In the News

Protests persuade Russell Athletic to rehire Honduran workers

The New York Times
11/17/2009

 

The anti-sweatshop movement at dozens of American universities, from Georgetown to U.C.L.A., has had plenty of idealism and energy, but not many victories.

In August, members of United Students Against Sweatshops picketed a Target store in Washington, to pressure the retailer to stop selling products made by Russell Athletic.

Until now.

Tobacco poison surrounds child workers

The Sunday Times (UK)
11/15/2009

By Dan McDougall

The children pick through mountainous piles of waste tobacco and sweep it up with their bare hands into giant bags in the hope of scraping a living. From behind a veil of dust, they stare back at us with bloodshot eyes.

As the wind gathers in a fading dusk, infant siblings strapped to their mothers’ backs wail amid swirling, noxious clouds of tobacco.

Drummond Co. confident of victory in legal battles over Colombia operation

The Birmingham News
11/12/2009

Drummond Co. said Tuesday it is confident of victory in legal battles over its Colombia operation, which has been the subject of considerable litigation.

"After seven long years of defend­ing three lawsuits, two of the cases have been decided in Drummond's favor," company President Garry Neil Drummond said Tuesday. "The goodwill and name of the company will be preserved."

The developments have stacked up quickly this week in what has been an odyssey of litigation related to Drummond's 4,000-employee mine near La Loma, Colombia:

Activist 'beaten' after BBC story

BBC News
11/11/2009

An Uzbek rights activist has said he was beaten up after helping the BBC investigate the use of child labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry.

Bakhtiyar Hamrayev said he was attacked within hours of the story appearing on the BBC News website and radio.

The report found that children as young as 11 were being taken out of school to help pick the cotton harvest.

The government pledged to stop using child labour last year after some Western firms boycotted Uzbek cotton.

Uzbek cotton fields still using child labour

BBC News
11/11/2009

By Rustam Qobil

Cotton is big business in Uzbekistan, and a vital source of hard currency in a country which is chronically underdeveloped and where many live below the poverty line.

But last year some Western clothes retailers threatened to boycott Uzbekistan - one of the world's leading cotton producers - if it did not stop using schoolchildren to pick this vital harvest.

As a result, the Uzbeks officially banned the use of child labour, but they now seem to have reneged on their promise, with children as young as 11 or 12 working in the fields.

Sweatshop purchasing law debated

The Pittsfield Gazette
11/10/2009

Regulating conditions of workers who create city-purchased garments should not be accomplished through an ordinance, several city councilors stated this week.

During a Monday meeting of the ordinances & rules subcommittee, a proposed “sweatshop” law detoured back to the city solicitor for a makeover into a less formal “policy.”

The “sweatshop” initiative — based on laws enacted in other municipalities — was first proposed locally by Rinaldo Del Gallo III. Liana Foxvog, an activist supporting such laws, has travelled to Pittsfield to promote the discussion...

Business Aims to Relax Bans on Products Made with Child & Slave Labor

Open Left
11/10/2009

By David Sirota

We've seen corporations use "free trade" agreements to quietly camouflage their push for exploitable labor in broader arguments about globalization. What we haven't seen is corporate special interests openly push for U.S. regulators to openly allow companies to sell goods made with child and slave labor...until now.

Check out this report from Inside U.S. Trade (no link- subscription required) - it's straight from the I Sh*t You Not File:

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