In the News

Wal-Mart Sweatshop Workers Tour at GVSU

Media Mouse (Grand Rapids, MI)
04/17/2008

On Wednesday, the "Wal-Mart Sweatshop Workers Speaking Tour"--featuring two workers who supply clothing and food sold at Wal-Mart--stopped in West Michigan at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). The West Michigan stop is part of a larger tour of the Midwest that brought two workers--one from Costa Rica and one from Cambodia--to build support for Michigan and Ohio to join the State and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium. The tour focuses on Wal-Mart because they are the biggest retail store in the United States and as such are the largest user of sweatshop labor.

Group focuses on working conditions

Kalamazoo Gazette
04/17/2008

Excerpt from article:

OSHTEMO TOWNSHIP -- The glass doors to the Wal-Mart Supercenter's sprawling food section slide open and Didier Leiton steps inside.

The Costa Rica native doesn't do his food shopping in places nearly so massive, yet in a way, he is intimately familiar with some of the produce before him at the Ninth Street store near Kalamazoo.

A pile of pineapples is stacked in front of him, for $2.98 each. He grabs one with his left hand and reads the label... 

 

Colombia: No Rights, No Trade

Washington Post
04/14/2008

Last Sept. 27, 16-year-old Andres Damian Florez Rodriguez was on his way home from school when he was forced into a van by three armed men. Andres is the son of Jose Domingo Florez, a leader of the Coca-Cola bottling union in Santander. The assailants drove along, beating the boy while they received radio instructions. Then they gave him a message to convey: "Tell your papa that we won't rest until we see [the union leaders] quartered in pieces."

New Wal-Mart spurs opposition

Arab American News
04/11/2008

DEARBORN — It's a concern that enters the minds of citizens every time a new Wal-Mart comes to town: What's going to happen to the small businesses in the area?

With the recent opening of the Wal-Mart in Dearborn, one local group is hosting a meeting for concerned citizens, government officials and business owners. The group, called Wake Up Wal-Mart Downriver, fears that more Wal-Marts will go up in the future in the Downriver area and also wants to make sure that citizens of Dearborn have a chance to let their voices be heard... 

We're all complicit in the slave trade

The Courier-Mail (Australia)
04/11/2008

It may be more than 200 years since there was a legalised slave trade, but today the illicit trade in humans is thriving.

It is estimated that more than 27 million people are trafficked or enslaved in an industry worth almost $US31 billion ($A33.3 billion). It is growing so fast it is third in size to the black market for drugs and arms... 

If you eat chocolate or drive a well-known brand of car with tyres from one of the bigger-name companies, chances are these products have raw ingredients linked to human slavery, exploitation and trafficking.

Sweatshop workers speak out, creating awareness

The Goshen College Record
04/11/2008

Excerpt from article:

Didier Leton, from Costa Rica, spent 18 years picking pineapples and bananas for Del Monte, earning minimum wage in inhumane conditions.

Savin Phal, from Cambodia, was recently fired from her sewing job for trying to form a union at her factory.

Goshen College students along with faculty and community members heard stories like these last Sunday night at the Sweat Free Communities Presentation held in Newcomer.

Workers Tell All - Former Sweatshop Employee Recounts Experiences During Tour Stop

The Times-Reporter (Dover-New Philadelphia, OH)
04/10/2008

For each day Phal Savin worked sewing garments in a Cambodian factory, she made $1.08.

The 13-hour days she spent making clothing amounted to a frugal pay, she said, that was supposed to be enough to feed her five children and pay her rent and utilities.

And until recently, that’s how the single mother supported herself and her family. After growing tired of the long days and small earnings, Savin said, she decided to form her own union – a step she thought would help bring higher wages to Cambodians working in the factory...

Global consumer conscience to boost fair-trade sales

ConfectionaryNews.com
04/09/2008

By Charlotte Eyre

Increased consumer sensitivity to ethical shopping will send the global fair-trade market rocketing to over £800m (€1,000m) by 2012, according to a new report.

The report, compiled by market analysts Datamonitor, indicates that ethical trading is a trend that the food industry cannot ignore, especially since many fair-trade operations relate to products such as tea, coffee and chocolate.

Wal-Mart, States Must Stop Sweatshop Abuses, Say Workers from Costa Rica and Cambodia to Ohio and Michigan Residents

ILRF and SweatFree Communities
04/08/2008

For immediate release

Contact: Victoria Kaplan, SweatFree Communities, 310-531-3415

Trina Tocco, International Labor Rights Forum, 269-873-1000

Agricultural and garment workers visit 10 cities while touring Midwest as Vermont becomes the seventh state to ban sweatshop purchasing

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