Lessons in the Exploitation of Children

by | Jun 16, 2011 | Labor Relations Ink

Meanwhile, the ILRF has also launched a highly sophisticated coordinated corporate campaign, Raise the Bar, Hershey,  that brings together international labor activists, environmental groups, teachers unions, Kennedys and chocolate loving school kids to demand the candy manufacturer sign on to third party oversight of its cocoa supply chain in West Africa.  The company already requires all its suppliers meet strict international labor standards. Why target Hershey? Well, according to the ILRF’s website, because Hershey is big, Hershey sources from regions with a history of labor violations (as must all other major cocoa buyers) and Hershey won’t buy in to dubious third party “Fair Trade” certification.  We will add the Bakery & Confectionery Union made deep concessions last fall to keep the new Hershey plant in Hershey and the company’s other U.S. plants remain (so far) union free. So to either push the “Fair Trade” logo or give the AFL-CIO more leverage over Hershey, dozens of rosy cheeked New York City elementary school students were marched by their unionized teachers to Hershey’s Time Square store last week for a first hand lesson in exploiting children for political and economic gain.   Holding their cute crayon drawings of child servitude and herded into great photo-ops by a bullhorn wielding organizer, the children listened as Kerry Kennedy and other union-addled grownups schooled them in the importance of speaking the (partial, hysterical, trumped up and imagined) truth to the corporate evil doers. As coached, several children then took the  podium to decry the devil in their S’mores this summer.  

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