Labor is Not a Commodity

LL Bean Responds with Grace

Bama Athreya, Executive Director, ILRF
 
Just in time for Thanksgiving, the outdoor clothing brand LL Bean has made a significant commitment to work with ILRF to end forced child labor in cotton.  Last week, we released our Sweatshop Hall of Shame, and to our surprise, were compelled to name LL Bean as one of the companies that had been non-responsive to our efforts over the past year to help us end the terrible abuse of children in cotton production in Central Asia. 
 
This is a company that, in the past, had always been quick to respond when we identified sweatshop abuses in their supplier factories in Asia, and had worked with us to correct some of those abuses.  So our surprise turned to relief when, within 24 hours of being identified in the "Sweatshop Hall of Shame," a senior official in the company, in charge of the company's labor rights monitoring program, called to ask what the company could do to work with ILRF and ensure that they were not profiting from forced child labor.

Honduran Workers Win Major Victory with the help of Students and Activists like You!

By Jeremy Silva and Eva Seidelman, International Labor Rights Forum

Over the weekend was a time for of celebration and relief for many Honduran workers and their families: 1,200 workers who were fired from Russell's Jerzees de Honduras (a sports apparel company owned by Fruit of Loom which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway) when the factory closed in October 2008, will now gain their jobs back.  A new settlement between Russell/Fruit of the Loom and the General Workers Confederation of Honduras/Sintrajerzeesh will, when implemented, open up a new unionized factory in Honduras with greatly improved labor standards.  Mike Powers, of Cornell, called the decision a “landmark.”  Scott Nova, executive director of the Workers’ Rights Consortium told the New York Times that the victory was unprecedented in “the transformative impact it can have in one of the hardest regions of the world to win respect for workers’ rights.”  Nova went on to tell the AP that the decision represented a “toehold that people have been trying to get for a decade.”

Some background: Last January, Russell decided to close its Jerzees de Honduras factory after negotiations between the SintraJersheez union and Russell broke down given Russell's refusal to bargain in good faith. Thousands of workers lost their jobs after the closing and union leaders received death threats after Russell blamed the factory closure on the union. But Sintrajerzeesh union leaders didn't give up--they spread the word about Russell's tactics to U.S. consumers and won!

Colbert takes on child labor

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

Last week, I wrote about how big businesses in the US are lobbying against bans on the importation of products made using forced and child labor and linked to a clip from the Rachel Maddow Show.  Sadly, this is not the first time companies like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland have lobbied against similar legislation.  Well, for those of you who consider yourselves members of "Colbert Nation," check out Stephen Colbert's take on this issue on The Colbert Report on November 17th.  About 4:15 into the show, you'll also hear references to many of the corporations ILRF has active campaigns focused on like Firestone and ADM.  Keep checking this blog and sign up for ILRF's e-mail list for more updates as this story develops!

Check out the clip from the Colbert Report here!

Pakistani Labor Leader Killed by Suicide Bomber

Brett Eisenbrown, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

While on his way to a meeting, Pakistani labor leader, Master Khudadad Khan, was killed by a suicide bomber on October 15th.  Master Khudadad was not the target of the attack, but instead he was one of several innocent civilians killed when the suicide bomber attacked an intelligence center in Peshawar.  

Master Khudadad was the General Secretary of the Pakistani Workers Federation (PWF).  The PFW is the single largest trade union federation in Pakistan. It consists of 419 unions and more then 880,000 workers, which represents a majority of unionized workers in Pakistan.  Master Khudadad and the PWF have worked tirelessly to help promote the organization of free and independent trade unions that would improve the lives of workers throughout Pakistan.  

Assassination of Farmworker Organizer Santiago Rafael and the FLOC Campaign to Organize Tobacco Workers in the Southern US

Jade Batstone, intern, International Labor Rights Forum
 
 A briefing took place on November 5th at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C regarding the assassination of Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). member Santiago Rafael in 2007. FLOC President, and newly elected AFL-CIO executive committee member, Baldemar Velasquez spoke about how his organization seeks justice for this heinous crime as well as actions FLOC is currently taking to bring about justice for Reynolds Tobacco field workers in the southern US. The organizing of tobacco workers around the world is absolutely essential in creating a secure livelihood for tobacco workers in Mexico, Malawi and the US.  In addition, ILRF has long targeted the tobacco industry as an industry that uses child labor.  Also attending the event was Leonel Rivero, the Mexican human rights lawyer providing council for Rafeal’s family and FLOC. Rivero discussed the obstacles to working on this case given government and police corruption on the Mexican side.

Rachel Maddow takes on corporations defending child and forced labor

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

Recently, Rachel Maddow picked up on an article written by David Sirota about how business groups are lobbying against provisions in a customs bill that contains provisions banning the importation of goods produced by convict labor, forced labor or forced or indentured child labor.  Check out the video below (and there's a transcript here).

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What does Kraft's proposed takeover of Cadbury mean for workers?

Tim Newman, Campaigns Director, International Labor Rights Forum

The businesses world is buzzing over the news that Kraft has made a hostile takeover bid for Cadbury.  For weeks, there has been plenty of back and forth between the two companies in the media and Kraft finally placed its $16.3 billion bid for Cadbury before shareholders today.  Cadbury continued to object to the proposal and stated that Kraft was undervaluing the company.  Kraft now has 28 days to outline the offer and then has an additional 60 days to line up enough shareholders to approve the deal.

One of the major shareholders who will definitely play a role in whether or not the takeover is successful will be Warren Buffett, who is Kraft's largest shareholder.  Since Buffett is not exactly a friend of workers and Kraft is not a model for industrial relations, workers should be concerned about the impact of the changes at Cadbury.

Electronics Industry has Difficulty Enforcing Labor Laws

By Evelyn Holt, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Do you know where your computer came from? Most likely not. Parts are manufactured and assembled all over the world, and labor protections are hard to identify and track.  ILRF has also done research and campaigning on the substances such as coltan that is used in every cell phone and computer.



This year is the 5th anniversary of the formation of the electronics industry code of conduct. The Mexican Electronic Industry National Workers Coalition led by CEREAL is speaking out against corporations that still violate basic labor rights in their manufacturing plants.  Two other organizations that are leaders in the movement to hold the electronics industry accountable: makeITfair which is sponsored by the Dutch labor union SOMO has published many hard hitting reports on the lagging electronics industry and GoodElectronics Network that works to contribute to human rights and sustainability in the global electronics sector.

Thoughts from Kenya: It is time for a workers bailout!

By Steve O. Akoth, Labour Awareness and Resource Centre

When reports appeared in the media two years ago detailing failure in mortgage repayments in the United States, the government of Kenya alongside many others in Africa, claimed that that was a US affair.  The treasury bureaucrats and politicians were quick to reassure Kenyans that our economy was safe.  In fact, new projections of 2% annual growth were given.  But this was nothing more than the usual political talk show and regular political performance that is not uncommon in Kenya.

Our government, rather than deceive us, should appreciate that Kenyan workers know that they are part of a huge interconnected web.  When a small scale farmer in Tigoni plants runner beans to sell to Homegrown for instance, she knows that the beans shall end up in the supermarket of Mars and Spencer in the United Kingdom.  For that reason, the farmer is interested and is affected by the purchasing power of a consumer in the UK.  Similarly, a worker on the stitching line in an Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Ruaraka, knows that the garment shall be sold off through Wal-Mart's shelves.  The workers are therefore invested in the purchasing power of the average American who wants to buy a "cheap" designer garment from Wal-Mart.  So the shrinking global market and the resulting economic nationalism in the northern countries in the name of bailout is an important subject for the worker in Kenya and trade unions engaged in Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) discussions in Kenya.  In the long run, it is the working poor who experience the recession most, it does not matter whether it starts in China or the US.

Dole Food Company Goes Public: The Importance of Socially Responsible Investing

By Jeremy Silva, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Dole Food Company Inc. released a $500 million initial public equity offering (IPO) today.  By becoming a public company, Dole will be required to make its corporate governance more transparent and accessible to the public by providing institutional investors and individual shareholders with the opportunity to become stakeholders in Dole’s policies and practices worldwide.  For concerned investors, Dole’s IPO represents an unprecedented opportunity to review and revise the more questionable policies of the company.  This blog is the fourth blog in this series of exposing Dole and its history of labor rights violations.  You can read the other blogs here, here and here.

ILRF has taken this opportunity to engage with investors, NGOs, and unions to send a letter to Dole expressing our concerns related to its labor rights violations.  The letter was sent to Dole yesterday and included over 35 organizations including International Labor Rights Forum, CREA: Center for Reflection, Education and Action, Interfaith Center of Corporate Responsibility, Harrington Investments, and Domini Social Investments, Trillium Asset Management, and Green America.  You can read the press release here.  An except of the letter is below:

"We would like to take this opportunity to raise some of our human rights and labor rights concerns in relation to Dole’s supply chain practices in hopes of contributing to the future long-term success of Dole as a responsible corporate actor.  In addition to our concern for those individuals affected by Dole’s activities, we are also concerned that alleged breaches of workers’ rights throughout Dole’s corporate supply chain may impact long term shareholder value.

"While Dole claims adherence to high social standards, we are concerned by credible reports such as “The Sour Taste of Pineapple: How an Expanding Export Industry Undermines Workers and Their Communities” and “A Valentine’s Day Report: Worker Justice and Basic Rights on Flower Plantations in Colombia and Ecuador” by the International Labor Rights Forum claiming that Dole has pursued management practices that subject many of Dole’s workers throughout its global supply chain to sub-standard working conditions."