Blog: November 2007

Which Companies are Naughty vs. Nice?

November 26, 2007

American
Eagle Outfitters: AKA “American Vulture”
daily
disrespect – no raises – no voice on the job

American
Eagle Outfitters says it cares about workers; its Code of Conduct
requires contractors to respect the right of employees to form a
union.  Yet, according to workers in Canada, workers at the warehouse
contracted to ship AEO clothing across Canada faced harassment and
intimidation when they tried to improve conditions by forming a
union.

Turnabout is Fair Trade for Christmas Catalogs

November 23, 2007

In September, the Center for a New American Dream
sponsored a Carbon Conscious Consumer (C3) campaign called Junk Your Junkmail.
For a $41 fee, of which 1/3rd was donated to nonprofits, I hired a business
called 41pounds.org
to get me off the direct mail lists and cancel my catalogs. Named for the 41
pounds of unsightly paper fat your mailbox consumes per year, they guaranteed  an 80% reduced-carbonhydrate mail diet.

The Price of Sugar

November 16, 2007

The film focuses on the exploitation of Haitian workers on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.  As we will discuss tonight, labor rights abuses are widespread in the sugar industry.  Problems of child labor, forced labor, poor living conditions, low wages and long hours, unsafe working conditions, denial of the right to organize and harassment of women workers can be found on many sugar plantations.  For more information, check out these reports on the sugar industry from the ILRF.

Putting a Lid on Big Boxes

November 13, 2007

Years of
research studies and the personal experiences of affected communities have
clearly demonstrated that large supermarkets and big box stores are bad for
communities, workers and the environment. The continued expansion of large-scale
retail outlets leads to the closure of local businesses and the destruction of
more jobs than the new stores create. The profits that the big box corporations
earn from their new market share get funneled straight to their national
headquarters, rather than staying in communities to help infrastructure and
local public programs grow.

NFL's Foul Play

November 7, 2007

The International Labor Rights Forum sent a letter to the NFL requesting more information on the NFL's decision and asking for a meeting, but the NFL's response showed a lack of interest in their marketing partner's abusive practices in Liberia.  As the NFL says, "Bridgestone Americas has assured us that it remains committed to improving the lives of its workers and their communities in Liberia and is an important force for progress in the country's rebuilding efforts."

The Hidden Costs of Free Trade

November 6, 2007

Some Democrats are supporting this effort because President Alan
Garcia of Peru has agreed to improve some international labor laws with
presidential decrees. But Peruvian labor leaders think this is
insufficient and will not protect the rights of the majority of people,
75 percent of whom work in the informal sector of the economy.

Kids in Cotton Fields

November 1, 2007

The International Labor Rights Forum has been working to stop child labor in the cotton industry for years.  For more information and to watch more videos about abuses in Uzbekistan's cotton industry, click here (or you can check out the favorite videos on our YouTube station).  You can also read the report by the Environmental Justice Foundation on this issue, titled White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton, here.

390,000 Chinese workers die per year of occupational illnesses

November 1, 2007

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that of the 200 million (less than 1 in
4) workers in China who are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals and
life-threatening diseases in factories, 390,000 died in 2005. China's
Ministry of Health reported that more than 16 million enterprises in
China have been subjecting workers to high, poisonous levels of toxic
chemicals.

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