In the News

How fair is your eco gear?

NOW Toronto
03/22/2007



 

Someone must have slipped some thing in my water, because a giant two-dimensional sex kitten seems to be beckoning me to try on a bamboo bra. A few feet later, a billboard promises 10 per cent off anything in the store if I simply slip on a pair of organic jeans. But this is no hippy mirage. It's the mall at 6 pm on a Monday.

Welcome to the mainstreaming of eco chic.

Labor Compliance Issue Comes to the Forefront

Women's Wear Daily
03/20/2007

Excerpt from article:

The way the apparel industry addresses labor rights abroad has evolved
over the past decade, but as the abuses in Jordanian factories that came
to light last year attest, much work remains to be done.

On the forefront of the labor issue is Marcela Manubens, vice president
of global human rights and social responsibility at Phillips-Van Heusen
Corp., considered a leader in the area.

"Compliance is, in fact, an important element of our sourcing
strategy," Manubens said... 

 

Sandy Supercenter Wal-Mart Protest Takes Global Slant

Salt Lake Tribune
03/14/2007

SANDY - They waved signs, shouted slogans and even staged a mock chain gang led by caricatures of Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and China's President Hu Jintao to dissuade shoppers from visiting the new Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Yet despite their best efforts and the intermittent honking of horns by passers-by sounding their support, the nearly two dozen picketers representing Utah Jobs with Justice and the National Organization for Women failed to thin the number of shoppers looking for bargains.
Still, the protesters were as undaunted...

Bush to Press Free Trade in a Place Where Young Children Still Cut the Cane

New York Times
03/12/2007

By Marc Lacey

CHIMALTENANGO, Guatemala, March 11 — Work starts early for the people of the Guatemalan countryside, sometimes as early as 5 or 6. Not the time, the age.

Guatemalan children shine shoes and make bricks. They cut cane and mop floors. At some factories exporting to the United States, they sew and sort and chop, often in conditions so onerous they violate even Guatemala’s very loose labor laws.

Bush Heads to Colombia as Scandal Taints Alliance

New York Times
03/11/2007

Soldiers in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital on Saturday. President Bush was expected to arrive for a brief visit during his Latin American trip.

By Simon Romero

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The Bush administration has no closer ally in South America than Colombia, the recipient of more than $4 billion in American aid this decade to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla insurgencies. But a widening scandal tying paramilitary death squads and drug traffickers to close supporters of President Álvaro Uribe is clouding President Bush’s brief visit here on Sunday.

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