While Obama did not address these issues, they were weighing heavily on the minds of human rights and labor advocates in the US and Ghana leading up to Obama's visit. A broad range of US and Ghanaian organizations developed a press booklet (available here) before Obama's trip outlining a range of recommendations for improving US policy toward Africa. Additionally, the Ghana Federation of Labor (GFL) joined with the International Trade Union Confederation in holding a two-day conference in Ghana highlighting violations of worker rights in the US. The GFL endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act as a step toward ensuring freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining in the US and issued a statement saying:
the anti-union practices, especially in the USA, where workers are
deprived their fundamental rights to organise and bargaining
collectively.
Strangely, the USA has not yet ratified ILO Conventions 87 and 98
concerning freedom of association and the right of workers to
bargaining collectively. This is an indictment on the image of the USA
as a founding member of the ILO.
The global chocolate industry provides an excellent example of how workers both in Ghana and the US are exploited by US-based multinational corporations. For years, ILRF has documented how in their quest for cheap cocoa, US chocolate brands and major US-based cocoa traders offer low prices to cocoa farmers for their beans. As a result, farmers are forced to cut production costs, especially labor costs. This often means using child labor as well as trafficked labor.
Here in the US, chocolate companies like Hershey have been closing down factories in the US to take advantage of lower labor costs in Mexico. Last Wednesday, a 29-year-old temporary worker at a plant owned by Lyons & Sons, Inc. in Camden, New Jersey, died after falling into a vat of melting chocolate that was being processed for Hershey. The plant is currently under investigation by the FDA and OSHA, but this tragic case highlights the poor working and safety conditions for workers in the food industry, especially young and temporary workers. In Lititz, Pennsylvania, workers at a Wilbur Chocolate plant that is owned by Cargill recently filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board because the company has implemented a three-year contract that cuts wages by 45% for the majority of workers and cut overtime wages without the approval of the union. The complaint is the latest part of a two-year contract dispute between workers and management.
The violations in the global chocolate industry are just one example of how US-based companies exploit workers both in the United States and Africa. US policy toward Africa must include strong protections for workers in all aid and funding programs and support for the development of trade unions as well as increased efforts to hold US-based companies accountable for international labor, human rights and environmental abuses. As the Ghana Federation of Labor noted, the US must also join the international community in ratifying ILO Conventions -- especially ILO 87 (related to freedom of association), ILO 98 (protecting the right to organize and collective bargaining) as well as ILO 111 (preventing discrimination in employment).
The Ghana Federation of Labor has also shown the important role trade unions can play in supporting other workers globally. Unions and labor rights advocates can continue to work in solidarity together -- and strengthen these efforts -- in order to hold shared employers and our governments accountable.
