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Below you’ll find good news from Apple, Fair Trade certification changes, and some yummy chocolate news.

Hope for Ethical-Shopping Mac-Lovers

“Think Fair”—Apple Becomes the World’s First Fair Trade Tech Company—Who’s Next? discusses Apple’s decision to disclose all of its suppliers and join the Fair Labor Association. This is exciting news. But the article also shows just how far Apple needs to come before its treatment of workers is worth bragging about. Out of its 156 suppliers, CNN reports:

• 18 facilities screened job candidates or current workers for hepatitis B, and 52 facilities lacked policies and procedures that prohibit discrimination based on results of medical tests.
• 24 facilities conducted pregnancy tests, and 56 facilities did not have policies and procedures that prohibit discriminatory practices based on pregnancy.
• 93 facilities had records that indicated more than 50 percent of their workers exceeded weekly working hour limits of 60 in at least  1 week out of the 12 sample period.
• At 90 facilities, more than half of the records we reviewed indicated that workers had worked more than 6 consecutive days at least once per month, and 37 facilities lacked an adequate working day control system to ensure that workers took at least 1 day off in every 7 days.
• 42 facilities had payment practice violations, including delayed payment for employees’ wages and no pay slips provided to employees.
• 68 facilities did not provide employees adequate benefits as required by laws and regulations, such as social insurance and free physical examinations. 49 facilities did not provide employees with paid leaves or vacations.
• 67 facilities used deductions from wages as a disciplinary measure.
• 108 facilities did not pay proper overtime wages as required by laws and regulations. For example, they did not provide sufficient overtime pay for holidays.
• In 15 facilities it discovered foreign contract workers who had paid excessive recruitment fees to labor agencies.
• In 5 facilities it discovered a total of 6 active and 13 historical cases of underage labor. In each case, the facility had insufficient controls to verify age or detect false documentation. Apple insists, however, that it found “no instances of intentional hiring of underage labor.”

Evolution of Fair Trade

With the encouraging onslaught of ethical fashion and food items in the market, it can be difficult for consumers to know what each label or buzzword means. Well, it’s getting more complicated. Fair Trade USA has split for Fair Trade International. In order to encourage producers to be as ethical as possible, Fair Trade USA will be introducing a Fair Trade Ingredients label. While it’s important to encourage progress one step at a time, its vital for consumers to know what they’re getting and for corporations not to be let off the hook. As the new label approaches, we’ll keep you posted. Much of the timing and requirements are still in debate. Here’s what’s happening so far:

Fair Trade USA Changes Label Policy (from Supermarket News) gives a look at the currently proposed requirements:

•  100% of the ingredient commonly associated with a product must be fair trade certified. So in the case of a chocolate bar, 100% fair trade certified cocoa must be used.

•  For any individual fair trade certified ingredient used in the product, 100% of that ingredient must be certified. If a product contains fair trade certified vanilla extract, for example, all of the vanilla extract must be fair trade certified.

•  The product must contain at least 20% fair trade certified content in total, and all ingredients that can be fair trade certified, must be fair trade certified if the ingredient is commercially available.

US: Fair Trade Body Overhauls Certification Criteria (from just-food) highlights how the labeling system has already evolved.

Initially FTUSA was set to stipulate that products must contain 10% certified fair trade ingredients to carry the FTUSA “Fair Trade Certified (Ingredients)” mark and 25% to carry the “Fair Trade Certified” mark.

But, in November, the Fair World Project (FWP), a campaign of the Organic Consumers Association, claimed the standards “hoodwink consumers into believing they are supporting social change.”

Fair Trade USA Splits From International Fair Trade Organization, Favoring the Corporatization of Coffee (from TreeHugger) speculates how corporations like Starbucks are influencing Fair Trade USA’s decisions.

Support of the small farmer against the huge agricultural corporations was one of the cornerstones of the Fair Trade movement. Small farm organizations say that the US move “threatens the empowerment, development and self-management of small organized producers.”

Hooray for Hershey’s (Finally!)

Change.org announced in an email a positive step from Hershey’s Chocolate—at long last. Encourage Hershey’s to take more steps toward ethical sourcing by signing this petition.

After more than 50,000 people signed a petition calling on Hershey to make sure its chocolates aren’t made with forced and child labor, the confection giant has announced the debut of its first Rainforest Alliance Certified chocolate line, called Bliss. It’s awesome—all of Hershey’s Bliss chocolates will be environmentally sustainable as well as child labor- and forced labor-free

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