Date of publication: June 25, 2010
Source: In These Times
Author: Sarah Peck
By Sarah Peck
...“There are some fundamental problems with Alliance guidelines,” says Tim Newman, an International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) spokesman. RA does not require unionization of workers, and several RA-certified cut-flower farms have quashed workers’ attempts to unionize, he says. (Ray says that workers on RA-certified farms have “freedom of association.”)
Newman also faults RA for not requiring workers to be paid a living wage (instead RA-certified farms can be paid a wage comparable to surrounding farms). Newman says that RA standards don’t “provide a lot of incentive for a company to scale up” to better standards. Mars and Kraft did not respond to requests for comment...