Latest news with #CoffeeWatch
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Group Appeals to Farm Rio to End Partnership With Starbucks
A group of 17 labor unions, human rights organizations and watchdog nonprofits including Coffee Watch are calling on the lifestyle brand Farm Rio to end its partnership with Starbucks or change its policies. The coffee chain has come under fire this spring for allegations of child labor, trafficking workers and unsafe working conditions on a Brazilian coffee farm. A civil 'John Doe' lawsuit was filed against Starbucks in late April in the U.S. by eight individuals with the support of the International Rights Advocates. More from WWD From The Archive: Rio de Janeiro Fashion Scene, 1974 Todd Snyder Opens Nashville Store in 12South Neighborhood Dior Beauty Opens New Boutique in Miami A Starbucks spokesperson said Wednesday that the claims asserted are 'without merit' and the company plans to 'vigorously defend the Starbucks brand.' Coffee Watch filed a petition under section 307 of the Tariff Act asking U.S. Customs and Border Protection 'to block slavery-tainted Brazilian coffee in Starbucks' supply chains from entering the United States,' according to the letter, which was shared with WWD. In a statement, the Seattle-based company said, 'Starbucks is committed to ethical sourcing of coffee including helping to protect the rights of people who work on the farms where we purchase coffee from,' adding that its Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices include the use of 'robust third-party verification and audits.' Starbucks said it does not purchase coffee from all of the farms within Cooxupé's cooperative, which includes more than 19,000 coffee farm members. The spokesperson said, 'Starbucks purchases coffee from a small fraction of those farms, and only those who have been verified through our C.A.F.E. Practices, which are among the most stringent in the industry and have been continuously improved since their inception in 2004.' Starbucks and Farm Rio revealed their partnership last month for a limited-edition collection of colorful drinkware and mini cold-cup keychains that launched in the coffee chain's stores in the U.S. and Canada. They are also being sold in its outposts in Brazil and in select markets in Latin America and in the Caribbean. On Wednesday, a public relations firm working on behalf of the organizations that have appealed to Farm Rio's chief executive officer put the word out about their letter. Supporters of the letter are asking that Starbucks sever the partnership immediately or make it contingent on such demands as allowing employees worldwide to unionize and eradicating child labor from every part of its supply chain, ensuring farmworkers receive a living wage and publicly committing to upholding labor rights across its supply chain. The representative for the senders of the letter also provided a link to a video post that was made by the organization Contracs on 'X' that shows three protesters holding signs outside of a Farm Rio store in an unidentified shopping center in Brazil. Representatives at Farm Rio could not be reached for comment Wednesday. An outside public relations company that works with Farm Rio acknowledged a request for comment about the request to end the Starbucks partnership and said it had been shared with Farm Rio, but there was not a response at press time. Separately, Starbucks has been dealing with pushback from some employees in the U.S. about its new uniform policy. More than 1,000 workers — many of whom are associated with Starbucks Workers United — in 75 locations held a one-day strike in opposition to the mandatory dress code. Workers United is less than 5 percent of Starbucks' workforce, representing about 570 of its 10,000-plus stores, according to another Starbucks spokesperson. The letter to Farm Rio also noted that a fair contract with unionized workers in the U.S. has not been reached. Best of WWD Young Brooke Shields' Style Evolution, Archive Photos: From Runway Modeling & Red Carpets to Meeting Princess Diana The Most Memorable French Open Tennis Outfits With Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka & More [PHOTOS] Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter Tour' Outfits, Live Updates: Schiaparelli, Burberry, Loewe and More
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Forced Labor Taints Brazilian Coffee, Say Complaints to U.S. Authorities
Tariffs are not the only threat to business for big companies selling coffee in the United States. On Thursday, a watchdog group petitioned the Trump administration to block coffee imports that it says are produced with forced labor akin to modern-day slavery in Brazil, the world's largest coffee grower. The petition to Customs and Border Protection, filed by the nonprofit Coffee Watch, names Starbucks, by far the largest coffee retailer in the country, as well as Nestle, Dunkin', Illy, McDonald's and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the owner of Peet's, as companies that rely on potentially dubious sources. It asks the Trump administration not to allow distribution of any imports from Brazil that 'wholly or in part' rely on human trafficking and forced labor. 'This isn't about a few bad actors,' Etelle Higonnet, the founder and director of Coffee Watch, said in a statement. 'We're exposing an entrenched system that traps millions in extreme poverty and thousands in outright slavery.' The request for U.S. action was filed a day after another group, International Rights Advocates, sued Starbucks in federal court on behalf of eight Brazilians who were trafficked and forced to toil in 'slavery-like conditions,' said Terry Collingsworth, a human rights lawyer and the founder of the group. The suit seeks certification as a class action representing thousands of workers who it says have faced the same plight while harvesting coffee for a major Starbucks supplier and regional growers' cooperative in Brazil called Cooxupé. 'Starbucks needs to be accountable,' Mr. Collingsworth said in an interview, adding that 'there is a massive trafficking and forced labor system in Brazil' that the company benefits from. Amber Stafford, a spokeswoman for Starbucks, denied the allegations and said the company was committed to ethical sourcing, including helping to protect the rights of people who work on the farms its coffee comes from. 'The cornerstone of our work is our Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices verification program, which was developed with outside experts and includes robust third-party verification and audits,' she said in an email. Mr. Collingsworth contends that despite the verification program, the company has not made its practices transparent. The lawsuit, he said, will help his group get more information about the company's supply chains. Several of the companies named in the petition to block imports take part, along with the Rainforest Alliance, in the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, whose stated aims include improving the lot of agricultural workers. Apart from Starbucks, the companies either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to do so. The advocacy groups issued a joint statement on Thursday, saying their efforts expose 'the hidden human cost behind one of the nation's most beloved commodities: coffee.' The groups' goal is to disrupt a segment of the Brazilian coffee industry that they say supplies companies abroad in part by trafficking vulnerable workers. The coffee sector in Brazil was founded on slavery and continued to depend upon it, they say, even though Brazil abolished slavery in 1888. The groups say that illegal labor brokers — known as 'gatos' or 'cats' — seek out workers from poor, rural communities, some of whose inhabitants descend from enslaved people, making false representations about jobs and advancing funds for food and travel. The laborers end up in 'debt bondage,' working off what they owe by harvesting coffee under conditions not so different from those of their enslaved forebears. Other human rights groups, as well as news organizations and the U.S. government have reported similar findings. In April, four coffee producers that are part of the Cooxupé collective were added to a slave labor blacklist by the Brazilian authorities after inspectors found dozens of workers, including a teenager, who were being subjected to conditions akin to slavery, according to Repórter Brasil, a Brazilian nonprofit. In some cases, the workers do not have running water, beds or toilets, according to advocacy groups. They work long hours without protective equipment and often do not receive their full wages or any pay. The Brazilian government has repeatedly taken action, but because coffee harvesting is a seasonal activity, it is not subject to as much monitoring as other fields of employment. The eight workers in the Starbucks complaint withheld their names out of fear of retributionat home. 'These traffickers are dangerous guys,' Mr. Collingworth said. Workers who try to leave or report abuses face death threats and are often prevented from leaving the farms, he said. The legal actions were based on records from the Brazilian authorities, nonprofits and journalists 'showing a persistent pattern of labor abuses throughout Brazil's coffee sector,' the advocacy groups said. The system, rights advocates contend, is bolstered by corporations abroad who rely on Brazilian suppliers — and by unwitting American consumers. 'No coffee produced by slaves should enter American homes,' said Ms. Higonnet of Coffee Watch.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Yahoo
‘Morally repugnant': Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions'
'John' was just days from turning 16 when he was allegedly recruited to work on a Brazilian coffee farm that supplies the global coffeehouse chain Starbucks. Soon after his birthday, he embarked on a 16-hour bus journey to the farm in the state of Minas Gerais – only to discover that none of what he had been promised would be fulfilled. Unpaid and without protective equipment such as boots and gloves, he worked under a scorching sun from 5.30am to 6pm with only a 20-minute lunch break, until he was rescued in a raid by Brazilian authorities in June 2024. The official report from that operation concluded that John had been subjected to 'child labour in hazardous conditions', and that he and other workers had been 'trafficked and subjected to slavery-like conditions'. This week, John and seven other Brazilian workers – all identified simply as John Doe 1-8 for fear of retaliation – filed a civil lawsuit in the US against Starbucks, with the support of International Rights Advocates (IRA), seeking financial compensation for the harm they allege to have suffered. On Thursday, IRA and the NGO Coffee Watch also filed a complaint with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seeking to 'exclude coffee and coffee products produced 'wholly or in part' with forced labour in Brazil' from being imported by Starbucks and other major companies such as Nestlé, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Dunkin', Illy and McDonald's. The complaint cites examples of various operations by Brazilian authorities that rescued workers in recent years and states that the cases 'are only the tip of the iceberg – examples of widespread exploitative working conditions on coffee plantations in Brazil that are far too common'. 'If we're able to convince CBP that our case is watertight … that would be a gamechanger because thousands of people have been found in those conditions by Brazilian authorities, and clearly what has been done till now is not solving the problem,' said Etelle Higonnet, founder and director of Coffee Watch. In Brazil, coffee farming is the economic sector with the highest number of workers rescued from conditions analogous to slavery – a legal category that includes a combination of factors such as debt bondage, excessively long working hours, degrading accommodation and food, and lack of payment. The country has been the world's leading coffee producer since the 19th century, when production surged due to the forced labour of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans and Afro-Brazilians. Today, Afro-Brazilians make up the majority (66%) of workers rescued from slave-like conditions. 'The logic behind coffee production here is one of precarious labour that has always been imposed on Black people throughout our history,' said Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho, coordinator of Adere, a workers' organisation that assists authorities in identifying victims in such conditions. 'In rural areas especially, we as Black people end up falling into these situations because we have no other choice and need to put food on the table,' said Santos Filho, who is Black and says he was subjected to forced labour on at least four occasions. All eight workers who filed the lawsuit against Starbucks live in quilombos — a Bantu-origin word that referred to settlements founded by escaped enslaved people and is now also used for Black communities in both rural and urban Brazil. Approximately 1.3 million people live in 8,400 quilombos across Brazil, in conditions worse than the national average in key areas such as sanitation and illiteracy. 'The fact that Starbucks charges like $6 for a cup of coffee, where most of that has been harvested by forced labourers and child labourers, is really beyond a criminal act. It's morally repugnant,' said IRA's executive director, Terrence Collingsworth. Related: 'He'd only calm down if he killed one of us': victims of slavery on farms in Brazil Both the lawsuit and the complaint allege that, despite rescue operations, after which farm owners are fined and may be added to a government-maintained 'dirty list' of employers linked to forced labour, Starbucks and other companies continue to import coffee from these farms. A Starbucks spokesperson said: 'The cornerstone of our approach to buying coffee is Coffee and Farmer Equity (Cafe) Practices, one of the coffee industry's first set of ethical sourcing standards when it launched in 2004 and is continuously improved. 'Developed in collaboration with Conservation International, Cafe Practices is a verification program that measures farms against economic, social, and environmental criteria, all designed to promote transparent, profitable, and sustainable coffee growing practices while also protecting the well-being of coffee farmers and workers, their families, and their communities.' In Brazil, subjecting workers to forced labour is a crime punishable by up to eight years in prison, but farm owners are rarely jailed. 'To put an end to this, we need consumers to be aware that every cup of coffee they drink, without questioning its true origin, is financing slave labour in coffee production,' said Santos Filho. 'It's no use feeling sympathy for the workers or claiming zero tolerance for such practices if you continue drinking coffee without questioning its source.'
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- The Guardian
‘Morally repugnant': Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions'
'John' was just days from turning 16 when he was allegedly recruited to work on a Brazilian coffee farm that supplies the global coffeehouse chain Starbucks. Soon after his birthday, he embarked on a 16-hour bus journey to the farm in the state of Minas Gerais – only to discover that none of what he had been promised would be fulfilled. Unpaid and without protective equipment such as boots and gloves, he worked under a scorching sun from 5.30am to 6pm with only a 20-minute lunch break, until he was rescued in a raid by Brazilian authorities in June 2024. The official report from that operation concluded that John had been subjected to 'child labour in hazardous conditions', and that he and other workers had been 'trafficked and subjected to slavery-like conditions'. This week, John and seven other Brazilian workers – all identified simply as John Doe 1-8 for fear of retaliation – filed a civil lawsuit in the US against Starbucks, with the support of International Rights Advocates (IRA), seeking financial compensation for the harm they allege to have suffered. On Thursday, IRA and the NGO Coffee Watch also filed a complaint with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seeking to 'exclude coffee and coffee products produced 'wholly or in part' with forced labour in Brazil' from being imported by Starbucks and other major companies such as Nestlé, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Dunkin', Illy and McDonald's. The complaint cites examples of various operations by Brazilian authorities that rescued workers in recent years and states that the cases 'are only the tip of the iceberg – examples of widespread exploitative working conditions on coffee plantations in Brazil that are far too common'. 'If we're able to convince CBP that our case is watertight … that would be a gamechanger because thousands of people have been found in those conditions by Brazilian authorities, and clearly what has been done till now is not solving the problem,' said Etelle Higonnet, founder and director of Coffee Watch. In Brazil, coffee farming is the economic sector with the highest number of workers rescued from conditions analogous to slavery – a legal category that includes a combination of factors such as debt bondage, excessively long working hours, degrading accommodation and food, and lack of payment. The country has been the world's leading coffee producer since the 19th century, when production surged due to the forced labour of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans and Afro-Brazilians. Today, Afro-Brazilians make up the majority (66%) of workers rescued from slave-like conditions. 'The logic behind coffee production here is one of precarious labour that has always been imposed on Black people throughout our history,' said Jorge Ferreira dos Santos Filho, coordinator of Adere, a workers' organisation that assists authorities in identifying victims in such conditions. 'In rural areas especially, we as Black people end up falling into these situations because we have no other choice and need to put food on the table,' said Santos Filho, who is Black and says he was subjected to forced labour on at least four occasions. All eight workers who filed the lawsuit against Starbucks live in quilombos — a Bantu-origin word that referred to settlements founded by escaped enslaved people and is now also used for Black communities in both rural and urban Brazil. Approximately 1.3 million people live in 8,400 quilombos across Brazil, in conditions worse than the national average in key areas such as sanitation and illiteracy. 'The fact that Starbucks charges like $6 for a cup of coffee, where most of that has been harvested by forced labourers and child labourers, is really beyond a criminal act. It's morally repugnant,' said IRA's executive director, Terrence Collingsworth. Both the lawsuit and the complaint allege that, despite rescue operations, after which farm owners are fined and may be added to a government-maintained 'dirty list' of employers linked to forced labour, Starbucks and other companies continue to import coffee from these farms. A Starbucks spokesperson said: 'The cornerstone of our approach to buying coffee is Coffee and Farmer Equity (Cafe) Practices, one of the coffee industry's first set of ethical sourcing standards when it launched in 2004 and is continuously improved. 'Developed in collaboration with Conservation International, Cafe Practices is a verification program that measures farms against economic, social, and environmental criteria, all designed to promote transparent, profitable, and sustainable coffee growing practices while also protecting the well-being of coffee farmers and workers, their families, and their communities.' In Brazil, subjecting workers to forced labour is a crime punishable by up to eight years in prison, but farm owners are rarely jailed. 'To put an end to this, we need consumers to be aware that every cup of coffee they drink, without questioning its true origin, is financing slave labour in coffee production,' said Santos Filho. 'It's no use feeling sympathy for the workers or claiming zero tolerance for such practices if you continue drinking coffee without questioning its source.'
