INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:

GIVE HERSHEY A VALENTINE:



Valentine's Day is coming up on Monday, and now is a good time to look at the root of where a lot of our chocolate comes from ie child labour in the cocoa industry. Here's an item from the International Labor Rights Forum on what you can do to end this exploitation.
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Valentine's Day 2011 Actions for the Hershey Campaign



Valentine's Day is a major chocolate buying holiday, but your gifts for your sweetheart should not come at the expense of workers rights! Forced labor, child labor and trafficking continues in the cocoa industry in West Africa. Almost all major chocolate companies have begun to commit to using independent, third-party programs to certify that their cocoa suppliers comply with international labor standards, but Hershey continues to lag behind the industry.

There are two easy and fun ways to take action to tell Hershey to go Fair Trade leading up to Valentine's Day:

1.SEND VALENTINES TO HERSHEY! Create your own personalized Valentine telling Hershey to start using Fair Trade Certified cocoa for its products, like the iconic chocolate Kiss. Address your Valentine to Hershey CEO David J. West and mail it to: 100 Crystal A Drive, Hershey, PA 17033. You can also download this PDF of a Valentine to mail to the company. If you make your own Valentine, please do scan an image of it or take a photograph of your Valentine and send it to ILRF Campaigns Director Tim Newman at: tim.newman@ilrf.org. We'll post them online and you can get a 10% discount to Global Exchange's store by sending your images and photographs to us! Please mail your Valentines to Hershey by February 18, 2011.
2.HOST A SCREENING OF THE DARK SIDE OF CHOCOLATE! You can host a screening of this documentary that exposes the ongoing use of trafficked child labor in the cocoa industry in your community. Click here to order your DVD and click here to download a screening toolkit. ILRF and partner organizations across the country are especially encouraging people to host screenings during a national week of action leading up to Valentine's Day from February 4-14.
You can also send an e-mail to Hershey online here.

Together we can support cocoa farmers and workers and make Valentine's Day sweet for everyone!

Also, don't forget about our petitions to Hershey! You can download the petition here and collect signatures in your community.
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THE LETTER
If you want to get a jump on things go to this link to send the following letter to the Hershey Corporation.
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Subject: Time to Raise the Bar, Hershey!

As a chocolate consumer, I am deeply concerned about labor rights abuses in the cocoa industry. Forced labor, trafficking and child labor continue on West Africa's cocoa farms.

While many companies are working to trace their cocoa and institute labor standards among their suppliers, I am disappointed to learn that Hershey is lagging behind its competitors in this area. I believe you can be a leader in responsible cocoa sourcing.

I ask that you meet the goals of the “Raise The Bar, Hershey!” campaign, which include:

* an agreement to take immediate action to eliminate forced and child labor in your cocoa supply chain;

* a commitment to sourcing 100% Fair Trade Certified™ cocoa beans by 2012 for at least one of your top five selling chocolate bars that prominently displays the Hershey name; and

* a commitment to making at least one additional top five selling bar 100% Fair Trade Certified™ every two years thereafter, so that Hershey’s top five selling cocoa bars will all be 100% Fair Trade Certified™ within 10 years.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

LOCAL EVENTS - WINNIPEG:

HAPPENINGS DOWN AT THE DRAG:

Here's a couple of notices that Molly has received about upcoming events down at the Mondragon (91 Albert St.), Winnipeg's local infoshop.

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Fair Trade / Food Politics Speaker and Discussion
Date:
Friday, March 26, 2010
Time:
7:30pm - 10:00pm
Location:
The Mondragon
91 Albert Street
Winnipeg, MB
View Map
Description
Ian Hussey will be speaking and housing a discussion about Fair Trade and Food Politics. Ian Hussey founded and was a national coordinator of the Canadian Student Fair Trade Network (CSFTN) from 2004-2007. Through the CSFTN, he worked with students across Canada in advocating for fair trade certified product purchasing policies, and he coordinated the first two Fair Trade Halloweens in Canada with La Siembra Cooperative. Also through the CSFTN, he played a definitive role in the development of the Canadian Coalition for Fair Trade, and he served on the coalition's first steering committee in 2007-2008. He has been a member of the advisory council of the US-based United Students for Fair Trade since 2006. Ian entered the PhD program in sociology at York University in 2008. His dissertation is a postcolonial critique of fair trade. His activism at York includes work on a campaign to have all York-branded apparel be cooperatively made and traded, certified organic and fair trade certified.

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The Balconies Live @ Mondragon
Date:
Friday, April 16, 2010
Time:
8:30pm - 11:30pm
Location:
Mondragon Cafe & Bookstore
Description
Ottawa/Toronto's fab pop rock group The Balconies are swinging into town! Check out their myspace ( http://www.myspace.com/thebalconies ) and the come out to the see them Live @ The Mondragon!Also Special Guest Performances! $5/pwyc ( I wonder what "pwyc" is-Molly )all ages / get boozy with proof of age.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:

GETTING YOUR CHOCOLATE FIX ETHICALLY:

The following article is reprinted from the online magazine Straightgoods, a progressive project out of Ontario. Have a look at their site and consider subscribing. The article deals with the unpleasant reality behind the chocolate pleasure and how you might avoid contributing to this by "buying ethically". At the end of the article Molly has added a list of other resources about the Fair Trade Movement.

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The sweet taste of fair trade chocolate
Foil the speculators and undercut the slave traders by choosing your chocolate with care.
by Randy Rudolph
[Editor's Note: Fair Trade Weeks are observed around the world between February and June. Fair Trade Canada has declared May 1-15 to be Fair Trade Weeks here. For more information, see the Fair Trade website at the URL below.]

Buying "fair trade" chocolate can help circumvent the food price spike and as well as helping the developing world farmers who grow the cocoa bean and live in absolute poverty.

Many Canadians consider chocolate bars to be a guilty pleasure. Peel back the foil wrapper, take a bite and savour the potent sweetness of chocolate. Breathe in the 400 distinct smells that emanate from the cocoa bean, chocolate's key ingredient. A rose, in contrast, has only 14. But don't think about how the cocoa was grown, or that chocolate might taste bittersweet.

There are an estimated 15,000 child slaves working on farms and plantations in Cote D'Ivoire alone.

Cocoa is the key ingredient in chocolate production and is widely traded. While the production of cocoa provides a livelihood to 14 million people around the globe, the life of a cocoa producer is not an easy one. Many live in absolute poverty.





Worldwide cocoa prices are currently volatile on the international market, largely due to speculation. As a result, in many cocoa-producing nations farmers are unable to secure loans for fear of default. If they do qualify, interest rates are often unbearably high.





Sadly, most cocoa producers are unable to earn a living wage and must send their children out to the fields in order to provide for their families. Worse, it is not only the children of cocoa workers who are engaged in this work. Child slavery is quite prevalent in cocoa production. There are an estimated 15,000 child slaves working on farms and plantations in Cote D'Ivoire alone.





Child labourers are forced to pick the cocoa pods, slice them open and scoop out the cocoa beans. These kids work long, hard days, often from six in the morning until six at night. Beatings by farm owners and managers are common.





"The beatings were a part of my life," then-14-year-old freed slave Aly Diabete told international reporters in 2001. "Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead, they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again."





Even though he toiled many long days in hot fields picking cocoa — 400 pods are needed to make one pound of chocolate — Diabete only tasted the dark side of the industry.





Fortunately, there is an alternative. The fair trade movement has revolutionized — re-dignified — the relationship between producers and buyers, seeking to ensure that the sale of products produced in the developing world actually benefits the people producing them.





To be certified, fair trade products such as cocoa and coffee must be purchased from democratically organized cooperatives where the workers have the right to unionize and are provided with fair wages and benefits. Also, it must be produced using environmentally sustainable production methods, and production must conform to labour conventions set out by the International Labour Organization.





The price paid for fair trade cocoa is based in part on the cost of production, not only the international market price. Basing the fair trade price on the cost of production better buffers the consumer from speculative price spikes.





Price stability (based on actual production costs) has a profound impact on the lives of cocoa farmers, allowing them to feed their families, pay for basic medical care, and perhaps send their children to school. The price differential allows cooperatives to invest back into their communities.





Says Lucy, from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana: "We rely on the money we get from cocoa for everything: for food, clothes, medicines, and school fees. Getting payment for our cocoa beans used to be very hit and miss. When we didn't get paid, we went without. Kuapa Kokoo pays all its farmers a fair price for their crop, in cash, and on time. I am very happy since I joined Fair Trade I can afford to send my children to school."





Canadians love chocolate. We are the eighth largest importer of cocoa globally. Yet less than one percent of our chocolate is fair trade certified.





Buying fair trade makes good economic sense on both sides. Fair trade provides a fairer and more sustainable deal for farmers, and a responsible way for consumers to bite back at high commodity prices.





Randy Rudolph volunteers with RESULTS Canada, a grassroots citizens group advocating for basic human needs for the worlds' poorest.
Related addresses:
URL 1: transfair.ca/en/nftw

MOLLY'S LIST OF OTHER RELATED RESOURCES:
*The Fairtrade Foundation - UK
*Trans Fair Canada
*Dubble - UK
*Fair Trade Toronto
*Trans Fair USA
*Équiterre - Québec
*Ethical Trading Action Group
*Banana Link -UK
*Fair Trade organization - the international certifying agency
*The International Fair Trade Association
*European Fair Trade Association
*Fair Trade Manitoba

WHY I AM NOT A REVOLUTIONIST: PART 1: THE SPANISH CASE:

The Spanish Revolution is a "test case" amongst anarchists. More than the temporary accommodations of the Makhnovists in Russia this is a "real time" survey of how anarchism can exist in the real world. The generally accepted view is that anarchist methods of production and coordination were equal to the demands of a society at war. People may go to the original sources for this matter. What I want to emphasize here is the difference between the ideas of social organization that had been instilled by anarchist propaganda over several decades and the ideas of "revolution" that had been instilled by the same efforts. The "social ideal" was actually separate from the "means of achievement" ie "The Revolution" of myth, but the two tended to be conflated. The Spanish anarchists were confronted with a situation where they represented a large minority in most of Spain and a slight majority in some areas. How should one behave in such situations ? What I would say is that the "intransigent anarchist" policy left the anarchists helpless when they were confronted with the reality of collaboration while the "realist" policy of the 'Treintistas' offered a much more realistic way to play a "political game" with the other parties of the popular front. The "intransigent" factions of the people who had come to control the FAI bowed over to a large extent because they had no idea of "bargaining" which the Treintista section of the CNT very much had- no matter how much they might have been defeated by the FAI.

More on this matter later,

Molly