In the News

Cocoa Industry Is Booming in Ivory Coast

Associated Press
12/06/2005

By Todd Pitman

On the streets of this skyscraper-lined West African metropolis, tension and rumors of an imminent return to war are always thick in the air — and so too, is the sweet smell of chocolate. Despite more than half a decade of coups, fighting and failed peace deals, a $2 billion a year cocoa industry is a booming in Ivory Coast, producing more of the raw material for chocolate than any other country on the planet.

Workers talk of hardship at Liberia's Firestone

Reuters
12/06/2005

By Katharine Houreld

MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuters) - With his ragged child's overalls and 4-foot frame, 11-year-old Zachariah does not look like a typical plantation laborer.

But every morning he is not in school, the Liberian child gets up at dawn to help his father work on the Firestone rubber plantation so their family of eight can afford one meal a day.

"He doesn't want to go into the bush, but if he doesn't come I can't do my job," said his father Alysious. "Sometimes my wife will come too, but then it is hard to care for the other children."

Investigation Claims Wal-Mart Suppliers Use Child Labour

Portage Daily Graphic (Manitoba)
12/01/2005

By the Canadian Press

Wal-Mart Canada's in-house clothing brand Simply Basic and other products have been manufactured using child labour in Bangladesh, according to an investigation conducted by Radio-Canada.

The investigation alleges Wal-Mart Canada's suppliers in Bangladesh regularly hired children between the ages of 10 to 14 to work in their factories.

Journalists from the program Zone Libre posed as potential buyers in order to gain access to about a dozen factories in the Narayanganj region.

Investigation Claims Wal-Mart Suppliers Use Child Labour

Portage Daily Graphic (Manitoba)
12/01/2005

By the Canadian Press

Wal-Mart Canada's in-house clothing brand Simply Basic and other products have been manufactured using child labour in Bangladesh, according to an investigation conducted by Radio-Canada.

The investigation alleges Wal-Mart Canada's suppliers in Bangladesh regularly hired children between the ages of 10 to 14 to work in their factories.

Journalists from the program Zone Libre posed as potential buyers in order to gain access to about a dozen factories in the Narayanganj region.

Report: Overseas factories still see overtime problems

Associated Press
11/29/2005

PORTLAND (AP) - Employees at factories that make clothing and sneakers for companies such as Nike and Adidas are still forced to work excessive overtime and are being blocked from organizing into labor unions, according to a new report from a watchdog group.

The third annual audit of factories by the industry-funded Fair Labor Association showed that the number of violations rose to 18.2 per factory in 2004 from 15.1 a year earlier, though that change is partly due to revised monitoring methods.

Students Confront Sweatshops

The Nation
11/28/2005

By Richard Appelbaum & Peter Dreier

At Columbia University in September, twenty-four students marched to president Lee Bollinger's office, chanted "Hey, hey, Prez Bo, sweatshop labor's got to go," and left a cupcake as a gift. At the University of Michigan activists ran a mock sweatshop, then went to president Mary Sue Coleman's office with a list of demands to end the university's purchase of clothing made in sweatshops. At the University of California, Riverside, students held a sweatshop fashion show to raise awareness of conditions for garment workers.

California Cut Flower Commission may sue Colombia government for illegal trade

Sentinel
11/27/2005

By Tom Ragan

WATSONVILLE — The landscape here has changed since the Colombian roses and South American carnations started flooding Pajaro Valley's flower market — from Bogota to Miami to Los Angeles to here.

In that order.

It's a hop, skip and a huge jump, but it's a significant one that has long taken its toll on rose growers in Santa Cruz County and across the United States.

14,000 ‘Slaves’ Seek Relief

The Analyst
11/25/2005

Few kilometers from the nation’s capital, Monrovia, sprawls the largest rubber plantation in the world, Firestone Plantations Company or FPCO.

Officially the plantation provides employment to some 6,000 plantation workers in several departments including medical, rubber processing, maintenance, and transportation, etc.

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