Wal-Mart Agrees to Pay Fine in
Child Labor Cases By
Steven Greenhouse
The New York Times, February 12, 2005
Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest retailer, has
agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that
it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas
and New Hampshire.
Labor Department officials said most of the 24 violations
covered by the settlement involved workers under age
18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard
balers and chain saws. In the agreement, Wal-Mart
denied any wrongdoing.
Department officials said that one of the violations
was in New Hampshire, three were in Arkansas and 20
were in Connecticut, where the investigation began
in 2001. One violation involved a youth who injured
his thumb while using a chain saw to cut Christmas
trees.
The Labor Department and Wal-Mart signed the agreement
on Jan. 6, but made no public announcement. The department
disclosed the settlement yesterday after a reporter
questioned officials about concerns raised by several
department employees that the agreement gave Wal-Mart
special favors.
The agreement states, "Compliance with the child
labor laws and regulations will be an important factor
in evaluating the performance of managers."
A provision also promises to give Wal-Mart 15 days'
notice before the Labor Department investigates any
other "wage and hour" accusations, like
failure to pay minimum wage or overtime.
That provision drew criticism yesterday from Representative
George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on
the House Education and Workforce Committee. It also
prompted complaints from some Labor Department investigators
who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of
retaliation.
"With child labor cases involving the use of
hazardous machinery, why give 15 days' notice before
we can do an investigation?" asked a district
office supervisor who has worked in the wage and hour
division for nearly 20 years. "What's the rationale?"
Victoria Lipnic, assistant labor secretary for employment
standards, called the settlement typical, saying that
giving Wal-Mart notice before conducting investigations
would encourage the company to correct the problems
sooner.
The department employees also said the agreement was
unusual because the department had never announced
it.
Department officials said they were preparing a news
release and were waiting for Wal-Mart to pay the $135,540
before making the settlement public.
In the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed not to employ any
worker under age 14 and agreed to prohibit any employee
under 18 from operating cardboard balers. It also
agreed to post a notice on each cardboard baler saying
that minors may not use or touch the balers. Wal-Mart
also agreed to train new store managers about compliance
with child labor laws and to provide more training
to current managers on the subject.
"We worked with the Department of Labor to strengthen
our training and compliance programs," said Gus
Whitcomb, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, which is based
in Bentonville, Ark. "Again, our focus is to
be 100 percent compliant with all applicable laws."
Wal-Mart has faced previous child labor charges. In
March 2000, Maine fined the company $205,650 for violations
of child labor laws in every one of the 20 stores
in the state. In January 2004, a weeklong internal
audit of 128 stores found 1,371 instances in which
minors apparently worked too late at night, worked
during school hours or worked too many hours in a
day. Company officials said the audit was faulty and
had incorrectly found that some youths had worked
on school days when, in fact, those days were holidays.
Under the new agreement, the Labor Department did
not waive its right to conduct future investigations.
Still, several department officials suggested that
the provision for 15 days' notice might give Wal-Mart
an opportunity to hide violations.
John R. Fraser, the government's top wage official
under the first President Bush and President Bill
Clinton, said the advance-notice provision was unusually
expansive.
"Giving the company 15 days' notice of any investigation
is very unusual," Mr. Fraser said. "The
language appears to go beyond child labor allegations
and cover all wage and hour allegations. It appears
to put Wal-Mart in a privileged position that to my
knowledge no other employer has."
Ms. Lipnic countered,.
"We usually call employers before we go to investigate,"
and said there was "nothing uncommon or unprecedented
about that."
Several federal employees voiced concern about a Jan.
10 e-mail message sent by the director of the Little
Rock, Ark., office for the Labor Department's wage
and hour division after the settlement was reached,
that said, "Wage & Hour will not open an
investigation of Wal-Mart without first notifying
Wal-Mart's main office and allowing them an opportunity
to look at the alleged violations and, if valid, correct
the problem."
But Cynthia Watson, the division's Southwest regional
director, said advance notice would speed compliance.
"We are seeking to centralize the points of contact
in order to get the people involved to resolve the
issue," Ms. Watson said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/national/12wage.html
Taking Child Slavery Out of Valentine’s
Day
By Tom Harkin and Eliot
L. Engel
Los Angeles Times, February 14, 2005
On Valentine's Day, there will be no chocolate gifts
for young Aly Diabate. "I don't know what chocolate
is," said Aly, who was forced into slavery at
age 11 to harvest cocoa beans in Ivory Coast. Aly's
ignorance of chocolate is forgivable. Like tens of
thousands of other child slaves on cocoa farms in
Ivory Coast, he subsists on a diet of corn paste and
bananas.
Less forgivable is the fact that chocolate lovers
in the West have been kept in the dark about these
harsh realities. Few realize that most of the cocoa
beans that go into Nestle, Mars and Hershey candy
bars come from Ivory Coast, where thousands of enslaved
boys — some as young as 9 — work in the
most squalid, brutal conditions imaginable.
According to one report, the child slaves of Ivory
Coast "are whipped, beaten and broken like horses
to harvest the almond-sized beans that are made into
chocolate treats for more fortunate children in Europe
and the United States."
We have long been active in efforts to stop exploitative
child labor, as well as trafficking in slaves. So
when news reports on the abuse of children on cocoa
farms first emerged in 2001, we were determined to
stop it. We knew that if consumers learned about the
brutal realities of cocoa production, their taste
for chocolate would sour. Sales — and the Ivorian
economy — would plummet. But that was not our
goal. We wanted to stop child slavery, not chocolate
production.
We viewed a legislative remedy not as a first resort
but as a last resort. So, in good faith, we engaged
the major chocolate companies in lengthy, intense
negotiations. The result was the Harkin-Engel Protocol,
signed in 2001.
The companies agreed to join with other stakeholders
to produce an agreement for eliminating the worst
forms of child and slave labor throughout the chain
of chocolate production, and to do so expeditiously.
They also agreed to implement an industrywide voluntary
certification system to give a public accounting of
labor practices in the cocoa-growing countries. This
would enable consumers to make better-informed choices.
This kind of certification approach is already being
used effectively to combat trafficking in "blood
diamonds." In several diamond-rich African countries
racked by civil war and human rights abuses, belligerents
have funded their activities by mining and selling
diamonds. The Clinton administration helped to create
a country-of-origin certification system for diamonds.
And President Bush signed a law prohibiting importation
into the United States of any diamonds not controlled
by this system.
There are an estimated 1.5 million small cocoa farms
spread across four desperately poor countries in Africa,
including Ivory Coast. The protocol established a
public-private partnership enlisting government, industry,
labor unions, nongovernmental organizations and consumer
groups. The U.S. government's role is to ensure that
whatever certification plan emerges from this process
is credible and effective in eliminating abusive child-
and slave-labor practices in the cocoa industry and
ensuring the rehabilitation of the victims.
We have done our best to accommodate the chocolate
companies. We preferred a two-year deadline for the
creation of an industrywide certification regime,
but agreed to four years. We all agreed that the regime
was to be completed on July 1, followed by rigorous
implementation.
Last month, however, the companies informed us that
they would not meet the deadline. Instead, they planned
to initiate a small pilot program in Ghana and, perhaps,
in Ivory Coast. Although this is certainly a positive
step, it falls woefully short of the robust action
promised in the protocol.
The time for talk has passed. Children are suffering.
Will the chocolate companies redouble their efforts
and make good on their commitments? Or, as with blood
diamonds, will legislation be necessary? Our preference
is for the chocolate industry to take charge of its
own destiny. But if corporate responsibility is lacking,
government will have a responsibility to act.
This Valentine's Day, much of our chocolate will
be bittersweet — tainted by the suffering of
Aly Diabate and countless other cocoa slaves. Our
hope is that, by next Valentine's Day, consumers will
be able to purchase chocolate with a clear conscience.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-harkin14feb14,0,4613169.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Another
Response from the Government of Canada
Marie, 14, Canada
After the May 2004 Children’s World Congress
on Child Labor, five U.S. youth delegates and I combined
our ideas and wrote a letter to the governments of
Canada and the United States. We asked them to sign,
ratify and implement the International Labor Organization
Convention 138 on Minimum Age for Admission to Employment.
Neither Canada, nor the United States, have signed
this convention.
The letter was mailed September 23, 2004. We received
a response from the Canadian government on October
5, 2004 (below). Both letters, as well as a step by
step guide for how to write a successful letter to
you government, are included in the December issue
of Youth Network for Children’s Rights, available
at: http://iccle.org/newsletter_children
/0412/. We have still received no response from
the United States government.
From: Minister of Foreign Affairs (Canada)
To: Dear Ms. Abbott and Co-signatories,
The Prime Minister has forwarded to me a copy of
your letter of June 5, 2004, concerning the International
Labour Organization Convention 138 on Minimum Age
for Admission to Employment. I regret the delay in
replying to you.
I read your comments with interest. There is certainly
a lot of food for thought in your recommendations.
However, as the particular issue falls more appropriately
under the purview of my colleague the Minister of
Labour and Housing, the Honourable Joseph Frank Fontana,
I have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your
letter to him for consideration.
I wish to congratulate you for being chosen to represent
Canada at the May 2004 Children’s World Congress
on Child Labour, and I hope that you will be able
to continue your involvement on behalf of child workers
in the future.
Sincerely,
Pierre S. Pettigrew
Thursday, November 13th 2003 in India
Amanda, 17, Maryland, USA
Today my dad had to go to a conference against child
labor in New-Delhi, India. But I went to do something
totally different. Two interns at the international
secretariat of the Global March Against Child Labor
were, like me, from Holland. They had just graduated
from High School and were living in India for 6 months.
They and two other people, who were Indian, gave me
a tour of New-Delhi. It was amazing! We started off
seeing some buildings from the car and then we went
to see a palace. It was all just so beautiful.
After a little while we were really hungry so we
went to eat something. Afterward we just looked around
in some small shops. It is such a weird feeling to
haggle over a few dollars. But if you don’t
then they think you are stupid tourists. Even so,
I am really bad at trying to pay less if the price
is already so little… it was a lot of fun anyway
to see all of their products.
At 4 o’clock we went (also my dad) to an Ashram,
a place were kids who had to work (child labor) and
were rescued can live and get used to the idea that
they are free; they can play, sing, dance, laugh,
etc. Most important, they will get education. It was
so impressive to go the Ashram because we heard the
stories of several children who are living there.
For example one boy worked in housekeeping. To a lot
of people that doesn’t sound like a bad job,
but it actually is! One day he was sick and couldn’t
work that day. So he stayed in bed, like all of us
do when we are sick. As a punishment he wasn’t
allowed to eat that day. At night he was so hungry
that he went downstairs to drink a little bit of milk,
but he got caught. What they did to him next is so
horrible. They held him above a furnace and his hands
and part of his body got severely burned. That night
he almost died. The people where he worked didn’t
want to get convicted of murder so they called the
intermediary to bring this boy back to his parents.
The boy’s last wish was that if he was going
to die, he wanted to die with his parents close to
him. Luckily he didn’t die and he came to the
Ashram to get the help he needed.
The children in the Ashram normally stay there for
6 months. During that time their parents (if necessary)
and they get help so that they will be able to return
to their families again, when they are ready to go
back.
The children were just so nice! They all wanted
to hold my hand and tell me things, even though they
knew that I didn’t speak their language. Then
the music started to play and all of them started
to dance and it was so much fun! Those kids were dancing
so full of energy. Never in their lives had they been
allowed to dance because they had always had to work
hard. Now that they had the opportunity they really
used the chance and it was beautiful to see them dance.
It looked like they had no worries and problems at
all.
Photos of Kids’ Preparatory Workshop
for Shopping Trip in Massachusetts
The day before Thanksgiving 2004, 27 kids from Massachusetts
went on a Child-Labor Free Shopping Trip. In 3 hours
they visited 102 stores, including food, clothing
and electronic stores. However, before shopping with
a conscience, they planned a lot. Thus they prepared
to give an answer to any store managers, etc. Look
at these pictures of their preparatory workshop. To
read more about their plans and the outcomes of their
shopping trip, please see the October and December
issues of the Youth Network for Children’s Rights.
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