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.
Truthout interviewed David Bacon, author of In the Fields of the North/En los campos del norte, about how amplifying the voices of migrant agricultural workers can help in the struggle for social justice.
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Formula milk companies are continuing to use aggressive, clandestine and often illegal methods to target mothers in the poorest parts of the world to encourage them to choose powdered milk over breastfeeding, a new investigation shows.
A Guardian/Save the Children investigation in some of the most deprived areas of the Philippines found that Nestlé and three other companies were offering doctors, midwives and local health workers free trips to lavish conferences, meals, tickets to shows and the cinema and even gambling chips, earning their loyalty. This is a clear violation of
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On Tuesday, 3M settled a suit filed by the state of Minnesota for $850 million, averting a much-awaited trial over the company’s responsibility for massive amounts of waste containing perfluorinated chemicals, which it had dumped in the state for more than 40 years. The suit charged that the Minnesota-based company, “acted with a deliberate disregard for the high risk of injury to the citizens and wildlife of Minnesota.”
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U.S. Right to Know sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today over CDC’s failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provide documents in response to six requests about its interactions with The Coca-Cola Company.
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Things are so bad for the planet right now that it’s easy to get depressed about it, says Patagonia Inc. founder Yvon Chouinard.
The cure for that depression, he says, is action.
So he launched Patagonia Action Works, which Chouinard describes as a “dating site” that connects individuals with opportunities to support and get involved with grassroots environmental groups. It matches people with events and volunteering opportunities in their area as well as petitions they can sign and ways to donate money. Participating organizations cover issues of land, water, climate,
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Facts don’t matter in commentaries printed by Newsweek so long as the writer “seems genuine.” That’s the take-away from a troubling email exchange with Newsweek Opinion Editor Nicholas Wapshott in response to concerns and questions I raised about a recent commentary attacking the organic industry.
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Accusations of “fake news” are all the rage now, with people often throwing around the term when they read an article that tells them something they don’t want to hear. But an entire industry called “product defense,” created years ago by the tobacco industry, uses falsehoods and misdirection to protect companies from bad media and regulatory scrutiny. The pharmaceutical industry is no stranger to these tactics.
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Wage theft and safety violations were rampant in Houston’s low-wage construction industry even before the storm hit, according to local worker centers. One study found that 12.4 percent of construction workers in the city suffered injuries on the job. “The Texas construction industry is … incredibly dangerous,” says José Garza, executive director of the Workers Defense Project. “For years, the industry has absolutely failed to prioritize safety.”
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NAFTA has been in place since 1994. It is one of those classic neoliberal trade deals that essayist George Scialabba describes as “investor rights agreements masquerading as ‘free trade’ and constraining the rights of governments to protect their own workers, environments, and currencies.” As such, it has served corporate interests well.
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Refugees often have little more than what they can carry when they arrive in a new country. But some have found a way to use the flavors of their pasts to raise money, build a new life, and help find acceptance in their new homes through the Displaced Kitchens project by Nasser Jab and Jabber Al-Bihani.
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