Fair Trade & Social Justice
OCA's New Fair World Project
The Organic Consumers Association launched the Fair World Project (FWP) in September 2010 to promote fair trade in commerce, especially in organic production systems in developing countries as well as at home, and to protect the term "fair trade" from dilution and misuse for mere PR purposes. FWP fills the critical need for a watchdog of misleading fair trade claims, and a cheerleader for dedicated fair trade mission-driven companies.
Major Western retailers sourcing clothing from Cambodia—a country marked by authoritarian rule and regularly ranked as one of the world’s worst countries for workers—are declining to endorse a proposed hike in the garment industry’s minimum wage that amounts to roughly $40 a month.
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Four-year-old Roberto Diaz is a round little fellow who strides confidently out into the yard. It's early, before most daycares would open. However this one in Courtland — 35 kilometres north of Sacramento in California's agricultural heartland — is for the children of the mostly poor, mostly Latino, farm workers, whose shifts in the fields often start before dawn.
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The first national prison labor strike in US history launched on September 9. Billed as a "Call to Action Against Slavery in America," the spark for the action came from the Free Alabama Movement (FAM), a prison-based organization that has been mobilizing across the state since 2012. Alabama has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the country.
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The union, together with the union of striking farm workers in Baja California, Mexico, has organized a boycott of Driscoll's Berries, the world's largest berry company. They demand that Driscoll's take responsibility for the conditions and violations of labor rights by the growers whose berries they sell. Piñeda describes the life of a farm worker producing Driscoll's berries, and his own history that brought him into the fields of Washington State.
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As Assembly Bill 1066, which would grant overtime pay to California farm workers, heads for a vote in the Assembly, farm workers and faith and civil rights groups are fighting for the votes needed to pass it. In June similar legislation, Assembly Bill 2757, failed when 14 Democrats either voted no, or failed to vote at all — the functional equivalent of a no vote.
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The government and mainstream media have reported that the TPP will benefit the agriculture sector. But what they are not saying is that the sector of the agriculture system that will benefit is the industrial system that harms people and the planet.
Those of us working in the fair trade movement, and in social justice have been working on fighting unjust trade agreements for years, and it is gaining momentum in the mainstream.
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The Pine Ridge Indian reservation is not the first place you’d look for good news about creating a new kind of economy that works for everyone. This corner of South Dakota includes several of the poorest counties in America, according to census figures. Ninety-seven percent of Pine Ridge’s Lakota Indian population lives below the federal poverty line, reports the American Indian Humanitarian Foundation. The unemployment rate is well over 50 percent.
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Thousands converged in Richmond, Virginia over the weekend to participate in the Fight For $15’s first-ever national convention. Central to the two-day gathering was the historic Richmond Resolution, a statement of purpose and strategy that members approved unanimously on August 13.
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August 9 is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. This year’s theme is Indigenous Peoples and Education to highlight the importance of education and preserving indigenous knowledge.
Around the world, many indigenous people cannot access the basic right to education. Their traditional methods of teaching, learning, and cultivating food are not always respected by education systems and teachers.
Pope Francis argues that modern economy's worship of 'god of money' leads to disenfranchisement and extremism
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