Posts by Caitrin McKee, USLEAP, International Labor Rights Forum

Honduran Women Farm Workers Are Fighting Back Against Fyffes Company’s Abuses

March 7, 2016

On the morning of December 3rd, in Choluteca, Honduras, 14 women melon workers had to be hospitalized after their exposure to toxic chemicals on a Suragroh melon plantation owned by the Irish food and fresh produce multinational Fyffes.  None of the 150 workers sickened that day were provided with the necessary safety gear to protect them.  One of the victims, who asked to remain anonymous, told a local newspaper

ILRF Urges Congress to Reject TPP Over Failed Labor Enforcement Model

February 5, 2016
An anti-TPP rally in the Washington, DC area in April 2015. Credit: AFGE

Yesterday ILRF’s Legal and Policy Director Eric Gottwald presented at a Capitol Hill briefing organized by the AFL-CIO on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and labor rights, entitled: “TPP: Is it a Gold Standard for Working People?”

Panelists at the event addressed the question, “Can workers count on the TPP to secure more freedoms and higher wages?” Along with other human rights and labor experts (Ben Davis from United Steelworkers, John Sifton from Human Rights Watch and Celeste Drake from the AFL-CIO) Eric Gottwald laid out ILRF’s opposition to the  proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), emphasizing that, based on past experience, the trade treaty’s labor provisions are unlikely to be enforced in practice.

U.S. Department of Labor Accepts ILRF Complaint Against Peru

September 22, 2015
"Camino a Puno Golpeando quinoa" by Michael Hermann - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

On September 21, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) formally accepted a complaint filed by ILRF and Peruvian unions against the government of Peru for violating labor rights provisions of the 2009 U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.