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21

CLC Member ILRF Calls on U.S. Customs Service to Halt Imports of Forced Labor Cotton from Uzbekistan

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(Washington, D.C.) – A formal complaint against the importation of cotton from Uzbekistan grown and harvested with forced labor was filed today by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), a leading American human and labor rights watchdog organization. Under the Tariff Act of 1930, the U.S. Customs Service is required to deny entry to goods that arrive at U.S. ports that contain materials made with forced labor. For decades, the government of Uzbekistan, under the dictator Islam Karimov, has forced millions of children, teachers, nurses, doctors, public sector workers and private sector employees to pick cotton under appalling conditions. Those who refuse are expelled from school, fired from their jobs, denied public benefits or worse. The government combines these penalties with threats, detains and tortures activists seeking to monitor the situation and continues to refuse the International Labor Organization’s efforts to monitor the cotton harvest. The complaint calls on U.S. Customs to issue an immediate detention order on all pending and future imports of cotton goods manufactured by Daewoo International Corporation, Indorama Corporation, and other companies processing cotton in Uzbekistan. Daewoo International, a South Korean-based company owned by the steel manufacturer POSCO (NYSE: PKX), and Indorama Corporation (www.indorama.com), a Singapore based multi-national that produces yarn, fabrics and organic cotton products, are two of the largest processors of Uzbek cotton. According […]

22

Child Labor Advocates Come Together for Three Days of Sharing and Strategizing

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 The world’s child labor advocacy community does not gather together very often, but it did just that Sunday, July 28 through Monday, July 30, here in Washington for an international conference on agricultural child labor. More than 60 percent of the 215 million child laborers globally work in farms and fields–if you’re trying to solve the puzzle that child labor presents, agricultural child labor is the biggest piece of that puzzle and should not be ignored. Children who work in agriculture are exposed to pesticides and hazardous equipment like machetes. If you’ve ever seen a seven- or eight-year-old opening a cocoa pod with a machete, you know what kinds of dangers children are exposed to on farms internationally. The Global March Against Child Labor, a world-wide network of civil society groups, teacher unions, and trade unions, organized the conference with logistical support from the Child Labor Coalition (CLC)–co-chaired by NCL and the American Federation of Teachers–and CLC members, especially the Solidarity Center and the International Labor Rights Forum. About 150 representatives from 40 different countries attended all or part of the three-day event, about half of those were from developing countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and the Philippines with endemic child labor problems. Senator Harkin (Iowa-D), the congressional champion who has led a many-year crusade to reduce child labor, […]

23

Introduction to NCL’s Five Most Dangerous Jobs for Teens 2012 Report

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In late July 2011, two 14-year-olds girls, Jade Garza and Hannah Kendall went off to their temporary job of detasseling corn in a field in northwestern Illinois where they worked for the Monsanto Corporation. The girls were close friends and performing a job that many teens in the Midwest perform safely. The day was not especially unusual except the field was very wet. Somehow, one of the girls made contact with a center-pivot irrigation system that had become charged with electricity. A tremendous current went through her body. The second girl went to help and was electrocuted. Within seconds, the two girls were dead. A 13-year-old boy, working nearby wanted to help but realized that if he touched them, he would die too. Their friends, their teachers, their families were devastated. In a typical year, 25-35 children die at work in the U.S. Fifteen years ago, that number was over 70. This report is an attempt to educate the public about workplace dangers teen workers face with the hope that teenagers, their parents, and employers can work together to reduce accidents and fatalities. Summer jobs can contribute meaningfully to a child’s development and maturity and teach new skills and responsibilities, but the safety of each job must be a consideration. In the following pages, the National Consumers League (NCL) identifies […]

24

More than 150 Groups Urged U.S. to Implement Child Safety Rules for Agriculture But U.S. DOL Succumbs to Political Pressure from Farm Lobby and Withdraws Proposed Protections

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[The CLC submitted the following letter to Secretary Solis, urging her to implement the first update of occupational child safety rules for agriculture in four decades. The letter was originally submitted in March with 105 signatories. This update had 156 organizational endorsements. Unfortunately, the Department of Labor withdrew the proposed rules in late April under strong pressure from the Farm Lobby .] April 19, 2012 The Honorable Hilda L. Solis Secretary U.S. Department of Labor 200 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20210 RE: Updates to the Agricultural Hazardous Occupations Orders as Proposed by the Department of Labor Dear Secretary Solis: The Child Labor Coalition represents millions of Americans, including teachers, workers, farmworkers, farmworker advocates, and human rights activists concerned about the safety, education, and welfare of children who work in agriculture. We understand the needs of our nation’s farmworker families and have seen the effects of agricultural work, especially on children. The Coalition, along with the organizations listed below, support the proposed changes to the agricultural hazardous orders and implore the Department to implement the changes as quickly as possible. As many as 500,000 children and teenagers toil in agriculture, an industry consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous industries in America. Last year, 12 of the 16 children under age 16 who suffered fatal occupational injuries worked in […]

25

Child Labor Coalition Announces Top 10 Child Labor Stories of 2011

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List Points to Some of 2012’s Child Labor Priorities Washington, DC—Advocates from the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), a group representing more than two dozen organizations concerned with protecting working youth, has released a list of the top ten child labor stories from 2011. The list represents international and American issues in child labor that received considerable attention in 2011 and what advocates hope is an increase in attention to exploitation faced by vulnerable child workers that has previously gone unnoticed by mainstream media. “The year brought some much needed attention to serious child labor problems in the supply chains of some of the world’s largest companies,” said Reid Maki, Coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition and the Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards for the National Consumers League (NCL). “However, we also saw a disturbing move in a few states to roll back long-standing child labor protections and a much-publicized attack on child labor laws by a presidential candidate. The year’s 10 biggest stories, according to the CLC, included (in no particular order): Apple acknowledges that child labor contributed to the making of iPhones and other electronic gadgets in its Chinese factories. In February, Apple announced that it had found 91 children worked at its suppliers in 2010—a nine-fold increase from the previous year. The company also acknowledged […]

26

107 Groups Endorse the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which would extend child labor protections to many children working in U.S. agriculture.

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The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment [CARE has been reintroduced as H.R. 2234 in the current session of Congress] The CARE Act  has been endorsed by the following 107 organizations: Action for Children North Carolina; AFL-CIO; Alliance for Justice; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; American Association of University Women; American Federation of Teachers; American Rights at Work; America’s Promise Alliance; Amnesty International USA; Asian American Justice Center; Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance; Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs; Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers  International Union; Bon Appétit Management Company; California Human Development; California Institute for Rural Studies; California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation; Calvert Group Ltd.; Center for Community Change; Change to Win; Child Labor Coalition; Coalition of Immokalee Workers; Coalition of Labor Union Women; Children’s Alliance, Washington State; Communications Workers of America; Covenant with North Carolina’s Children; Dialogue on Diversity; East Coast Migrant Head Start Project; El Centro Latino of Western North Carolina; Farmworker Advocacy Network [North Carolina]; Farm Labor Organizing Committee; Farmworker Association of Florida; Farmworker Justice; First Focus Campaign for Children; Food Chain Workers Alliance; Galen Films; Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; General Federation of Women’s Clubs; Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; Hispanic Federation; Honest Tea; Human Rights Watch; Interfaith Worker Justice; International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers; International Brotherhood of the Teamsters; International Initiative to […]

27

ASSE Rolls Out Its New Target Teen Work Safety Tools Aimed At Preventing Work Injuries, Illnesses

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[from www.safetyonline.com] March 3, 2011 American Society of Safety Engineers roll out new target teen safety kit aimed at preventing youth work injuries, illnesses Des Plaines, IL – Slippery floors, hot cooking equipment, heavy lifting, loud noises and working alone are some of the dangers teens face as they experience a first job or seasonal employment. If not aware of the risk and properly trained and protected, these dangers can lead to serious injuries or fatalities for teen workers. To help teens stay safe at work, the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) has developed a new, comprehensive “Target Teen Work Safety” electronic tool kit (www.asse.org/teensafety) it is rolling out this month to ASSE chapters.

28

Tulane Report Focuses Attention on Child Labor in Cocoa Industry

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The Payson Center’s Report can be downloaded here: https://childlabor-payson.org–Reid] West African children still exploited to make chocolate By Marco Chown Oved Associated Press Updated: 10/08/2010 09:06:06 AM CDT ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — West Africa’s cocoa industry is still trafficking children and using forced child labor despite nearly a decade of efforts to eliminate the practices, according to an independent audit published by Tulane University. A U.S.-sponsored solution called the Harkin-Engel Protocol was signed in 2001 by cocoa industry members to identify and eliminate cocoa grown using forced child labor. A child-labor-free certification process was supposed to cover 50 percent of cocoa growing regions in West Africa by 2005 and 100 percent by the end of 2010. But independent auditors at Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development said in a late September report that efforts have not even come close to these targets. “Hundreds of thousands of children are involved in work on cocoa farms,” the report said. Child trafficking for labor also continues virtually unabated as well, it said. Thousands of children travel from impoverished neighboring countries to the cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast, where some of them live in substandard conditions and receive little or no pay. Research in border areas shows that only a tiny proportion of children in cocoa farming ever see a police officer on their […]

29

Child Labor Horrors in Fashion Industry: “Hide the Shame” is the New Strategy (2007 Press Release)

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Washington, DC, November 8, 2007 — With news last Friday that an additional 76 child slaves were rescued from Delhi’s embroidery dens, the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) has called for immediate and responsible action by brands and retailers to end child labor and trafficking of children, as well as forced labor, in their supply chain and sourcing. The Global March Against Child Labor (GMACL), for which the CLC serves as its North American coordinator, estimates that as many as 5,000-7,000 embroidery units may be operating in Delhi, with each unit employing between 25 and 30 children. Many of these children are victims of trafficking and bonded labor, a form of slavery. Gap Inc. acknowledged on October 29, that one of its suppliers was using child slave labor. Children as young as 10 said they worked 16 hours a day for no pay, according to the British Observer newspaper’s investigation. The retailer issued a public statement and destroyed the products, which would have otherwise ended up on shelves at GapKids. While Gap owned up to the problem, committed to correct it, and vowed to bring its suppliers into full compliance with its standards, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) reports that a cover-up is being attempted by some other companies doing business in India. In essence, ITGLWF is […]