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Author
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Topic: The high (moral) cost of chocolate, and clothing
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Mr. Anonymous
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4813
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posted 21 December 2004 03:06 AM
Apparantly child slave labour is used in the raising of half the world's cocoa, used in the making of chocolate... not to mention the near-slave (sometimes child) labour used in sweatshops making most of the clothing for sale in Canada. From the excellent Edmonton magazine Vue:
http://vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=1150 The holiday season, while so full of high expectation, joy and celebration for wealthy consumers, is based on international exploitation so pervasive it’s difficult to find an industry that isn’t involved in it. Take Christmas chocolates, for example: according to a 2001 BBC news report, children in Malia, West Africa are being sold at the going price of $30 (U.S.) to be enslaved for cocoa production. “At least 15,000 children are thought to be over in the neighbouring Ivory Coast, producing cocoa which then goes towards making almost half of the world’s chocolate,” says the report, noting that some children younger than 11 years of age. And while outright slavery may not be the rule of production in toys, electronics, sporting goods or athletic wear, near-slavery conditions are. Also... ...while a portion of Gifford’s family clothing line profits was intended to aid disadvantaged American children, the clothes themselves were made in Honduran sweatshops by 13-year-old girls working 13-hour shifts under armed guard for 31 cents an hour. Gifford broke down in tears on North American television when the press grabbed hold of the story, threatening to sue him and the tiny NLC, but her threats proved empty and she was eventually forced to sign a code of conduct for her clothing manufacturers, which was to include independent monitoring, a story detailed in the Canadian documentary The Corporation. and... “If you listen to the Nike or the Gap, you’d think they were the Jesuits going around the world to help poor people,” Kernaghan continues. “According to Nike’s own documents, there’s eight cents of labour in a shirt [made in the Dominican Republic]. They sell that shirt for $22.99, which means that labour cost three-tenths of one per cent of the retail price. Basically, they have wiped out the cost of labour. Right now, all across the developing world, it’s these young teenagers that are carrying the entire system on their backs.”
From: Somewhere out there... Hey, why are you logging my IP address? | Registered: Jan 2004
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Mr. Anonymous
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4813
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posted 01 January 2005 07:07 AM
quote:
Originally posted by peppermint:
I know a few adult 3D workers ( the genteel term in these parts for sweatshop workers brought in from South East Asia) and their attitude seems to be that while their current situation is far from ideal, it's better than being unemployed and in their home countries. I think maybe the thing to do is to stage a letter writing campaign directed at these companies and their labor practices. Boycotts tend to backfire because tougher financial situations for companies tend to result in worse working environments- not better.
I think the issue is one of fairness. Assuming the workers contribute X percent to the value of the item, all things considered they should be recieving roughly X percent of the revenue from the sale of said item. Even after transportation, overhead, advertising, interest on loans, etc. this is a hell of a lot more than 30 cents an hour. If a sweatshirt is sold for $30, the labour might be worth $3-5 per shirt, and would probably not affect the profits of a popular company to any significant detrimental extent. If you don't like these numbers, pick your own, they will most likely be many times what is currently paid. Paid roughly what their labour is worth would do a heck of a lot of good to the workers, their families, their communities, even their countries. As for boycotts, I think big companies spending large amounts of money on advertising are succeptable to boycotts, especially as the image and the reality of the conditions in the manufacturing plants are so different. Nike, for example, won't go bankrupt due to tough financial conditions and will change if people start considering working conditions when buying goods Nike might produce. With the terrible working conditions, this shouldn't be too hard to get across with a few determined people with enough resources to let people know how things are.
From: Somewhere out there... Hey, why are you logging my IP address? | Registered: Jan 2004
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Amy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2210
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posted 01 January 2005 04:24 PM
"Intensive banana production and the application of pesticides can have a devastating toll on the ecosystem of the producing countries. For optimum production, plantations need an array of drainage ditches, all of which eventually empty into the region's rivers and finally the sea. According to a IUCN (International Union for the conservation of Nature) report of 1992, the average use of pesticides on banana plantations in the second major banana exporting country in the world, Costa Rica, is as high as 44 kg/ha/year, compared to an average of 2.7 kg/ha/year for most crops in industrialised countries. The EARTH College (Escuela de Agricultura de la Region Tropical Humeda) estimates that of the fungicides applied by aeroplanes some forty times during each cultivation cycle, 15% is lost to wind drift and falls outside of the plantation, 40% ends up on the soil rather than on the plants and approximately 35% is washed off by rain. This results in a 90% loss of the estimated 11 million litres of fungicide, water and oil emulsion applied each year to the banana production regions. Furthermore, for every ton of bananas shipped, two tons of waste is left behind, not least mountains of plastic bags sprayed with herbicides.
Costa Rica is also at the top of the list of countries with a high incidence of pesticide poisonings. The average consumption of pesticides per capita is 4 kg. per person per year - eight times as high as the world average of 0.5 kg. - and twice as much as the average in Central America. Studies conducted by the National University of Heredia reveal that rates of pesticide poisonings are three times higher in the banana regions than in the rest of Costa Rica. According to a 1993 report, banana production rates first for occupational accidents (72%), followed by decorative plant and flower production (7%), sugar cane (6%), coffee (5%), pineapples (4%) and pesticide manufacturers (2%). The figure given for occupational poisonings in Costa Rica is 4.5% (i.e. 4.5% of all agricultural workers suffer from some kind of pesticide poisoning every year), and is well above the World Health Organisation estimate of 3% for developing countries. "Bananas, flowers, and sugar, too! [ 01 January 2005: Message edited by: Amy ]
From: the whole town erupts and/ bursts into flame | Registered: Feb 2002
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 01 January 2005 04:59 PM
quote:
September 1, 2004
Slaves are cheap these days. Their price is the lowest it's been in about 4,000 years. And right now the world has a glut of human slaves - 27 million by conservative estimates and more than at any time in human history
Christian Science Monitor - US
And an interesting UNESCO report(I can't find for some reason) estimates that about 500 000 children starve to death every year as a result of the WB/IMF's burdens for loan repayment by poorest countries. Their plan for "globalism" amounts to little more than creating a few rich bastards in poor countries in order to install an elite upper class who will then become capitalists themselves as well as keepers of the ring, so to speak. They couldn't plan a lemonade sale if they tried, and millions of poor people become stuck paying off bad loans handed off to corrupt despots hand picked by west. Nothing gets built, no sewers, no water, no friggin anything except fat bank accounts and perhaps even round trip kick-backs for the parties involved, according to various commentators. The principal on these bad loans is often paid back several times over if not for leg-break interest rates charged by international banks. But the debts are socialized among the world's poor, who have nothing to do with it whatsoever, as well as us taxpayers. That's institutionalized slavery, and we need a god damned revolution to rid ourselves of the parasites. It seems that real plan for globalism is to maintain a constant state of underdevelopment of whole nations of people. As Albert Einstein once said, humanity must rid itself of this predatory capitalism. Socialism is the next logical phase of human development. [ 01 January 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Rufus Polson
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3308
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posted 02 January 2005 04:17 AM
quote:
Originally posted by FPTP:
alternatives:www.cocoacamino.com
Dashed useful, FPTP.
It's always so much more useful to know what I *can* buy rather than what I shouldn't. If I know what's good to get the converse rather takes care of itself, what?
It's also so much more heartening and less confusing. Sometimes I feel as if there's nothing I can buy which isn't evil so I might as well give up. But now--if I can get good, fair trade cocoa and dark chocolate, I have a serious start with one of the most important things there is. I've been saying for some time that what's needed is a well-sorted, searchable "what's progressively buyable" webpage. Something such that if you go there, you can find a link to a non-evil way to get whatever you might happen to need.
From: Caithnard College | Registered: Nov 2002
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