are doing to address these abuses in chocolate -- and many other products including flowers and jewelry -- check out Free2Work.org.

One of the only major chocolate companies that has not made commitments to trace its cocoa and institute international labor rights standards among its suppliers is the Hershey Company. You can take action NOW to tell Hershey to raise the bar for cocoa growing communities by taking stronger action to eliminate labor rights abuses in its cocoa supply chain and starting to source Fair Trade cocoa.

Send a message to Hershey in all three of these ways NOW!

Stand in Solidarity: International Day of the Flower Worker

By Rebecca Van Horn, Program Coordinator, USLEAP

While friends, families and couples celebrate Valentine’s Day, Colombian workers, unions, and NGOs are joining together to commemorate something different this February 14th: the International Day of the Flower Worker.

U.S. consumers spend over $18 billion annually on flowers, 60% of which are imported from Colombia. Eighty-four percent of the flowers produced in Colombia are exported to the United States, but the conditions for those who harvest and prepare the flowers are atrocious.

Particularly in the months leading up to Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, flower workers face tremendous pressure to produce, resulting in taxing physical and psychological conditions. According to the Victoria International Development Education Association, two-thirds of Colombian and Ecuadorian flower workers suffer from work-related health problems, including headaches, nausea, impaired vision, conjunctivitis, rashes, asthma, stillbirths, miscarriages, congenital malformations, and respiratory and neurological problems. Approximately 20% of pesticides used in Colombian flower production are known carcinogens or toxins that have been either restricted or prohibited in North America and Europe.

The Dank Smell of Roses

By Lucia Curiel, Volunteer, International Labor Rights Forum

This Valentine’s Day, as you pass by local street vendors, or go into a local shop, th    ere will likely be more flowers around than last month. A bold red rose might catch your eye. If you stop and inspect, you might appreciate its vivid color, evocative aroma and delicate form and petals. It’s hardly inappropriate that such a beautiful, graceful being should have come to symbolize love and affection.

Yet where did this and other flowers come from? We might imagine such a beauty to have grown in a tranquil garden or a lush and wild bed. But such a romantic image of this emblem of romance contrasts sharply with the bitter, painful circumstances surrounding the flower’s production and delivery. If we begin to trace that rose, or any other flower, back to its point of origin, it is suddenly not so pretty.

In reality, Linda Farthing, in her article, “Where Flowers Bloom So Does Hope: Colombia’s Troubled Flower Industry,” tells us, flowers sold in US supermarkets are very likely from Colombia because Colombia’s cheap labor has made imported flowers less expensive than those grown in the US. Over 60% of the flowers sold in the U.S. come from Colombia. There, in Colombia, about 100, 000 flower workers toil under unsafe, unjust labor conditions for poverty-level wages. According to Farthing, “Although flower workers earn more than most others in agriculture, they still generally only earn Colombia’s minimum wage. This approximately $12 a day covers less than 45 percent of estimated basic living expenses and contrasts dramatically with the estimated retail value of the flowers that just one woman picks daily - US$600–800.”

The Dark Side of Chocolate

By Leigh Vickery

[This article was originally posted on the website of the Tyler Paper, but the management of the paper
removed the article from the site. It is posted here so that readers can access it despite the paper's attempts to censor it. You can contact the Tyler Paper online here.]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you to Roberto Romano, award-winning producer and director of “The Darkside of Chocolate,” for helping to clarify the issue and make suggestions to help the reader understand the seriousness of this problem.

A few years ago, I lost the diamond from my wedding ring. My husband, friends and I were at a Dave Matthews concert, and we searched everywhere among the crowd. It was an impossible task. 

Around the same time that the insurance check arrived to replace the missing stone, I happened to watch the movie, “Blood Diamond.”  In short, the film is a horrific view into the realities of how the 1990s rebels of Sierra Leone and Liberia used diamonds to finance their violent uprisings.

The rebels kidnapped women and children and enslaved them to mine for the precious stones. If the slaves disobeyed, they were beaten and had their hands cut off. 

Much has been done since the movie’s release to bring awareness to the atrocities of the diamond market, such as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, but as with drugs and weapons, the illegal diamond trade still flourishes. And once these diamonds are brought to market, their origin is almost impossible to trace. 

Protests in Egypt Receive Labor Organizations’ Support

By Elisabeth Springer, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum 

Millions of Egyptians have taken to the streets to protest with a unified demand: to overthrow the regime. Labor and workers’ rights organizations from across the globe have vocalized their support for the protesters and their demands.

The Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS), an Egyptian NGO established in 1990 by labor leaders and activists, issued a statement with a summary of the demands of the Egyptian people, and a call for the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt to respond because “it is the only way to the salvation of Egypt.”

The AFL-CIO spoke out in praise of the Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions, a new labor federation to represent workers in numerous industries. The new trade union announced its formation at the gathering of protesters at Tahrir Square in Cairo on Sunday January 30, 2011 and issued a general strike call in favor of democracy and fundamental rights.