Shelly Sanders .com

Posted By Shelly Sanders on April 16, 2013

Since January 1, I’ve been dedicated to living a fair trade life. At least, this was my intention, but a survey I did at www.slaveryfootprint.org showed me that, in fact, my family relies on slave labor. Sixty one slaves to be exact. This survey even revealed the main culprits that are sabotaging my efforts to purchase only things made ethically, under fair conditions—medicine, electronic gadgets, my car, and my clothing.

I thought I was doing well, buying clothing made in Canada or the U.S., avoiding dollar stores, Wal-Mart, Sears, LL Bean and Ikea, amongst the worst offenders of slave labor. I buy my spices, coffee, tea, jewellery, scarves and candles from Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade store that has been around since 1946. (www.tenthousandvillages.com) I even buy used clothing when I can’t find fair trade items, and count myself lucky enough to be able to walk to three such stores from my house.

But what I discovered at Slavery Footprint, is just how far-reaching the slave labor problem is, and how its tentacles are wrapped around so many common items used in cosmetics, electronics, fuel, and clothing. Here’s a summary of the items used in products I have, which are derived from the slave labor chain:

1. Peru: silver, tin
2. Brazil: sugar cane, cotton, soy, coffee, emeralds, silicon
3. China: acrylic, cashmere, gold, mercury, nylon, pearls, quartz, silicon, lead, polyester
4. Thailand: latex, rubber
5. Viet Nam: Coffee
6. Malaysia: Mother of Pearl, ruby, palm oil
7. Japan: pearls
8. Zambia: cobalt, cotton, emeralds
9. Congo: Copper, coffee, diamonds, gold
10. Saudi Arabia: Paraffin, petroleum, acetone, alcohol
11. India: linen
12. Russia: Nickel, mica, aluminum, petroleum

My wedding ring is emerald with diamonds, and for our tenth anniversary, my husband gave me an emerald and diamond band. I love pearls and along with inheriting my grandmother’s, have amassed quite the collection over the years. I just bought a mother of pearl necklace on my recent vacation. Cashmere is my favorite wool; not only have I bought a few sweaters for myself, I’ve given cashmere scarves and sweaters as gifts.  Though I try to buy from reputable designers, I see from Slavery Footprint that the cashmere itself could easily come from slave labor. Mica is in the cosmetics my daughters and I use…I think my girls should take out stock in the local pharmacy considering the amount of makeup they buy.

Discouraged? Yes. Determined to keep working towards a “Made in a Free World” life? Absolutely. Especially after seeing Slavery Footprint founder and CEO, Justin Dillon, on Katie a couple of weeks ago. He started out as a musician, holding anti-slavery movement benefit concerts. This led Dillon to make a human trafficking documentary that caught the eye of the U.S. State Department. At this point, Slavery Footprint was born, proving that one person really can make a difference. Learning about Dillon brings to mind Craig Keilburger who also started a movement—Free the Children—by himself after learning about child slavery.

Dillon’s website is an eye opener…I think his survey, which finds out how many slaves work for you, should be mandatory in every middle school in North America. Until I completed this survey, I had a false sense of pride about my success avoiding products made through slave labor. Now, I know I have a long way to go to truly achieve a “Made in a Free World” status (Dillon’s phrase).

I need to buy makeup from manufacturers who don’t use mica or other products from the slave labor chain. I need to buy clothing from places where I can trace the fabric back to reputable wholesalers, and I will buy all future jewellery from fair trade manufacturers.

Slave labour is bigger than I thought, overwhelmingly disturbing. In Brazil alone, 25,000 men and boys are enslaved on cattle ranches, logging and mining camps. There are over a million slaves in Russia, including 20,000 children. This disastrous situation won’t go away unless we consumers stop buying products made under these conditions. Without a market, there can be no more suppliers. The solution is simple. We just need to think more about what we buy to ensure our first-world lives do not come at the expense of slaves.

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Free the Children, Justin Dillon, Katie Couric, Slavery Footprint, Ten Thousand Villages

Posted By Shelly Sanders on March 6, 2013

I’m about ready to throw in the proverbial towel. Over the last few weeks, three things have made me wonder if the growth in fair trade is possible, or if it’s an idealistic fantasy. The first jolt came during a vacation in the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago. Discovering ridiculously cheap items “Made in China” in the Nassau straw market, I saw just how far-reaching sweat shops have become. Billed as a local attraction, the straw market sells handmade products such as bags, jewellery and wood carvings, along with things that have clearly not originated in the Bahamas—t-shirts, scarves, bathing suit cover-ups…all made in other places and probably not in safe working conditions.

As I wandered the hundreds of stalls, with women competing with each other to hawk their goods, I couldn’t help but feel as if I were caught in a giant sweat-shop web that spans the globe. Even in an island paradise, kitschy has replaced quaint when it comes to a local attraction that dates back to the 1940’s. Just as the World Wide Web’s net has been cast into communist countries like Viet Nam and China, sweat shops now occupy scenic corners of the world like the Bahamas where the straw market, which began as a place to sell authentically made products, now looks more like a flea market you’d find off the highway near Toronto.

The second blow came with the news that Target will open 24 stores in Ontario by April. Another discounter. Just what we need. Another store with deep price cuts thanks to third-world workers who are paid next to nothing to work in dangerous conditions. Will consumers ever consider quality over quantity? How many cheap purses, belts, jeans, leggings, sweaters, dresses, shoes, jackets, coats…do we need? Have we become so enamored with shopping that we think nothing of buying things just for the sake of it and thoughtlessly disposing of barely used items? With 24 new Target stores on the horizon, it seems obvious the answer is yes.

The third bombshell appeared on the front page of the New York Times on March 3—“Children in India’s Mines.”

“Just two months before full implementation of a landmark 2010 law mandating that all Indian children between the ages of 6 and 14 be in school, some 28 million are working instead, according to Unicef. Child workers can be found everywhere—in shops, in kitchens, on farms, in factories and on construction sites.”

Twenty-eight million children. The approximate population of Canada. Twenty-eight million children. The number of people that make up the entirety of an industrialized nation. Surely this will catch people’s attention. Or will it? Though my sentimental heart says yes, my pragmatic mind disagrees. Because this has been going on for decades, or longer; because India is one of many places where children are forced to work; because discount stores like Target continue to expand with items made in sweatshops.

“Suresh Thapa, 17, said that he has worked in the mines “since he was a kid,” and he expects his four younger brothers to follow suit. He and his family live in a tiny tarp-and-stick shack near the mines. They have no running water, toilet or indoor heating….

“India’s Mines Act of 1952 prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from working in coal mines, but Suresh’s boss, Kumar Subba, said children work in mines throughout the region.”

Suresh earns between $37 to $74 a week, a teeny amount considering the fact that people working in mines “die all the time.”

And mines are just the beginning…children, as well as adults, are in danger making clothing and shoes in sweat shops where safety codes are ignored, swatted away like pesky mosquitos.

What is it going to take to make people change? Is it even possible? A remote possibility? Will consumers ever make the radical change to pay more for things made under fairly-paid conditions, with the idea that owning fewer items is preferable?

I’m holding the towel, and getting ready to throw it in.

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Posted By Shelly Sanders on February 7, 2013

I’m writing this as yummy chocolate chip cookies bake in the oven, cookies made with fair trade chocolate chips bought from Ten Thousand Villages! It’s been more than a month since I began my quest to live a fair trade life for a year, and I have to say that I’m more than a bit overwhelmed by the challenges this has posed so far. Until I started looking specifically for items made under fair conditions, I didn’t realize how limited my choices would be. On the other hand, there’s a newfound sense of relief when weekly flyers arrive; knowing that most of the products advertised don’t fall under fair trade standards, I simply stick the flyers in my recycling drawer and forget about all the things I don’t need.

This brings me to the first conundrum of my quest—though it’s easy to buy fewer things, it’s harder to find necessities like jeans, hats and sunglasses. I still haven’t found fair trade jeans for my son, and I spent hours on-line searching for a fair trade sun hat only to find that the only ones in existence are in the United Kingdom or the United States which means astronomical shipping costs. I ended up compromising, buying a hat made of recycled paper and though I couldn’t find the brand under any sweat shop information, I’ll never know for sure if it was made ethically by people paid fair wages.

I thought I’d have the same trouble when I began looking for sunglasses, and at first, it seemed as if it would be impossible to find a pair under a hundred dollars made outside of China. Every brand name I came across—Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren, Armani Exchange and Alfred Sung—

was made in China. I don’t know the conditions under which these were manufactured, but from all the research I’ve done so far, it’s likely the conditions are questionable. I did find one pair made in Italy…Missoni for a mere ninety-nine dollars. Finally, after peering at countless sunglass arms and seeing “Made in China,” I found a pair with a purple frame (my favorite color) made by Bolero. There was no “Made in China” anywhere, and when I searched the name, I discovered they’re made in France. Now, I know that there’s a possibility of sweatshop factories in France, yet I’ve seen no information, no statistics about French factories. I bought the glasses but, like my sun hat, am not fully convinced of their origin.

The reality is that I’m going to have to do more research on brand names BEFORE heading out to shop, so that I’ll know exactly which companies adhere to fair trade or ethical working standards. There are the known deviants where I no longer shop—Walmart, Sears, Ikea, LL Bean—but there are so many brands out there that it’s like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack when I’m facing racks of clothes, or hundreds of pairs of glasses, piles of throw rugs or shelves of luggage.

Here’s what happened when I began hunting for a new suitcase. The wheels on my existing suitcase are broken plus it weighs a ton which makes for extreme aggravation during long walks through airport corridors. Since I’m going on a couple of trips this year, and cannot imagine packing less as my unhelpful husband suggested, I decided I needed a new, lightweight piece of luggage.

Within seconds of my arrival in the luggage section, I discovered that the Chinese have the monopoly on this sector. Even Roots, originally made in Canada, has now succumbed to the Asian factory. While I don’t know if Roots uses sweatshop labor, I’m not willing to purchase their product until I do more research. The same goes for The Sharper Image and Olympia. And there is one company whose luggage I’ll never buy; on the tag attached to a Rockland suitcase, I read the following—Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

What is Rockland thinking? Do they think consumers are illiterate, or even worse, indifferent to cancer-causing chemicals? Could they not use alternative materials?

I didn’t buy a new suitcase and won’t until I figure out which companies comply with fair and ethical manufacturing standards. If I can’t find any, other than bags made in Italy that are not even remotely within my price range, then I’ll be dragging my old suitcase around the airport. Or maybe I can talk my husband into carrying it for me…

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Alfred Sung, Armani Exchange, Ikea, Kate Spade, LL Bean, luggage, Made in China, Olympis, Ralph Lauren, Rockland, Roots, Sears, sweatshops, Ten Thousand Villages, The Sharper Image, Walmart

Posted By Shelly Sanders on February 2, 2013

My purple iPod has gone missing. I kept in on a table near the door so that I could use it when I walked my dogs but it’s disappeared. Generally, I’m not a careless person; I thrive on organization and feel like I’m losing control over everything when my house gets messy. I know I haven’t misplaced my iPod, loaded with all my favorites like Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Aerosmith, yet I scour the house, take apart closets, empty coat pockets. No sign of my purple gadget.

Another problem. The hard drive that contained my iTunes account and downloaded music was replaced by a much faster laptop months ago. Because I hadn’t bought music in over a year, I forgot to save my account on a flash drive. A momentary lapse of intelligence. I realize that not only is my iPod gone, but so are all the songs I loved to hear.

I refuse to accept the fact that my iPod’s gone forever, and continue looking for it. Days turn to months and here I am, still without my iPod, missing my music more than ever. Now, I need to face reality and invest in a new iPod. But I’m committed to living ethically this year, avoiding items made in sweatshops which poses an insurmountable problem, as iPods are notorious for being made under horrible conditions.

As far back as 2006, Apple has admitted its workers in factories in China work excessive hours; in a BBC News article in 2006, Apple executives admitted workers were putting in “more than 60 hours a week a third of the time.”

Stories about worker violations have continued, most notably with such poor conditions at Apple’s supplier, Foxconn, where employees have actually attempted to commit suicide. Foxconn has since installed suicide nets to stop employees from jumping to their deaths. In a March 30, 2012 article written by Agam Shah, for IDG News Service, “an investigation by the Fair Labor Association into factories operated by Apple supplier Fox conn in China found poor working conditions and worker abuse, leading Foxconn to pledge it will make improvements.”

How can anybody believe Foxconn will actually keep its word, when these conditions have been present for years without change? When Apple itself has clearly known about these conditions but has taken few if any strides to amend the situation?

Scott Nova, executive president of Worker Rights Consortium has the same concerns. “They have been promising to end forced overtime since 2006, for example, and have not done it,” he says in the IDG News Service article. “I hope this will be different, but skepticism is in order until we see proof of real progress.”

I’m not holding my breath, especially after reading a Jan. 25, 2013 article entitled, “Child labour uncovered in Apple’s supply chain” in The Guardian. This discovery comes after an internal audit by Apple, 10 months after Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed “the company is leading the way in improving working conditions” in the IDG New Service article. This recent audit found “multiple cases of child labour in its supply chain, including one Chinese company that employed 74 children under the age of 16…” Children were employed at 11 factories, there were mandatory pregnancy tests, bonded workers whose wages were confiscated to pay debts to recruitment companies, workers’ wages docked as punishment, and one factory dumped waste oil in the toilets.

To its credit, Apple did get rid of one supplier, Pingzhou Electronics, which employed 74 children under 16 years of age, and ordered suppliers to reimburse excessive recruitment fees.

“Underage labour is a subject no company wants to be associated with, so as a result I don’t believe it gets the attention it deserves, and as a result it doesn’t get fixed like it should,” says Jeff Williams, senior vice president of operations at Apple in The Guardian.

I’m wondering if Apple will ever overcome its labor problems. I’m also wondering how I’m going to replace my music with Apple iPods out of the running at this point.

My daughter, Bethany, offers one solution. “You can use my old iPod if you want,” she tells me.

It takes a couple of weeks to find it in her disorganized room, and when I get it, I see that the screen is cracked.

“Don’t worry, it still works,” she assures me.

I charge it and scan through her music; most of the artists are unknown to me. This is definitely not music that will rev me up on the treadmill, or calm me on long walks. I clench my jaw and download iTunes. In about 10 minutes I’ve spent 50 dollars and have a meagre selection to get me started. Bethany tells me that when I plug her iPod into my computer, it will automatically be cleared of her music and will reload with mine. I do this, wait until after the iPod has finished syncing, and touch the screen. Bethany’s music is still there. Mine is nowhere to be found.

“You have to sync it,” she says to me, with an exasperated eye-roll.

“I did.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like you did.”

I try again. And again.

“Just buy a new one,” says Bethany.

“I can’t,” I say. “They’re made in sweatshops.”

She shrugs and walks away. I go back to the computer to see if there is any sign of iPods being made under ethical conditions. I don’t find any evidence, but I do discover an intriguing piece written by Umair Haque for Bloomberg Businessweek, written July 31, 2009. “What would a Fair-Labor iPod Cost?” This is the title and the exact purpose of Haque’s article. With all the focus on Apple’s poor working conditions, Haque sets out to find the cost of producing a good iPod, “one not produced in a sweatshop, but under decent labour conditions.”

Haque explains that (using The Sloan Foundation estimates) “just $4 of an iPod’s cost is the final assembly in China. Using average Chinese hourly labour compensation costs, that’s about 2.7 hours of labour. I then used American hourly compensation costs to adjust for what the final assembly might cost in the States.”

Haque deduces that an American made iPod Classic would cost “just 23% more than a Chinese made iPod Classic: $58 more, to be precise. The same relationship holds across the iPod family (price differentials in the 20-30% range).”

Though Haque admits his calculations are not exact, they do give an idea of the difference between manufacturing costs in China and in the U.S. The numbers make me think that as consumers, we should be prepared to absorb the extra costs of having Apple products made under fair, ethical working conditions. I don’t see a $58 increase stopping people from purchasing iPods. This is just not a big enough price differential to have a major impact on Apple’s bottom line.

So why aren’t they making more products in the U.S.?

“The American manufacturing sector has been eviscerated by an insistence on near-term-cost-cutting—and today, our lack of standards and manufacturing competence has led to a dearth of innovation exactly when we need it most,” says Haque. “If goods cost what they should, we would consume what we could authentically afford, instead of overconsuming what we couldn’t.”

Haque goes on to challenge Apple to offer higher-value goods “produced to a groundbreaking new set of labour standards for the 21^st Century”.

I hope Apple rises to the challenge, and soon. I am desperately missing my music and cannot think of an alternative to an iPod. But until iPods are produced under ethical conditions, with no child or forced labor, there will be no music for me, and shorter walks for my dogs.

 

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Tags: Agah Shah, Apple, Foxconn, iPod, iTunes, Umair Haque, Worker Rights Consortium

Posted By Shelly Sanders on January 28, 2013

I am a chocoholic; I’ve even resorted to stealing my kids’ Halloween chocolate when struck by enormous, impossible-to-ignore cravings. And right now, as I wait anxiously for feedback on my manuscript, The Third Twin, I’m pining for a large amount of milk chocolate. Yes, I know that dark chocolate is better for me, but when faced with the prospect of waiting weeks for a response, only creamy milk chocolate will do. And usually, when this hunger hits me, I head to the pharmacy a few blocks from my house and buy a box of Neilson Rosebuds. A long-time favorite of mine, I love the unimpeded chocolaty taste (no nuts or caramel to dilute the flavor) and rigid texture of these delectable morsels. I let them melt on my tongue and then suck them back, saturating my throat with velvety chocolate.

Chocolate lifts my spirits, if only temporarily, and takes my mind off waiting. In the past, buying Rosebuds has been an easy decision, without remorse or guilt. But now, in my quest to life in adherence to fair trade principles, chocolate has become more complicated. Because the chocolate industry is one of the worst for trafficking children and turning them into slaves on cocoa plantations.

To understand how children have become victims within the chocolate industry, I do some research, starting with Fair Trade Canada. On their website, www.fairtrade.ca, it’s explained that production and trading conditions make it difficult for producers to earn a living. Cocoa farmers must negotiate with intermediaries who pay just a fraction of the value of the crop. Since farmers don’t even make enough to cover their production costs, they’ve turned to child and slave labor.

Disturbed that my love of chocolate has come at the price of a child’s freedom, I view a DVD from the International Labour Rights Forum called “The Dark Side of Chocolate.” What I see turns my stomach and makes me look at chocolate with completely different eyes.

An undercover reporter, determined to find out if child labour really exists on cocoa plantations, begins his investigation at an annual chocolate trade show in Cologne, Germany. Talking to representatives from some of the biggest chocolate manufacturers including Callebaut and Nestle, the reporter finds that most of the cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast, where child slavery is said to be the worst, yet nobody at this trade show seems to know about or acknowledge the possibility of this problem. In fact, the International Labour Forum estimates that 211 million children around the world are working, and many are forced onto cocoa plantations, paid nothing, and never attend school.

From Germany, the reporter heads to Mali, Africa where he’s been told children are routinely smuggled to cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast. At a bus depot , the reporter spoke to a representative from the bus driver’s union, who confirmed reports of child trafficking to cocoa plantations. This man, who has rescued 150 children over the last five years, said that children are either tricked into coming to Maili, or stolen from villages. Upon arrival in Mail, they’re taken to the border by another bus, then transported over the border on motorcycle taxis. These children are as young as five and as old as 14, and this trafficking occurs every day.

A 12 year-old girl, rescued the day the reporter is at the bus station, says tearfully that she was told she’d make a lot of money in the Ivory Coast. She tells the reporter that her family will be angry when she returns without having made any money.

The reporter makes his way to a village where he discovers that 150 children have disappeared over the years. Resolved to see for himself, the reporter ventures onto several cocoa plantations where he finds small children carrying machetes for harvesting cocoa pods. Every plantation he visits has children working in the fields. When the reporter interviews former child slaves who managed to escape, he hears that they were beaten if they worked too slow.

Even more disconcerting is the fact that in 2001, the Harkin-Engel Protocol was signed by the heads of eight major chocolate companies. This agreement was aimed at ending child labor and forced labor in the production of cocoa. The international cocoa industry strongly opposed this protocol and the Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association hired former senators George Mitchell and Bob Dole to lobby against it. As of 2011, research in the Ivory Coast and Ghana showed that 1.8 million children are still working in cocoa agriculture, a strong indication that manufacturers have not honored this protocol.

The intrepid reporter decides to interview one of the biggest men in the industry, Ali Lakiss, president and owner of SAF-CACAO, the Ivory Coast’s largest domestically owned cocoa exporter. Lakiss looks the reporter in the face and says with total confidence that there are no children working on plantations, and that child trafficking does not exist. A government official agrees and says that when you see busloads of children on their way to the Ivory Coast, they are on vacation.

I listen to these words in disbelief. Is this man, supposedly second to the prime minister, for real? Does he honestly think people will believe him? How can he tolerate child labor in his country…how can he cover it up and pretend like it doesn’t exist? Are children so meaningless to him, the rest of the officials, and cocoa company people who look the other way?

When the documentary was finished, the reporter brought it to Frank Hagemann, chief, research and policy with the International Labour Organization. Visibly upset as he watched, Hagemann said that “a feeling of helplessness comes over you” when the documentary had finished.

While some chocolate manufacturers agreed to view the documentary, Nestle, Kraft and Cargill refused. In my mind, this is a reflection of their unwillingness to take responsibility for making sure children are not being forced to work on plantations that supply them with cocoa. It seems they’re more concerned with getting the cheapest product possible, with the bottom line more important than child safety.

This information has definitely soured my taste buds. I cannot possibly enjoy chocolate that has involved child labor within the production cycle. From now on, I’ll stick to Cadbury, which does sell fair trade chocolate, and Ten Thousand Villages, which also sells fair trade cocoa and chocolate. And I would love to start an international boycott of chocolate harvested by children as I’m afraid that the only way to stop child labor will be to significantly lower the demand for products made from this cocoa. Money is the only thing that matters to companies like Nestle; if people stop buying their products, they might finally do the right thing.

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Ali Lakiss, Bob Dole, Cadbury, Callebaut, Cargill, child labor, Chocolate Manufacturer's Association, cocoa industry, Fair Trade Canada, Frank Hagemann, George Mitchell, Ghana, Harkin-Engel Protocol, Internationa Labor Rights Forum, Ivory Coast, Kraft, Mail, Nestle, Saf-Cacao, Ten Thousand Villages

Posted By Shelly Sanders on January 23, 2013

“Walmart rolls out big expansion plan.” This headline leaps from the front page of the business section of the Toronto Star this morning. These words are more than a little surprising to me. Walmart’s reputation is still shaky after the Bangladesh fire, November 24, at the Tazreen Fashion Factory that made clothes for Walmart and Sears. Or is it? Did people simply read about this tragic event that killed 112 workers who made cheap clothes in well-documented hazardous conditions?

Here’s what I know to be true. The Tazreen Fashion Factory was operating without a safety licence and had been warned twice to improve its conditions. In a Dec. 13, 2012 Toronto Sun article, I read that the factory’s fire certification expired June 30. Wal-Mart claims is didn’t authorize Tazreen to manufacture garments but at the same time, did not take the necessary steps to ensure this was the case. In my book, I find Walmart ultimately negligent. And I can’t help but wonder why the factory itself wasn’t shut down when its fire safety certification expired.

I know also that Walmart won’t help make factories safer because of the high costs. “At a meeting convened in 2011 to boost safety at Bangladesh garment factories, Walmart Stores Inc. made a call: paying suppliers more to help them upgrade their manufacturing facilities was too costly.” (Dec. 5, 2012 Bloomberg article)

Srideu Kalavakolanu, a Walmart director of ethical sourcing, and the Gap counterpart issued this statement: “Specifically to the issue of any corrections on electrical and fire safety, we are talking about 4,500 factories, and in most cases very extensive and costly modifications would need to be undertaken in some factories. It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments.”

Third, Walmart needs to walk the walk. Just yesterday, Jan. 22, in a Huff Post’s Business Canada article, Walmart said it has notified its global suppliers it will drop them if they subcontract work at unauthorized factories. In addition, starting June 1, suppliers must have an employee stationed in countries where Walmart subcontracts to ensure safety compliances are met.

But Walmart is refusing to pay the costs that will arise from this increased demand for accountability. Scott Nova, executive director at Workers’ Rights Consortium is quoted as saying that this move is not enough unless Walmart and other retailers pay suppliers more to cover the costs of factory repairs.

Walmart could put some muscle behind its words by signing a document issued by the Workers’ Rights Consortium last March. This calls for companies to publicly report fire hazards, pay factory owners more to make repairs and provide at least $500,000 over two years for the effort. They would also sign a legally-binding document that would make them liable when there’s a fine.

PVH Corp., which sells Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfigger brands, signed this agreement 10 months ago, but there’s a catch…PVH will only start the program if at least three other major retailers sign on. Only one has done so, a German company called Tchibo.

If Walmart truly wanted the situation to change, they’d sign this document, potentially opening the door for further signatures. In fact, Walmart could be a leader not just in size but in ethic responsibility by signing. But they’re not, which negates their declared improvements.

The fourth thing I know is that consumer’s demands for rock-bottom prices are driving discount retailers like Walmart and Target to cut corners so that they pay as little as possible for garments. In an article in today’s Toronto Star, Walmart Canada’s CEO Shelley Broader explains what drives pricing within the company: “And our DNA is all about saving people money so that they can live better. And our research and our traffic continue to tell us that first and foremost in the minds of the consumer is getting quality merchandise at a tremendous value.”

I understand that affordability is key in being a successful retailer, but should low costs come at the expense of the people making the clothing? Is there no way that Walmart can cut its costs in North America while increasing spending in its factories to ensure worker safety?

Maybe Walmart should look at expenses closer to home—in the Jan. 15, 2013 Toronto Sun, I see that in the U.S. the highest earning Walmart store manager made more than $250,000 last year. The average store associate salary, stated in this article, runs from $50,000 to $170,000 a year. What do Walmart executives make? In 2012, Walmart U.S. sales were $264.19 billion.

It’s hard to believe there isn’t some wiggle room within this massive amount of money. And if Walmart can increase within Canada, by 37 stores, I can’t understand why they don’t have the money and wherewithal to sign the Workers’ Rights Consortium document.

Until Walmart actually puts money behind its pledges, I’m boycotting its stores. I’d rather own buy fewer, more expensive items of clothing that were manufactured under safe, fairly-paid conditions, than purchase a bunch of graphic t-shirts at four dollars a piece. I don’t want to even imagine what workers were paid to make these garments.

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Huff Post, PVH Corp, Sears, Shelley Broader, Tazreen Fashion Factory, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Walmart, Workers' Rights Consortium

Posted By Shelly Sanders on January 21, 2013

I’m still looking for a fair trade beach hat, but this quest has taken a back seat (literally) to a worker’s protest against General Motors (GM) in Bogota, Columbia. More than 200 workers, injured while working for GM Colomotares in Columbia, have been fired, including Jorge Parra a welder who started with the automotive company in 2001 as a welder.

Information I received yesterday from SumOfUs, a world-wide movement working to hold companies accountable for their actions, explains that for nine years, Parra worked 10 to 12 hour shifts six days a week lifting auto parts and heavy machinery. One day in 2010, he found he couldn’t move. Just 36 years old, Parra had a badly damaged back that required surgery. But after his operation, he was fired from GM.

Manuel Ospina, another GM worker has a similar story. In a Foreign Policy blog written by Annalise Udall Romoser, Lutheran World Relief acting director for public policy and advocacy, I read that Ospina also suffered from back pain. He’d worked for GM for 11 years and like Parra, was diagnosed by a doctor who reports to GM. This doctor attributed Ospina’s back injury to having helped his wife clean their house, specifically making their bed. Ospina was fired from GM, now walks with a cane and is unemployed.

What? I read this again, unable to believe the words in front of me. How could a doctor come up with such a ridiculous diagnosis? I make my bed every day and don’t suffer from debilitating back pain. Obviously, this diagnosis is a sham, a convenient excuse to get rid of a long-time employee without admitting culpability. Even harder for me to stomach, is the fact that GM sold $4.67 million in the first half of 2012, making it the second-largest automaker in the world. Toyota is first with $4.97 million in sales. Plus, yesterday, at the first public day of the North American International Auto Show, GM won Car of the Year for its Cadillac ATS. Why doesn’t GM treat its employees decently? If these workers were American, would more people take notice? Would American workers be treated so negligently in the first place?

Quite possibly, as it turns out. Actor Danny Glover is protesting the North American Auto Show because of the way Nissan is treating its U.S. employees. A Detroit Free Press article states that Nissan is discouraging its Canton, Mississippi employees from joining a union.

In an attempt to gain GM’s attention, Parra, along with other fired employees, began a hunger strike, going one step further than usual. On August 12, 2012, they sewed their lips shut and stood outside the U.S. Embassy in Bogota to protest their firings.

GM “is firing us without just cause, harming us and our families. We are taking this decision because our health has worsened day by day, we have lost our homes, we’re basically in the street and have been forgotten by the government,” said one protester.

Another protestor said they’re sewing their lips shut until the company listens to their requests.

Three days ago, on January 18, Jorge Parra reached day 60 of his hunger strike. Witness for Peace, a non-governmental organization, says that people in at least 20 states have fasted recently to show their solidarity with the striking Columbian workers.

In a Columbia Reports article, Katie McBride, a GM spokeswoman, says that these workers were offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in programs, along with 15 months of healthcare and pension benefits and two years of higher education. Parra disagrees, saying the offer was very bad. He claims the maximum offered was $30,000 a person, which doesn’t cover the costs of spinal surgery he needs. He goes on to explain that he and his fellow workers want to be reintegrated into their jobs at GM again.

These Columbian men want to get back to work. They want GM to acknowledge the truth…that working in their factory can cause physical harm. They want GM to provide the required medical services enabling them to get better. They want to know that their jobs are secure while they’re getting the medical attention they need.

Simple, basic requests, yet these workers are being let go because of on-the-job injuries, as if they didn’t matter, as if they didn’t have long-time employment histories with GM.

I don’t own a GM car, or a Nissan, and I won’t be purchasing one of these vehicles anytime soon. I will be in the market for a new car next year but before I even start looking, I’m going to delve into the backgrounds of automakers, to see which ones play fair with the people who make their cars, the necessary yet invisible people on which this billion dollar industry depends.

 

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Annalise Usall Romoser, Bogota Columbia, Columbia Reports, Danny Glover, Foreign Policy, General Motors, Jorge Parra, Lutheran World Relief, Nissan, North American International Auto Show, SunOfUs, Witness for Peace

Posted By Shelly Sanders on January 16, 2013

I need a wide-brimmed sun hat. Somehow, I’ve ended up as the lone adult accompanying my 17 year-old daughter and her four friends to the Dominican Republic in March. I’m thrilled about the prospect of spending time with my daughter and her friends—I can see us lying out in the sun chatting about guys and reality TV, me in my one-piece with my skin covered in sun block and them in their string bikinis—okay, I’ll be lucky to see them once a day. But there’s no doubt I’ll be out in the sun, not a good thing for a person with fair skin, green eyes and red hair. I’m a high-risk candidate for skin cancer, my doctor tells me every year at my physical. Especially since my mother has battled skin cancer. Twice. Apparently, this makes me even more vulnerable to the sun.

This healthy fear of the sun, which sometimes borders on paranoia, is the reason our family ordinarily heads to the slopes for spring break. This year, my ski jacket and pants will be left at home and I’ll be packing bathing suits, cover-ups, a fresh supply of sunscreen, and hopefully, a new sun hat to keep the hazardous rays from my face.

With my ubiquitous green tea by my side, I begin my on-line search for a fair trade sun hat with optimism. After a google search for fair trade sun hats, I click on www.hemptent.com and groan. There is a hemp beanie that might be interesting for some segment of the population, a sun hat that looks like it belongs on a leather-cheeked sailor, and a recycled silk hat that is just odd.

On the next site, www.autonomieproject.com, I don’t find any hats but I do discover converse-type shoes for my son. Called Ethletic black and white low-top sneakers, they’re on sale for $32.40. This company works with small independent cooperatives and sweatfree facilities in developing areas. My son doesn’t need shoes right now, so I add the site to my favorites and continue my quest for a hat.

It doesn’t take long for me to see that the majority of fair trade hats come from the United Kingdom, which doesn’t help me as the shipping could cost more than the hat itself. After a few more dud sites, I end up on www.overstock.com, which offers Worldstock products. These are made in China from small tailoring groups where people are paid piece by piece for their work. There is no factory or child labor, and overstock.com donates all its profits from Worldstock fair trade purchases to charity. I’m slightly troubled by the vagueness of the word, “charity” but continue when I read the following:

“Most of the families supported by this fair trade initiative have gone from having no running water, to purchasing land, motorized vehicles and sending their children to college.”

Eager to shop on this site, I find what I’m looking for, only the selection is limited. They’re sold out in black, the color I want. I do find another style, in black, but the reviews are not good. One person says her hat has a chemical smell she can’t get rid of. Why would hats made in a small cooperative have a chemical smell? I decide to check out more sites.

At www.headchange.com, I see a brand called LiViTY, which claims its clothing and accessories are made from sustainable textiles by fairly compensated fair trade workers. They use organic and recycled materials to limit the negative environmental impact, which intrigues me. I click on a hat I like and end up looking at one made by Goorin Bros., not LiViTY. I research Goorin Bros. and discover their products are made in San Francisco and do not appear to be fair trade. More disturbing, however, is the fact that I’ve been directed by what appeared to be a fair trade site to a completely different brand. There’s even a red arrow on the headchange.com site, to see more options, but it takes you to drop down deals on amazon that are definitely not fair trade. If you aren’t paying attention, you could end up buying something you think is ethical but in reality, is not.

I’m getting frustrated. I’ve been searching for 45 minutes and all I’ve found is that there is a need for fair trade sun hats in Canada and the U.S. I click on another site, www.eworldtradefair.com , and immediately see that this is an exporter site, with distributers based in India selling items that could be made in sweatshops. Not only have they reversed fair trade to trade fair in their site name, they’ve completely reversed the meaning.

My patience is running out; it’s been an hour and no hat has been bought. I go on another site and hope it’s the one. On www.tropicalitems.com, I see a beautiful five and a half-inch brimmed hat for $49.99. Tropical Items Madagascar says it is a wholesaler and multiple event retailer (whatever that means) of fair trade crafts made of natural raffia from Madagascar. There is also a large square with the words: “A Proud Member of Fair Trade Federation,” a trade association that strengthens and promotes North American organizations committed to fair trade (www.fairtradefederation.org).  Though that hat’s a bit pricier than I wanted, it appears to be fair trade and they have it in black. I measure my head (22 inches) to determine my hat size (medium) and click to order. But my excitement deflates when I see the $35 shipping rate to Canada. There’s no way I can justify this price. I click on the X in the top right corner of the screen and slump over my computer.

I don’t like failing. I don’t like giving up but I can’t spend an entire morning looking for a hat. I remember the shoes for my son I unexpectedly found and decide to renew my search tomorrow. But I’ll look for shoes. Maybe shoes will lead me to a hat.

 

 

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: autonomieproject, ethletic shoes, Fair Trade Federation, headchange.com, hemptent, LiViTY, overstock.com, skin cancer, sun hat, tropical Items Madagascar, Worldstock products

Posted By Shelly Sanders on January 9, 2013

IRONY 1: Using my Samsung laptop, I just signed a petition to stop child labor at a factory in China that makes Samsung electronic products.

Had I known that the Huizhou company supplies Samsung with products, I would never have bought my laptop. I looked at the specifications of the computer, the screen size, and battery life but never thought about who made it.

China Labor Watch reports that at least seven children are working at this factory 11 hours a day, 26 to 28 days a month. Though they work the same number of hours as adults, they make only 70 percent of their pay. Working the night shift, one girl received a daily subsidy of a dollar. Apparently one 14 year-old girl was not taken to the hospital for treatment when she fell down the stairs, and when she had to take sick leave, the factory deducted 6 days of pay.

The petition I signed is in support of China Labor Watch’s request that no underage children work at Samsung supplier factories, that children who have worked be properly compensated and send to school, and that Samsung establish an independent hotline for workers to report labor violations.

What I’m wondering, as I look at other electronics companies and see similar, even worse scenarios, is if Samsung will end up making these changes. And will children’s lives actually improve outside factory walls?

In a startling New York Times article written by Eduardo Porter on March 8, 2012, Porter says that “some economists have concluded that Western campaigns might actually make child labor more difficult to eradicate: campaigns push children out of formal jobs into the informal economy, where they are less likely to compete with adults for jobs.”

For example, in Pakistan in 1997, “a program to stop children from stitching soccer balls misfired even though the program replaced some of families’ lost income and helped children enter school. Moving stitching from homes to centers that could be easily monitored made it more difficult for the mostly female work force to work. One report said family incomes dropped by 20 percent. And rising costs in Pakistan persuaded many customers to switch to cheaper machine-made balls from China.”

IRONY 2: My quest to shop ethically and fairly for items without child labor, without sweatshop conditions, could backfire, leaving more families living in poverty and even more children working.

Case in point—after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the U.S. in 1992, approximately 50,000 children were released from jobs in Asia’s garment district. A UNICEF study in 1997, “State of the World’s Children” found that many of these former garment worker kids now worked as street hustlers or prostitutes, much “more hazardous and exploitative than garment production.”

In a 2005 article in the Christian Science Monitor, it’s written that “in Honduras, the site of the infamous Kathy Lee Gifford sweatshop scandal, the average apparel worker earns $13.10 per day, yet 44 percent of the country’s population lives on less than $2 per day…, In Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras, the average wage paid by a firm accused of being a sweatshop is more than double the average income in that country’s economy.”

While this information indicates that kids and adults are often better off staying in sweatshops, this is not an acceptable solution for me. How can we accept the lowest possible standards— poverty level wages— along with hazardous working conditions for children and adults? How can we accept a world where kids routinely are uneducated and have no future other than slave wages and conditions?

I understand that this was what life was like for the first immigrants to the U.S., who toiled away in places like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York. But this was not exactly a perfect situation, if we remember the March 25, 1911 fire at this factory that left 146 people dead. In fact, fires have continued to kill workers; the International Labor Rights Forum has done research showing that at least 1,000 garment workers have been killed and 3,000 injured in more than 275 unsafe factory incidents in Bangladesh since 1990.

IRONY 3: Christmas, a holiday meant for children, leaves many children in India practically enslaved in sweatshops that manufacture Christmas ornaments for the U.S. and other countries.

In an article published Dec. 21, 2012 on the Child Labor Coalition website, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, now the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, speaks about Indian children making these ornaments in a video. Brown talks about a rescue raid by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) which freed 14 of the child laborers—some as young as eight—from a sweatshop in Delhi. BBA, like the Child Labor Coalition is a member of the Global March Against Child Labor, an international umbrella group that works to reduce the worst forms of child labor.

“Children are being asked to work 17, 18, 19 hours a day,” said Brown. “They are being asked to work in unsanitary conditions. They are being asked to work without sunlight. Some of them are lacerated because they are working with glass. We found these children in this basement, they were not being paid, they had been trafficked…” Several children had been beaten by their crew leaders. The rescuers actually found 12 of the children imprisoned in a locked 6-foot by 6-foot cell.

While these children are free now, Brown says there are “tens of thousands of sweatshops around the world, where grossly underpaid workers, including many children, produce goods for us.

“The people I know in America who do not want to celebrate Christmas on the backs of the exploitation of these young children would be appalled if they knew that these decorations and trinkets and gifts and presents were coming because children had been violently kept prisoner to make these goods.” The UNESCO Institute for Statistics states that 61 million children around the world of primary age do not attend school—often because they work instead. “That’s an unacceptable thing for 2012,” said Brown.

Even more disturbing is the U.S. Department of Labor’s annual report which found that 134 goods are still produced by forced labor and child labor in 74 countries.

Clearly we need to find a way to get children out of factories, without having to resort to prostitution or begging. It’s sort of like trying to solve a Rubix Cube; as soon as you get one side perfectly done, you see that the other sides are more messed up than ever. With child labor, as soon as we manage to get children out of factories, other problems arise making the situation more complicated. But we can’t give up and we can’t accept child labor as a better solution than prostitution.

It’s so easy to buy something without thinking about where and how it’s made. It’s so easy to look the other way.

 

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Child Labor Coalition, Child Labor Deterrence Act, China Labor Watch, Christian Science Monitor, Christmas, Honduras, New York Times, Pakistan, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Samsung, U.S. Department of Labor, UNICEF

Posted By Shelly Sanders on January 6, 2013

My son just turned 13 and the next day, it seemed to me, his jeans were too short. “Floods,” said my fashionista daughter with disdain. “He looks ridiculous.” I bought him a couple pairs of jeans in the summer, but clearly Ian is going through a growth spurt for none are long enough now. Usually, when any of my three kids need clothes, I head to Winners (the Canadian version of Marshalls). But today, with my resolution to buy only things made fairly and ethically, I have to do a bit of research to see what brands comply with these stringent requirements.

First, I check out the International Labor Forum and find a list of sweatshop offenders published yearly, “The Sweatshop Hall of Fame”—Nike, Burberry, American Apparel, Abercrombie & Fitch, L.L. Bean, Gymboree, Hanes, Adidas and Kohls. I’m disappointed to see Nike on this list as I’ve worn this brand for running for at least 20 years. The shoes fit my narrow feet well and offer lots of support for long runs. If Nike is still on this list when the time comes for new shoes, I’m going to have to find a new brand or stop running. Tempting.

None of the jean brands I buy are on this list, but this doesn’t mean they’re not sweatshop offenders. I often buy H&M jeans for Ian, but I know from reading “Deadly Secrets,” a 2012 report by the International Labor Rights Forum, that H&M is the largest buyer of apparel from Bangladesh, where 1.3 million children work in hazardous conditions, where workers are underpaid, where safety and health codes of conduct are broken routinely. Research by the Forum shows that at least 1,000 garment workers have been killed and 3,000 injured in more than 275 factory incidents in Bangladesh since 1990.

H&M does have an explicit subsection on fire safety in its Code of Conduct, stating that emergency exits must be marked and unblocked, and evacuation must always be possible during working hours. In November, 2009, H&M inspected the Garib & Garib Sweater Factory in Bangladesh and reported nothing about inadequate firefighting equipment or lack of emergency exits. Four months later, a fire broke out and 21 workers died. The third floor emergency exit was padlocked. Was this padlock removed for the inspection by H&M or did the company look the other way?

H&M was, however, the only brand at Garib & Garib that compensated the injured workers and the families of deceased workers. In addition, on June 21, 2012, H&M, along with 14 other brands including Tesco, Gap and Levi Strauss sent a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urging an annual review of minimum wage taking into account inflation and the consumer price index.

But if wages rise than so do prices, a situation the Bangladesh garment industry is trying desperately to avoid by underpricing its nearest competitors. T-shirts from Bangladesh are often half the price of its nearest competitor, China, and sweaters are 17 percent cheaper than those from Vietnam, its biggest competitor.

I’m more confused than ever. While H&M does inspect factories, safety violations persist. And though H&M compensated victims of the Garib & Garib fire, and is pushing for higher wages, they still offer cheap clothing from Bangladesh where the lowest prices rule.

I could research other brands, but honestly, I’m frustrated by all the negative information I’m uncovering. Instead, I take a look at a sweatshop-free shopping site: www.sweatfree.org/shopping . Hopefully, this will give me some good insight on how and where to shop with a conscience.

The first site I check out is www.justiceclothing.com where I’m dismayed to find that this business, which features clothing made in the U.S. and Canada by unionized workers, is in trouble. “The rough economy and a year and a half of illness has left Justice in a state of stasis…” Still, they are offering in-stock items for sale. Eager to help, I search for jeans but discover there is no kids’ clothing at all.

Next, I go to www.store.lizalig.com which again, sells only men and women’s clothing. A long-time fan of recycled garments, I click on the recycled line and am smitten with a sweatshirt jacket and Tesa sweater. Ooops! I’m supposed to be looking for Ian. I add the site to my favorites and continue my quest.

On www.globalgirlfriend.com, my eyes light up when I see a colorful scarf and handbag. I really want to explore this site but manage to peel myself away, after adding it to my favorites.

Finally, a site that may have jeans for Ian…www.gr8kidswear.com. But this site is devoted to babies and toddlers.

My eyes are burning and I’m frustrated. I am starting to wonder if ethically-made jeans for kids exist. I give up, for now, and head to Value Village for a second-hand pair of jeans for Ian. Since my kids were born, when money was tight, I’ve been buying used clothes in good condition for them. It’s not a perfect solution; it doesn’t support fair trade, but it doesn’t support sweatshops either. And it will make my daughter happy to see Ian in jeans that cover his socks.

 

 

 

 

 

Category: Blog, Fair Trade Movement | No Comments »
Tags: Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, American Apparel, Bangladesh, Burberry, China, Gap, Garib & Garib Sweater Factory, Gymboree, H&M, Hanes, International Labor Forum, jeans, Justice Clothing, Kohls, L.L. Bean, Levi Strauss, Nike, sweatshop free shopping, Tesco, Vietnam