Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

Well it’s about time to switch over to food. This week, I’ve chosen Sara Lee Corporation. Which most of just equate with Apple Pies and other dessert foods. However Sara Lee operates many different companies and products that exist under the umbrella of The Sara Lee Corporation. Some of the recgonizable companies include: Bali (underwear), Ballpark (hot dogs), Champion (clothing), Hanes (clothing), Hillshires Farm (food), Jimmy Dean (food), Playtex (girl stuff), and Sara Lee Foods (food).

The Sara Lee Corporation is a notorious offender of labor and environmental laws, constantly finding its way to the Top 10 Worst Corporations List.

When it comes to Fair Trade coffee products, Sara Lee gets the lowest score of all of its competitors on a grading system that takes into account the price they pay to the farmers, policy alternatives, financial contributions, and leadership in industry-wide initiatives.

FRAUD – Sara Lee was one of the several major food companies implicated as conspiring to cover up a massive accounting scandal at U.S. Foodservice (owned by Royal Ahold). Between 2000 and 2003 U.S. Foodservice inflated earnings by $800 million, aided by falsified rebate contracts from clients such as Sara Lee and ConAgra. Sara Lee maintains that they are innocent of misconduct, however the company terminated three sales executives linked to the scandal. – Washington Post

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS – Earthgrains Baking Companies, Inc., a subsidiary of Sara Lee, reached a $5.25 million settlement with the Department of Justice and the EPA for committing the “largest ever corporate-wide violations of stratospheric ozone protection regulations.” Of the 67 facilities run by Earthgrains, 57 leaked refrigerants at a rate 35% higher than allowed by law. In addition, the company made no attempt to correct leakage problems even after their discovery.

ETHICS - In a report obtained by the Detroit Free Press through the Freedom of Information Act it was revealed that managers at Sara Lee’s Bil Mar plant in western Michigan knew they were shipping tainted hot dogs and deli meats, according to statements from workers and a meat inspector to federal criminal investigators. The federal meat inspector also told investigators that managers were aware the plant had increased levels of listeria about eight months before the 1998 nationwide listeriosis outbreak that killed 15, caused six miscarriages and sickened 101 people.

DISCRIMINATION – In May 2002 Sara Lee agreed to pay $3.5 million to 139 black employees who complained of racial harassment and retaliation at Sara Lee subsidiary Hygrade Food Products Corp., a hot-dog plant that closed in 2001. The settlement came after 23 separate racial discrimination suits were filed in June 2001 by African-American employees against the company. The suits, filed in U.S. District Court, alleged that the African-American employees of the Philadelphia Ball Park brand hot dog factory were harassed, subjected to racial epithets, and denied promotions.

SWEATSHOP LABOR – According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, clothing from Champion Products, a subsidiary of Sara Lee Corp., is manufactured in a Thai factory that has long exploited its workers by underpaying, denying payment of overtime wages, requiring forced overtime work, and providing none of the working welfare necessary under Thai law. Employees were made to work in shifts, which each lasted for 12 hours with strict limits on permission time to use the toilet. Women workers have also been sexually harassed and violated. Workers who organized a 1998 strike were fired for their activities.

Sources: Responsible Shopper, Corp Watch, Washington Post, U.S. Department of Justice

As always, be sure to check out Ariah’s post on positive companies that are making advances in creating a more sustainable world.

[tags]Responsible Shopper, Corporate Responsibility, Corp Watch, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Sweatshop Labor, Sara Lee[/tags]

Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

This week’s featured company is Kohl’s. At another attempt to try and show how unbiased I am, Kohl’s is a store that I love to go to because it has cheap “name brand” clothes. I mean currently, I’m wearing a pair of shorts I got at Kohl’s. I chose this company because it’s somewhat in the same genre of other stores that I enjoy like Nordstrom Rack and TJMaxx. And just because it’s “cheaper” for us to buy doesn’t mean it costs any less for those who make it.

Again my attempt is not to be a moralist . . . but began with me wanting to be more informed about what goes in to the low cost of the products that I buy.

Don’t forget about Ariah’s post on a company that is playing its role in creating a sustainable world.

Kohl’s is a rather large company with over 107,000 employees. It also brought in 13.4 billion in revenue in 2006. By all inidications a rather lucrative and profitable company. But they have a litany of complaints against them.

They sell clothing produced by the Leader Garment Factory in El Salvador. This factory gave mandatory pregancy tests. Women who tested positive were immediately fired. This factory also had an obligatory overtime shifts which was 6 days a week, 13 hours a day. Which is 78 hours a week. As compensation the workers were paid $0.60 an hour. Which is a third of the cost of living (which is extremely, extremly small). Meaning that these employees get paid $46.80 for 78 hours of work. Which is what I spent in the store when I bought my pair of shorts and 2 t-shirts.

In other factories that supplied Kohl’s clothing . . . in addition to the 80 hour work week and wages that were 27 percent below the national required minimum wage . . . employees had to work in unsanitary conditions where in the summertime the temperature in the factories would easily be over 100 degrees.

Another large garment factory supplier to Kohl’s (owned by the Taiwanese and operated in Nicaragua) fired employees who attempted to form a legal union. Shortly after its formation, over 400 of the new union workers were fired including their newly elected leaders. Despite government pressure, the factory has refused to reinstate the workers and make upgrades to their labor practices.

Here are a couple examples of their mark-ups. When a shipment of carpenter shorts cleared customs in Miami they had a customs value of $7.15 but were sold in store for $34 . . . a 320% mark-up. A shipment of carpenter jeans had a customs value of $11.52 per pair and sold at $34 . . . for a 195% mark-up.

In addition, their CEO Lawrence Montgomery (the guy who does the least amount of work along the food chain) $1.646 million dollars in 2005 alone. And cashed out $8.4 million in stock options . . . leaving $35.37 million in unexercised stock options.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Sources: Responsible Shopper, National Labor Committee

Don’t forget about Ariah’s post on a company that is playing its role in creating a sustainable world.

[tags]Social Responsibility, Corporate Responsibility, Kohl’s, Department Stores, Sweatshop Labor, Responsible Shopper[/tags]

Corporate Responsibility Mondays.

I think I’m going to start a new little thread around here. On Mondays I’m going to start highlighting a company each week that has poor ethics in regards to environmental standards, labor practices, customer service, and/or product quality. This started recently with me as I’ve been attempting to become more aware and knowledgeable about the things that I buy. Which is certainly not easy to do in our age of marketing and (mis)information. But I’ve decided that if I’m going to give a company my money . . . then it might be a wise decision to at least be familiar with how they handle their business. It doesn’t make very much sense for me to financially support someone or something that goes against the grain of what I value. So with no further ado . . . I present to you this week’s company.

L.L. Bean is a clothing retailer that attempts to appeal to outdoor enthusiasts. In 2005 alone, the company brought in more than 1.4 billion dollars in revenue and had over 3,900 employees. L.L. Bean has often portrayed an environmentally friendly image in it’s advertising. And while it is true that they have formed partnerships with various conservationist groups, they have a laundry list of labor violations.

The National Labor Committee (NLC) documents a series of workers’ rights violations in their Saidan factory (a factory in Jordan), which sews t-shirts for L.L. Bean (the average shirt for L.L. Bean costs between $15-$29). The lack of respect for workers’ basic human rights include:

1. Human trafficking and involuntary servitude of guest workers
2. Confiscation of workers’ passports and denial of legally required identification cards
3. Routine work shifts of 16 to 17.5 hours, with workers typically logging 118 hours of work a week
4. No sick days, paid vacations, or government holidays allowed. Workers received only one Friday off every other month
5. Wages below the legal minimum without overtime pay
6. Workers denied 60 percent of the wages legally due to them
7. Sporadic pay
8. Inadequate and unsanitary working conditions
9. Workers subject to pay reduction, humiliation, violence and threats if production goals not met

This hardly sounds like a company with fair labor practices. The question has to be . . . is paying $29 for a t-shirt worth 30 days a month, 16 hours a day, of another human’s life?

Sources: The National Labor Committee & Responsible Shopper

You can also check out L.L. Bean’s Wiki (which I updated to include this information at Eric’s suggestion)

Tags: Corporate Responsibility, Labor Violations, L.L. Bean, National Labor Committee, Sweatshop Labor