In the News

In Praise of the Maligned Sweatshop

The New York Times
06/06/2006

By Nicholas D. Kristof

WINDHOEK, Namibia

Africa desperately needs Western help in the form of schools, clinics and sweatshops.

Oops, don't spill your coffee. We in the West mostly despise sweatshops as exploiters of the poor, while the poor themselves tend to see sweatshops as opportunities.

On a street here in the capital of Namibia, in the southwestern corner of Africa, I spoke to a group of young men who were trying to get hired as day laborers on construction sites.

Cancer-Causing Children's Clothes Found In Wal-Marts In China

All Headline News
06/02/2006

By Mary K. Brunskill - All Headline News Contributor

Beijing, China (AHN) - U.S. mega-store Wal-Mart announced on Wednesday several brands of children's clothes will no longer be sold in Wal-Mart stores in China because they were found to contain a dye that may cause cancer.

Nine children's brands sold in Wal-Mart stores in Guangdong province contained clothes that contained a dye that could decompose into toxic aromatic amine compounds, the Beijing News reported.

A Wal-Mart in Beijing was also selling some of the brands, reports the AP.

Wal-Mart blocking union in Ghana

UNI Global Union
06/02/2006

The long arm of Wal-Mart has reached Africa and threatens union representation in a garment supplier in Ghana.

UNI affiliate ICU was well advanced with organising and winning recognition for 400 garment workers in Accra when Wal-Mart intervened.

Ghana's fast growing garment industry has become part of the global supply chain to Wal-Mart - the world's biggest retailer that is viciously anti-union on its home base in the United States and Canada.

Wal-Mart blocking union in Ghana

UNI Global Union
06/02/2006

The long arm of Wal-Mart has reached Africa and threatens union representation in a garment supplier in Ghana.

UNI affiliate ICU was well advanced with organising and winning recognition for 400 garment workers in Accra when Wal-Mart intervened.

Ghana's fast growing garment industry has become part of the global supply chain to Wal-Mart - the world's biggest retailer that is viciously anti-union on its home base in the United States and Canada.

When truth doesn't pay

06/01/2006

After decade of activism, NGOs wonder what big-label confessions are worth

By Adria Vasil

Ten years after Nike and Gap first opened their factory doors to inspectors, after ten thousand corporate codes of conduct and armies of corporate responsibility specialists, are the workers of the world any better off?

Cancer-Causing Children's Clothes Found In Wal-Marts In China

All Headline News
06/01/2006

By Mary K. Brunskill - All Headline News Contributor

Beijing, China (AHN) - U.S. mega-store Wal-Mart announced on Wednesday several brands of children's clothes will no longer be sold in Wal-Mart stores in China because they were found to contain a dye that may cause cancer.

Nine children's brands sold in Wal-Mart stores in Guangdong province contained clothes that contained a dye that could decompose into toxic aromatic amine compounds, the Beijing News reported.

A Wal-Mart in Beijing was also selling some of the brands, reports the AP.

Por cada dólar que el trabajo infantil genera, el país pierde 6’

El Comercio (Ecuador)
06/01/2006

Redacción Negocios

Para Juan Rolando C. su jornada de trabajo en la terminal terrestre de Quito se inicia a las 06:00 y puede concluir a las 19:00, “según como esté el día”.

Cuando recién aclara la mañana, Juan Rolando busca los buses interprovinciales para aplicar sus habilidades con la escoba y la pala. De su buen desempeño con estas herramientas dependerán sus ingresos económicos del día.

'Where's my pay package?'

MarketWatch
05/31/2006

By Jennifer Waters

(Corrects reference to the proportional relationship of top-executive salaries to store-worker pay.)

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Along with all the hoopla and grandstanding planned for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s marathon annual meeting Friday, there will be a shareholder proposal aimed at reining in the 1,000-to-1 difference in pay scales between executives and store associates.

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