Efforts to protect farmworker children received a boost in June, 2010 when the NY Times front page featured an article on child labor in U.S. agriculture: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/us/19migrant.html?emc=eta1 An accompanying slide show can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/19/us/20100619_BERRY.html
By James Rupert June 9 (Bloomberg) — Asian workers who stitch nearly all the world’s soccer balls have seen little improvement in lives dominated by poverty, a report said days before the start of the World Cup, which promises sports gear companies a sales bonanza. Thirteen years after companies such as Germany’s Adidas AG and Nike Inc. joined labor and development organizations to end the use of an estimated 7,000 children to stitch soccer balls, “child labor continues to exist” in the three main ball-making countries of Pakistan, China and India, according a June 7 report by the Washington-based International Labor Rights Forum. In those countries and Thailand, the fourth major ball- producer, adult workers often are paid too little to support their families. Some children still stitch balls at home, while others have migrated to new work, the report said. “The international campaign of the 1990s removed bonded child labor from our soccer-ball industry, but these children moved to auto workshops, brick kilns and the like,” said Arshed Makhdoom Sabir, president of Ours Pakistan, a non-profit, development organization in Sialkot, Pakistan. Sialkot is the hub of an industry that made about 75 percent of the world’s hand-sewn soccer balls in the 1990s, and still makes most high-quality balls, the ILRF report said. Adidas is marketing Sialkot-made replicas of its […]
ALBANY – The State Senate passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (S2311D/Savino) making New York the first state in the nation to provide new standards of worker protections for more than 200,000 employees in an industry which has gone unregulated for decades. The legislation passed 33-28 in the Senate. The Assembly has yet to act. This legislation guarantees protection from discrimination, notice of termination, paid sick days and holidays, and other basic labor protections long denied to nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers employed in private homes.
by Sula Kim WVEC.com POQUOSON — A Poquoson tree trimming company has been fined $185,000 in the November 2009 death of a 14-year-old worker. Frank Gornick was working for his uncle’s company Old Dominion Tree and Lawn Care Specialists and was on a three-person team doing debris removal following the Nor’easter. Police said he was using a shovel to drop debris into the wood chipper’s hopper when it got caught in the machine’s blades, dragging him in and killing him instantly. The Va. Department of Labor and Industry issued its findings Thursday, saying the machine shouldn’t have been used. “The wooden paddle was missing, the feet control was missing, the lower door hadn’t been installed. There were six things missing,” said Jennifer Wester, Cooperative Programs director. She says the report concluded a metal shovel was used to put items in the chipper, even though the manufacturer forbids it. According to Wester, workers weren’t wearing hard hats or eye protection. The company has 15 days to contest the findings or take action as outlined by the state.
News Release WHD News Release: [05/19/2010] Contact Name: Dolline Hatchett or Joseph De Wolk Phone Number: (202) 693-4676 or (202) 579-7359 Release Number: 10-0666-NAT US Department of Labor announces publication of final child labor rules for non-agricultural work Department now to begin review of child labor in agriculture regulations WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the publication of final regulations updating protections for young employees in non-agricultural work for the 21st century economy. “Today’s regulations protect young employees from dangerous machines and tools, excessive work hours and other hazards at work,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “These rules incorporate recommendations from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and take a common sense approach to keeping young workers safe from harm.” The new regulations give employers clear notice that there are certain jobs children are simply not allowed to perform. They also expand opportunities for young workers to gain safe, positive work experience in fields such as advertising, teaching, banking and information technology, as well as through school-supervised work-study programs. “With the completion of these rules, I have asked my staff to turn their attention to strengthening the regulatory protections for children working in agriculture,” added Secretary Solis. “We cannot put a price on the health and safety of a child, or on the […]
MICHAEL J. CRUMB | 05/10/10 06:59 PM | WATERLOO, Iowa — A former underage worker cried Monday while testifying she was exposed to harsh chemicals at an Iowa slaughterhouse where she and other teens worked 12 hours a day, six days a week. Yesenia Cordero Mendoza, now 18, was one of two former underage workers to testify against former manager Sholom Rubashkin, who faces 83 child labor violation charges stemming from a May 2008 raid at the plant in which 389 illegal immigrants, including 31 children, were detained. It’s the second trial for Rubashkin, who awaits sentencing in a separate federal financial fraud case that followed the raid at the former Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville. Mendoza began crying while testifying about the raid and the arrest of her boyfriend and other workers. “I don’t want to remember it,” she told prosecutors through a translator. She testified she was 15 when she used false documents to get hired at the slaughterhouse. It was common knowledge that the plant hired minors, so she forged documents that gave her age as older, and plant officials never asked for any other identification to verify it, she said. When government inspectors came to the plant, underage workers were sent home, she said. Mendoza and Rony Ordonez Capir, who was 16 when hired, said the work […]
By GRANT SCHULTE • gschulte@… • May 3, 2010 Immigrants who were allegedly exposed to poisonous chemicals and dangerous machinery as minors will testify against their former bosses at Agriprocessors Inc. in a state child-labor trial that begins this week in Waterloo. The trial is the latest chapter in the two-year saga of Sholom Rubashkin and his former eastern Iowa kosher slaughterhouse. Prosecutors allege that Rubashkin, 50, and other top managers allowed underage workers to perform risky jobs and work excessive hours at the plant in violation of state law.
[from The Montgomery News (Penn.), Published: Tuesday, April 20, 2010] By Jesse Reilly Staff Writer With the number of television and movie productions increasing in Pennsylvania the state’s House Republican Policy Committee held a public hearing at the Blair Mill Inn in Horsham Wednesday to begin the process of possibly updating the Keystone State’s child labor laws. “According to the Internet Movie Database, 922 productions took place in Pennsylvania from 2002 to 2008,” state Rep. Stanley Saylor, chairman of the committee, said, adding that knowing that the industry is growing the committee was hoping to determine if the state’s laws are adequate, if they are being enforced and what needs to be done to strengthen them. The staggering rise of reality television shows also energized the need for change, state Rep. Tom Murt said. “The laws must evolve too,” he said. “We need to ensure that we are providing appropriate protection for the children.” Providing testimony at the hearing were former child star Paul Petersen, civil rights advocate and attorney Gloria Allred, Rebecca Gullan, a professor of psychology at Gwynedd-Mercy College; Robert O’Brien, the executive deputy secretary for the state’s Department of Labor and Industry; as well as Kevin Kreider, the brother of television reality star Kate Gosselin, and his wife, Jodi. Having participated in the early days of […]
Monday, CLC co-chair and AFT Secretary-Treasurer Antonio Cortese spoke before the Department of Agriculture Consultative Group working on measures to eliminate the use of child labor in agricultural imports, urging the panel to design a system that will inform consumers about practices that abuse children in the production, processing and distribution of agricultural products imported into the United States. Statement of Antonio Cortese, Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers Before the Consultative Group to Eliminate the Use of Child Labor and Forced Labor in Imported Agricultural Products Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture Public Meeting March 29, 2010 9:30 a.m. USDA Headquarters, Jamie L. Whitten Building, Room 104-A Good Morning, members of the Consultative Group. I am Antonio Cortese, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers. The AFT—which is the second-largest union in the AFL-CIO—represents more than 1.4 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators. Our members work with children and youth every day in classrooms and many other settings, and we are very concerned about their well-being here and around the world. I am also co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, and a member of the board of trustees of Freedom House, a nonpartisan advocate […]
From The Sunday Times March 14, 2010 Bitter plight of the vanilla trade children Dan McDougall in the Vanilla Coast, Madagascar The pods used in ice cream made by some of the world’s best-known brands is produced with the help of children working on plantations in remote regions of Madagascar NOARY’S fingers are stained a thin, luminous yellow by the sweetest spice of all. Close to exhaustion, his tiny body is pouring with tropical sweat. At eight years old, he has been tending the vanilla orchids since before first light after walking to work, barefoot and in darkness, alongside his brother, Ando, just a year older. Here, in the remote Sava region of Madagascar, tens of thousands of children are being forced into the trade in black vanilla pods that sell for up to £4 each in British supermarkets. Such is the dire state of the small farms in northern Madagascar, the vanilla capital of the world, that children are increasingly involved in production of the pods, a key ingredient of some of the world’s most famous ice cream brands. Vanilla from the island, off the southeast coast of Africa, flavours everything from Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s to Marks & Spencer desserts and numerous items on the shelves of supermarkets. In an impoverished settlement near Sambava, the district capital […]
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