In the News

Kenya: Complaints by workers

The Nation (Kenya)
08/25/2005


Kenya's flower export industry is blooming, but there could be a worm gnawing it away at the core.

In the last four years, earnings from flower exports have been growing by leaps and bounds. But as some of the exporters smile all the way to the banks, many of their workers are weeping all the way to the hospitals. Some have been forced into early retirement prompted by ill health resulting from handling unsafe chemicals.

Many flower farm labourers have complained that their working conditions are far from rosy.

Food groups face child labour suit

Financial Times
08/25/2005

By Dino Mahtani in Lagos

A US-based labour rights group has filed a lawsuit against three big food companies after an industry pledge to establish a certification system to help eradicate child labour on West African cocoa farms passed its deadline.

The International Labour Rights Fund (ILRF) filed the suit against Nestlé, Archer Daniels Midland and privately held Cargill last month, on behalf of three Malian children who were allegedly

Redefining fair trade

Chicago Tribune
07/21/2005

By James Thindwa, Executive director, Chicago Jobs With Justice

The Tribune editorial board appears to have pulled out all stops to promote the

Central America Free Trade Agreement.

While you continue to make proclamations about CAFTA's promised benefits, you

will not acknowledge its serious flaws and risks.

A more honest assessment of CAFTA would recognize both its costs and benefits.

The question is not whether CAFTA will produce benefits but, rather, what the

Labor group sues Nestlé

Glendale News Press
07/19/2005

Glendale-based company under fire for allegedly using child laborers; Nestlé denies claims.

By Robert Chacon



DOWNTOWN GLENDALE -- Nestlé U.S.A. is one of three cocoa industry companies being sued by labor rights groups on behalf of former child laborers, who allege that the companies knowingly abetted in the torture and forced labor of children as young as 14.

US food companies sued over forced child labor

Datamonitor NewsWire
07/18/2005

Human rights group the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) has sued three US

companies on behalf of former child workers. The suits were filed against

companies Nestle, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland in an effort to force the

companies to increase efforts to end child labor on African farms, according to

press reports.

The farms under scrutiny supply cocoa beans used in making chocolate products.

According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the ILRF claims that the

Pages