Are you on Facebook? Want to be our friend? Come find us on Facebook and support pesticide-free organic cotton and fair labor!

May 10 is World Fair Trade Day. This year the Fair Trade Resource Network is trying to set the world record for the World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break. What is a “Fair Trade Coffee Break?” –

“A Fair Trade Break is simply an opportunity for a community, a workplace, a class, or a group of friends to take time out to consume, showcase, and discuss the benefits of Fair Trade. The focus is on increasing awareness and educating others about the importance of Fair Trade and the producers who make and grow the products that we consume.”

Download a 1 page PDF doc with some brief info on fair trade coffee, bananas, chocolate, flowers and other products. See this page for all of these free, cool resources.

Where can you get your hands on some Fair Trade Coffee in the Boise area? Two that come to mind off the top of my head –

Java – in Hyde Park

Rembrandt – down in Eagle

- If I missed any - sorry, and please let me know by posting here.

Megha Bahree, Forbes, has been writing about Fair Trade for years now and in February wrote an excellent article about how cotton is being harvested in cotton fields of India – today. This is still going on – this did not stop after the Nike sweatshop fiasco. I really recommend reading the article, it is an excellent read and very well written and will change they way you purchase. Marshall Loeb provided a summary of tips Mr. Bahree provided on how you can steer clear of purchasing products made using child labor –

- Know the company and learn about its labor policies. Every time you buy an imported homemade carpet, an embroidered pair of jeans or a soccer ball chances are you’re acquiring something fashioned by a child. Such goods are available in places like GapKids, Macy’s, ABC Carpet & Home, Lowe’s and Home Depot. These retailers say they are aware of child-labor problems, but a supply chain has many links and even a well-intentioned importer can’t police them all.

- Check the label. This may seem obvious, but if you are serious about fighting child labor, check the item’s registered identification number (RN) on the label against the Federal Trade Commission’s database ( http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/rn/index.shtml). Among the noteworthy offenders are Mali, CambodiaGuatemala, with 63%, 38% and 23%, respectively, of children working. and

- Keep an eye out for certifications. While no universal certification exists for child-labor-free products, there are groups that monitor specific industries. The Rugmark Foundation (www.rugmark.org) certifies rug manufacturers that adhere to strict labor standards. TransFair USA (www.transfairusa.org) monitors commodities like coffee and tea and makes sure farmers are paid a far price for fair-trade-certified goods. Additionally, when you see the emblem of the AFL-CIO (www.aflcio.org) on a product or store, you can rest assured the employees who make the product are fairly treated members of a union.

- Avoid counterfeits. Counterfeit items such as watches, purses and clothing don’t just shortchange the companies that produce the real thing. Their    proceeds often support criminal activity, and there’s a fair chance the goods were made in a sweatshop.

In the article written by Megha Bahree of Forbes Magazine he interviews a cottonseed grower in India -

“Cottonseed farmer Talari Babu is a slim, wiry man dressed, when a reporter visited him, in black for a Hindu fast. “Children have small fingers, and so they can remove the buds very quickly,” he says, while insisting that he no longer employs the underage. “They worked fast, much faster than the adults, and put in longer hours and didn’t demand long breaks. Plus, I could shout at them and beat or threaten them if need be to get more work out of them.” He could also tempt them with candy and cookies and movies at night.”

- and these aren’t organic cotton growing fields - the article by Megha Bahree continues;

“Children’s hands are ideal for the delicate work with stamens and pistils. Their bodies are no better at withstanding the poisons. At least once a week, says Davuluri Venkateshwarlu, head of Glocal, farmers spray the fields with pesticides like Nuvacron, banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and endosulfan, methomyl and Metasystox, considered by the EPA to be highly toxic. Venkateshwarlu ticks off the effects of overexposure: diarrhea, nausea, difficulty in breathing, convulsions, headaches and depression.”

This is the reality of modern uncertified labor and conventional cotton growing methods. The UN International Labor Organization guesses that there are 218 million child laborers worldwide, 7 in 10 of them in agriculture, followed by service businesses (22%) and industry (9%). Asia-Pacific claims the greatest share of underage workers (122 million), then sub-Saharan Africa (49 million).

A previous Sattler Post on Child Labor

Take your Town Fair Trade

Eco-friendly and Fair Labor Clothing

Sattler Clothing

Nike has made a shoe made from trash. Nike teamed up with 2-time MVP Steve Nash (Phoenix Suns), the best guard in the league (unbiased opinion), to make a shoe completely from manufacturing waste. Now, the question that everyone is asking – “Sure, nice shoe, where is it made?” Nike has been tending it’s own achilles heel since the New York Times published a series of articles back in 1996 and 1997 that reported “grim conditions” and widespread human-rights abuses in Nike factories.

The Suns All-Star point guard said “Any opportunity to promote the environment and preserve our planet is a step in the right direction”. The Trash Talk shoe meets Nikes Design Standards for sustainability in the following ways:

1. The upper is pieced together from leather and synthetic leather waste from the factory floor using zig-zag stitching.

2. The mid-sole uses scrap-ground foam from factory production.

3. The outsole uses environmentally-preferred rubber that reduces toxics and incorporates Nike Grind material from footwear-outsole manufacturing waste.

4. The Phoenix Suns’ colorways will have shoe laces and sockliners that use “environmentally preferred” (we’re not clear what that means) materials, and will be packaged in a fully recycled cardboard shoe box.

According to a treehugger.com article “A limited number of the Trash Talk will be made available in three different colorways: Two Phoenix Suns colorways (home and away), plus one colorway for Nash to wear this week for the All-Star Game. You can get the All-Star colorway this week at the House of Hoops by Foot Locker in New York City and New Orleans for a suggested retail price of $100.

For Phoenix Suns fans, the team’s colorways will launch on April 22 at the House of Hoops. ::Nike”

“Every time you buy an imported handmade carpet, an embroidered pair of jeans, a beaded purse, a decorated box or a soccer ball there’s a good chance you’re acquiring something fashioned by a child.” (Megha Bahree - Forbes Magazine)

Here at Sattler we realized that we talk a lot about the importance of keeping chemicals out of the ground and living a more sustainable lifestyle but we don’t talk enough about our commitment to using ethical workplaces in the production of apparel. Megha Bahree, Forbes Magazine, recently wrote an excellent article on Child Labor in India. A nation that is home to 46 billionaires and 300 million that live on less than $1 a day. Cotton in India is a scary story. After you drive past the sign that reads “Monsanto India Limited Child Labour Free Fields” you meet workers like Jyothi Ramulla Naga, a 4ft tall girl who says she is 15, but looks no older than 12, and says she has been working there for the past 5 years - getting paid 20 cents an hour. According to Glocal Research, a consultancy in Hyderabad that monitors agricultural labor conditions, 420,00 laborers working in cottonseed farms are under and of those an estimated 54% are under 14. An excerpt from the article -

“A typical Monsanto farmer owns only 1 to 4 acres of intensely cultivated cotton plants and keeps up to a dozen workers busy for the better part of a year tending to the plot. Often the farmer is from a higher caste (Brahmin), the laborers from a landless lower caste (Dalit). The pay, typically $38 to $76 a month, goes directly to the parents of the workers. Sometimes the farmer pays for the labor in advance, or offers a loan, charging the parents interest of 1.5% to 2% a month. There may be deductions from the pay envelope for food. Boarding for migrant laborers is usually free–often a spot on the farmer’s veranda or in a shed with fertilizers or on a rooftop, next to the drying cotton.

The season starts with the sowing of seed, staggered over a three-month period that begins in April. Two months after a row is planted the bushes are in bloom and the real work begins. Pollen from male plants must be dusted by hand onto the flowers of female plants. The pollination work lasts for 70 to 100 days and is followed by cotton-picking staggered over several months. Children’s hands are ideal for the delicate work with stamens and pistils. Their bodies are no better at withstanding the poisons. At least once a week, says Davuluri Venkateshwarlu, head of Glocal, farmers spray the fields with pesticides like Nuvacron, banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and endosulfan, methomyl and Metasystox, considered by the EPA to be highly toxic. Venkateshwarlu ticks off the effects of overexposure: diarrhea, nausea, difficulty in breathing, convulsions, headaches and depression.”

According to Megha Bahree and Emily Stewart websites http://www.AidIndia.org and http://www.giveIndia.org can ensure that 90% to 96% of a contribution to charity that passes muster goes to the intended cause.

4 Ways to avoid purchasing products made from child labor - a summary of Mr. Bahree’s article by Marshall Loeb