I was in North Carolina last week, marching through the streets of Winston-Salem with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) to demand collective bargaining rights for farmworkers who harvest tobacco. As these workers shared their stories about unjust conditions in the fields and sub-poverty earnings, I was struck by the similarities between tobacco industry exploitation in my own country and what our partners in Malawi, the Center for Social Concern (CSC) and Tobacco and Allied Workers Union of Malawi (TOAWUM), are fighting against.

Today I revisited the Rana Plaza factory site where the eight-story building collapsed two years ago, horrifically killing 1,138 workers and seriously injuring more than 2,500 others.  The site has not changed much since I came here in 2013, a month after the collapse.  You can still find spools of thread, fabric, the occasional lost scarf or shoe, and remnants of the Joe Fresh jeans, which were being produced for JC Penney and Loblaw’s at the time.  Most of the building has been demolished, but the rubble remains.  In the center, a rain puddle has become a pond with an unnatural green hue and algae growing around the edges.  

This International Women’s Day, our partners in Bangladesh and Pakistan took to the streets to demand respect for women workers’ rights.

If you haven’t seen or heard about it yet, stop what you’re doing and read the LA Times’ powerful series of articles on modern day slavery and other human rights abuses taking place in some of the giant Mexican tomato fields that supply Walmart, Safeway, Subway, Olive Garden, and other popular U.S. retailers and restaurants. 

The LA Times’ reporters visited 30 different mega-farms in nine different Mexican states, observing conditions first-hand and interviewing hundreds of workers and their family members. 

We’ve listed the main findings, taken directly from the report, below: