GENEVA - The food and beverage industry is experiencing a high degree of concentration, with 10 distributing companies controlling 24 percent of the world market, according to a report being studied this week by workers’, employers’ and government representatives gathered by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

WASHINGTON (AP) — Recalls of millions of unsafe toys may be part of the price of Americans buying products manufactured in China under sweatshop conditions or by forced prison labor, worker advocates told a Senate panel.

A Los Angeles jury on Monday awarded $3.2 million to six Nicaraguan farmworkers who had sued Dole Food Co. Inc., arguing they had been rendered sterile some three decades ago by the international corporate giant's application of a banned pesticide on the plantations where they worked.

Jurors return today to consider whether Dole, and codefendant Dow Chemical Co., should be punished with more monetary damages. They will decide whether Dole acted maliciously in failing to warn its workers of the danger, and whether Dow engaged in gross negligence in manufacturing the chemical...

Free Versus Fair Trade Fails to Inspire Most in Congress

With a spate of safety recalls already drawing scrutiny to the multibillion dollar toy industry and products manufactured in China, a Senate panel heard grim testimony Thursday on another aspect of toy production -- the plight of workers in China who work in toy factories.

A panel of international labor activists said workers in toy factories are forced to work 14-hour shifts for six or seven days a week, with no job security and for extremely low pay -- as little as 53 cents an hour... 

The clothing giant Gap has ordered one of its overseas suppliers to overhaul its practices after a garment worker in Bangalore, India, collapsed and later died outside the same factory where a young pregnant worker lost her newborn baby six months ago.

It is the third death in the last year at or near the premises of Shalini Creations, a unit of the Texport Overseas group which makes clothes for the US firm... 

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