Reynolds, Del Monte, Chiquita Top List of Worst Companies for Freedom of Association

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/12/14/reynolds-del-monte-chiquita-top-list-of-worst-companies-for-freedom-of-association/

by James Parks, Dec 14, 2010

Last Friday, International Human Rights Day, the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) named R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. as one of the world’s worst companies of 2010 for workers’ freedom of association. Of the top five worst companies, three are headquartered in the United States: R.J. Reynolds, Chiquita Brands International and Fresh Del Monte Produce.

According to the ILRF, R.J. Reynolds’ annual profits top $2 billion, but the workers who pick the tobacco that goes into the company’s products barely make $8,000 a year, just one-third of the official poverty level for a family of four.

Executives of the nation’s second-largest tobacco company continue to refuse to meet with workers to discuss working conditions. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) reports that the tobacco workers suffer from racism, harassment, lethal pesticides, nicotine poisoning and lack of labor and human rights as well as poverty.

Although R.J. Reynolds does not hire its workers directly, it has the clout to change the terms under which the laborers work, directly impacting their living and working conditions.

RJ Reynolds cigarettes also are on the AFL-CIO’s boycott list at the request of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM).

FULL story at link.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Big tobacco & Central American fruit companies

Hardly surprising that they're at the bottom of the corporate heap. The fruit companies have a long history of assassinating union leadership; I suspect that RJ Reynolds wishes they could similarly dispatch 'troublesome' organizers.

[SocialistLez]

2. Wal-Mart should be in the top 3. NT