Washington, DC – On the tenth anniversary of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, Global Exchange, Green America, and International Labor Rights Forum issued the following statement: “Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, an agreement signed by the country’s largest chocolate companies to put an end to forced child labor in their cocoa supply chains by July of 2005.  Chocolate companies committed to this voluntary agreement in lieu of legislation that would have ...

Last Friday, after Bank of America's (BAC) announcement of new fees on debit cards, retired postal worker Victoria Lee took her adult daughters to her local USPS Credit Union. "[My daughters opened] free checking accounts with no charges for the use of debit cards," Lee said. Like many Americans who are carefully watching every dollar, the Florida resident said she was grateful to have an alternative to retail Wall Street banks.

The 3 major producer networks (representing 800 producers groups comprised of around 1 million producers in 60 countries) in Fair Trade certification, issued statements this week strongly opposing Fair Trade USA’s decision to withdraw from Fairtrade International (FLO), and to FTUSA doing so without consulting the 3 networks, all co-owners of FLO.In addition, the Latin America network, CLAC, and its subgroup, Red Café, went further to strongly oppose FTUSA’s strategy to expand ...