News
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Shoe Industry Treads on Child Workers’ Rights
Posted November 1st 2010
Our youngsters will be going door to door on Halloween, putting lots of “mileage” on their shoes in order to collect treats from neighbours. Little do the kids or their parents (us) know that many of our shoes are the product of exploited children toiling in Third World workshops. The UN’s International Labour Office (ILO) estimates that over 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries. Almost two-thirds of these child workers can be found in Asian factories, making items such as shoes, clothing, rugs and sports balls. The other one-third works in agricultural production in Africa and Latin America. Many of our foods and other everyday items are supplied by them at the cost of their health, education and human rights.
We commonly call these factories where shoes, rugs and clothing are made “sweatshops”. They predominate in Pakistan and India in South Asia and are characterized by very poor or no wages, no benefits, unhealthy working conditions, and abuse (verbal, physical and sexual). As young workers never make any money, never get any education, and are worked until they are physically spent, they are caught in a cycle of poverty from which they never emerge.
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Halloween A Celebration of Children, Not Child Slavery
Posted October 15th 2010
A lot of chocolate goes into circulation during Halloween, from the cocoa plantations of West Africa to the processors mainly in Europe, to the grocery stores of Western countries, and into the pillow cases, bags, hands and mouths of consuming children and their parents. Among shoppers and sweet-toothed chocoholics, Hershey’s brand is considered a delicacy, with a recognized name, a Pennsylvanian tradition, but an unknown reality of supporting child labour overseas and job cuts at home to keep production costs down.
Global Exchange, a US-based non-governmental organization with a well-known brand as an educator on world issues and a tradition of campaigning against corporate power in the food industry, produced a corporate social responsibility report last month on Hershey’s, “Time to Raise the Bar”. This document calls upon Hershey’s to take real action on human rights violations in its cocoa supply chain, including independent verification that no forced labour or child trafficking is taking place, a commitment to converting one of its top five selling bars to 100% fair trade sourced, and a plan for future fair trade conversion of its products.
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Celebrating the ‘Global’ and ‘Local’ in Fair Trade: The Harvest Moon Festival’s Fair Trade Fair
Posted September 16th 2010
There is an emerging trend in our society to view our support of trade as either “global” or “local”—a dichotomy that may not necessarily be accurate when we ask: What is fair trade? Does it refer only to products traded from the Global South that are approved by a fair trade labelling organization? Or can it also apply more broadly to sustainably-produced goods whose producer is being fairly compensated for their labour? At the Harvest Moon Festival, held September 17th-19th in Clearwater, Manitoba, both global and local are celebrated through the “Fair Trade Fair”. The Fair will be held from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, September 18th, and will feature internationally-traded and locally-produced goods, with the aim of raising awareness about fair trade and providing a way for festival-goers to participate in a system that supports these vendors! This fits with the Harvest Moon Festival’s goal of supporting sustainable, local food production and rural communities, who are largely struggling to be heard in a quickly-changing world market—but also acknowledges the parallel lives of small-scale producers in the Global South, many of whom are also struggling to make ends meet.
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Fair Trade Cadbury Bars Now Available
Posted September 13th 2010
This summer, Cadbury chocolate made the decision to ‘Go Fair Trade’ with their Dairy Milk bars - marking a huge step forward in the incorporation of fair trade into the ‘mainstream’. The announcement came on Cadbury’s 100th anniversary of their first cocoa crop in Ghana
“This pioneering announcement is deeply aligned with our values and principles and is a natural evolution of the work we have done in Ghana for over a century,” said Cadbury on their website. “Fair Trade Certification of Cadbury Dairy Milk is the largest Fair Trade chocolate announcement in Canadian history, bringing Fair Trade chocolate to virtually every corner of Canada.”
The bars are now available for purchase in most supermarkets. Cadbury predicts that this movement will quadruple the sales of fair trade cocoa from Ghana.
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World Cup Football a Potential Path to Peace, Fair Trade
Posted June 28th 2010
Article for Brandon Sun “Small World” Column, Saturday, June 26/10
by Zack Gross
Life didn’t have to end for sports enthusiasts this spring after two months of Stanley Cup hockey playoffs. Within a couple of days, a month of World Cup football, or what we call soccer, began. However, for the very poor people who do the hard work in the world sports ball industry, unfair labour practices is a source of grave concern. Fair Trade activists are targeting the NEXT World Cup, in 2014 in Brazil, to attempt to make the sport more socially responsible. In the meantime, some of the sports’ greatest stars are having some impact in calling on their countries to end internal conflict and pay attention to social and human rights concerns.
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Fair Trade Advocates for Avocado Producers
Posted April 26th 2010
The benefits of “fair trade” are many. Fair prices mean that farmers benefit from pre-financing, have their production costs covered and receive decent wages. The “fair trade premium” is a bonus that goes to co-operatives and communities to fund such projects as clinics, schools, training courses and needed equipment. There is no child labour and efforts are made to ensure that women are full partners in any venture. Environmentally-friendly farm practices are encouraged – for instance, 85% of all fair trade coffee is organic. Foreign markets are found for fair trade crops and this trade, not aid, helps farmers produce their way out of poverty rather than being victims of predatory trade policies and dependent on aid programs.
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Organic Planet Worker Co-op: Manitobans ‘Go Bananas’ for Fair Trade Produce!
Posted March 16th 2010
Organic Planet Worker Co-op could be seen as a trailblazer on a variety of paths. Founded as a worker-owned co-operative in 2003, the grocery, vegan deli and health product retailer has been a leader in providing organic and locally-sourced food products to customers—and recently, they’ve added ‘fair trade’ to their list of sustainable contributions. Located in the heart of Winnipeg’s Wolseley area, at 877 Westminster Avenue, Organic Planet Worker Co-op has committed to building a strong neighbourhood through adhering to the principles of Community Economic Development, while running on a non-hierarchical system of consensus and worker equality. However, you don’t have to have a ‘membership’ to shop at Organic Planet—their sales are open to the public!
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Fair Trade Wines
Posted February 24th 2010
MCIC’s Fair Trade Manitoba program congratulates the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) for its commitment to sourcing Fair Trade Certified wines. There are now almost twenty different fair trade wines from Argentina, Chile and South Africa available in red and white at most Manitoba Liquor Marts in Winnipeg and around the province. They can be identified by the international fair trade logo and by “shelf talkers” (signs that describe the item) affixed below them in stores.
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Mining Now on Fair Trade Agenda
Posted February 22nd 2010
There is more to fair trade than food products and handicrafts. While fair trade practices are better known for their impact on Third World agricultural producers and artisans, a global effort is underway to benefit workers in the mining sector and those who are affected by mining operations. The social and environmental problems caused by the mining industry are of concern to many organizations, and programs, services and regulations are being created so that mining will adhere to the adage of “economics as if people matter”.
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One-Month Challenge 2010
Posted February 2nd 2010
The One-Month Challenge is an opportunity to show support for producers in the developing world by consuming only fair trade brands of coffee, tea and chocolate for 30 days, starting on Valentine’s Day, 2010.
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