In the News

Firestone workers say fundraiser was quelled

The Tennessean
02/24/2006

By Bush Bernard

Tiremaker says effort is OK if permission sought first

Nashville tiremaker Bridgestone/ Firestone has come under fire from employees in La Vergne who claim the company thwarted their efforts to raise money for farmers at its rubber plantation in Liberia.

About 6,000 workers at the Liberian plantation staged a two-week strike earlier this month in a dispute over wages and working conditions in the war-torn African nation.

Toss a Tomato at Fair-Trade Label

Palm Beach Post
02/22/2006

By Todd Howland

Special to The Palm Beach Post

In The Post's article titled "First step taken toward tomato certification" on Feb. 4, Ray Gilmer, spokesman for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, made a surprisingly bold claim for the growers' newly minted program called SAFE (Socially Accountable Farm Employers).

U.S. rules delaying CAFTA

Associated Press
02/16/2006

By Juan Carlos Llorca

Clothing industry sees orders going to Asia, losses growing



GUATEMALA CITY * Jacobo Kattan was hoping to build an industrial park and create 8,000 new jobs after the expected implementation of a regional free-trade pact last month. Instead, he's had to fire 2,000 workers and close three clothing factories.

The delay in implementing the Central American Free Trade Agreement has hit the region's clothing industry hard, putting factories in legal limbo while much of their business leaves for Asia.

Production Resumes at Firestone Liberia Rubber Plant

Reuters
02/15/2006

Production resumed at Bridgestone Corp's (5108.T) Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia on Wednesday after a strike by workers over salaries and working conditions, a senior company official said.

"The workers have started returning to work today ... Most of the departments are functioning ... Production has resumed," the official told Reuters.

The dispute at the 240 square-mile plantation, whose workforce numbers more than 4,000 people, began a week and a half ago with workers demanding the cancellation of a 37.5 percent deduction made from their salaries.

Colombian union chief confronts Dole Flowers

Miami Herald
02/14/2006

By Jane Bussey

A union leader in the Colombian flower industry came to Miami with a host of complaints about working conditions on a flower plantation run by Dole Fresh Flowers.

When a van overloaded with 19 farmworkers flipped over on a Florida highway, killing eight farmworkers returning from citrus groves in 2004, the accident garnered headlines across the state. But when a bus transporting 70 Colombian workers to a Dole Fresh Flowers' plantation crashed and killed three employees last July, few read abut the accident.

Sporting Goods Concerns Agree to Combat Sale of Soccer Balls Made by Children

New York Times
02/14/2006

A version of this article appeared in print on February 14, 1997, on page A12 of the New York edition.

In a plan intended to fight child labor, a coalition of major sporting goods manufacturers and child-advocacy groups has pledged to combat the sale of soccer balls stitched by thousands of children in Pakistan, which produces 75 percent of the world's hand-stitched soccer balls.

Pesticides kill the romance in a Valentine’s Day bouquet

Daily Bruin
02/13/2006

By Traci Waller

University Wire

Thinking about the origin of a dozen red roses – the quintessential no-brainer Valentine's Day gift – may put a damper on the holiday lovefest.

When the flowers arrive, a girl probably doesn't want to imagine their birth in Ecuador, where flowers are reared by masses of underpaid workers who suffer from immediate and long-term health problems stemming from pesticide exposure.

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