The lighter side of serious environmental and fair trade issues http://fungreenfair.com Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:27:40 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://fungreenfair.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://fungreenfair.com The lighter side of serious environmental and fair trade issues http://fungreenfair.com/index.php/Fair-Trade-News/Illegal-Alien-Lou-Dobbs-Deported.html Foreign worker, non-status worker, temporary worker, irregular worker, illegal alien, criminal aliens are the names we use to describe the other . Lou Dobbs longtime host of CNN finance and news programs is a strong proponent of the most dehumanizing of these terms: illegal alien. The Onion has outed Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs. The article illustrates the stereotypes used in discussions of non-status workers: Mr. Dominguez did not come quietly, but in the end he came, said Sam Whitlock of the U.S. Border Patrol, who was injured during the arrest. He pulled a knife on me, like they will, and swore a bunch in Spanish and spit on us when we finally managed to grab him by the serape and throw him against a wall. But the important thing is that he's now back where he belongs. fair - Fair Trade News Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:09:38 +0100 http://fungreenfair.com/index.php/Funny/Shell-under-attack-by-otters-and-Greenpeace.html Are the Onion and Greenpeace working together? The Onion ( Most of these protesters are from outside the country of Canada. They are really tourists telling us how we should develop our resources, Stelmach told reporters at an event at the West Edmonton Mall. It's upsetting because it is putting people at risk. It is creating a fair amount of disruption which is going to cost consumers money in the end. More importantly, the efforts are really aimed at harming our economy, putting Albertans out of work, putting Canadians out of work and really diminishing our quality of life, said Stelmach. He said he will be working with the companies involved to ensure the protesters are removed and arrested and we don't put up with this kind of behaviour again. - Actually a quote reported by the Calgary Herald ) has called attention to otter subterfuge. Otters have been complaining about oil spill exposure after a spill Monday: According to Shell president Marvin Odum, the otter has been putting on quite a show in front of rescue workers and clean-up crews, and is making the 860,000-gallon, three-mile-wide toxic slick seem like a much bigger deal than it actually is. Odum, who was alerted to the massive petroleum spill early Monday morning, claimed that the attention-seeking otter was not only overdoing it with his frantic and anguished squealing, but that his habit of gasping desperately for oxygen was melodramatic. In addition, Odum claimed that the otter's rapidly fluctuating body temperature and growing heart palpitations were nothing more than a sad attempt to curry favor with Coast Guard officials, Greenpeace volunteers, and anybody else not smart enough to see right through his little ploy. The issue is particularly relevant because Greenpeace activists (http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climate/2009/10/climateaction.html) have been occupying Alberta oil sands equipment and installations this week. Fortunately, for Shell and other oppressed oil companies the Alberta government has vowed to crackdown on protestors: fun - Funny Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:51:48 +0100 http://fungreenfair.com/index.php/Fair-Trade-News/Fair-trade-crossroads-/-crisis.html Assessing fair trade's effects on development and small farmers requires a balance between effects for individual farmers versus the reach of the fair trade standard: the higher the fair trade premium the smaller the market share. Time magazine (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1926007,00.html) asks What price for good coffee? Fair Trade pays $1.55 per lb. for Antonio's organic coffee, almost 10% more than the market price. But Antonio is left with only 50¢ per lb. after paying Fair Trade cooperative fees, government taxes and farming expenses. By year's end, he says, from the few thousand pounds he grows, he'll pocket about $1,000 — around half the meager minimum wage in Guatemala — or $2.75 a day, not enough for Starbucks' cheapest latte. The price per pound suggested by Christopher Bacon (http://casfs.ucsc.edu/publications/briefs/brief12.pdf), and colleagues, of the University of California, is $2.00 / pound. However, the Fair trade labelling organization (FLO (http://www.fairtrade.net/)) and Transfair USA (http://www.transfairusa.org/) are concerned about the effect this would have onfair trade market share: What good is it to have $2-per-lb. coffee if you can only serve tens of thousands of farmers instead of millions? asks Paul Rice, president and CEO of TransFair USA, the California-based nonprofit that oversees Fair Trade in the U.S. You risk killing the goose. The goose that is fair trade is force for change, but it is still subject to market forces... fair - Fair Trade News Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:51:01 +0100 http://fungreenfair.com/index.php/Fair-Trade-News/Kicking-Fair-Trade-onto-the-field.html Football (soccer) is the world's most widely played game and most of the time the ball is made by workers in terrible conditions for low pay. Fair Trade Sports provides an alternative ball for those who want to play a game with the knowledge that they are contributing to the livelihoods of others rather than risking workers' lives: Bringing us sports balls (http://retail.fairtradesports.amazonwebstore.com/) that are third party certified (http://fairtradesports.com/certifications/) (not internally certified) green and Fair Trade. Fair Trade Sports, Inc is the first sports equipment company in the US to launch a full line of eco-certified Fair Trade sports balls, ensuring fair wages and healthy working conditions for our adult workers. Be sure to also check out our sweatshop-free apparel. We have both an online retail store (http://retail.fairtradesports.amazonwebstore.com/) and wholesale store (http://wholesale.fairtradesports.amazonwebstore.com/). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUZcgd4aRnk More and more brands are coming to see fair trade as part of the future of sport (Umbro (http://fairtradesports.com/2009/07/17/another-major-brand-goes-fair-trade/)). fair - Fair Trade News Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:10:15 +0100 http://fungreenfair.com/index.php/Fair-Trade-News/Decades-of-neglect-Farmworkers-in-Ontario.html Farmworker unions in Ontario are a hot potato for governments. We hate to hear about heat deaths or accidents on farms but we also love the idea of the family farmer . This has left farmworkers (mostly migrants) vulnerable to exploitation and poor work conditions. Labour inspections, fines and a meaningful ability to organize would help to alleviate this deplorable state. In 1994, the NDP government passed a law permitting unions on farms although not permitting strikes or lockouts (Agricultural Labour Relations Act, 1994 (http://www.search.e-laws.gov.on.ca/en/isysquery/c94c2907-e7df-4557-b95d-0c7d20ce2acd/7/frame/?search=browseRepealed context=)). This law was repealed by the Mike Harris Conservative government in 1995. Despite successful farm worker appeals all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada (Dunmore) and more recently to the Ontario Court of Appeal (Fraser v Ontario pdf file (http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2008/november/2008ONCA0760.pdf)), workers are still unable to form meaningful unions to allow them to negotiate better work conditions. What are the Ontario government and Dalton McGuinty waiting for? Here is a video that says this in a whistly tune... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpxJ-ZVpE0 fair - Fair Trade News Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:48:01 +0100