 | Target: Wal-Mart Lite by Kari Lydersen, Special to CorpWatch April 20th, 2006 Shopping in a Target store, you know you’re not in Wal-Mart. But, critics say that in terms of working conditions, sweatshop-style foreign suppliers, and effects on local retail communities, big box Target stores are very much like Wal-Mart, just in a prettier package. |
 | Happy Meals, Unhappy Workers by Aaron Glantz and Ngoc Nguyen, Special to CorpWatch March 6th, 2006 Vietnamese workers earn less than $2 a day making stuffed animals and Happy Meal toys for U.S. consumers. An ongoing series of wildcat strikes this winter has forced the government to raise wages to prevent factories from moving to other countries. Listen to an interview about this article with Aaron Glantz on CorpWatch Radio. |
 | Baghdad Embassy Bonanza by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch February 12th, 2006 A controversial Kuwait-based construction firm accused of exploiting employees and coercing low-paid laborers to work in war-torn Iraq against their will is now building the new $592-million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Listen to an interview with David Phinney about this article on CorpWatch Radio. |
 | Vedanta Undermines Indian Communities by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to Corpwatch November 15th, 2005 Vedanta, a fast growing British mining and aluminium production company founded by a billionaire expatriate Bombay businessman, threatens communities in India with environmental degradation and widespread pollution. |
 | The Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline: BP’s Time Bomb by Hannah Ellis, Special to CorpWatch June 2nd, 2005 With their newly opened pipeline, British Petroleum (BP) is cutting a path of environmental and social irresponsibility from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. |
 | 'Tis the Season for Shareholder Activism by Jan Frel, Special to CorpWatch May 4th, 2005 Every spring, activists and investors attend annual general meetings to protest and meet face-to-face with CEOs and corporate boards. The goal is to place their agendas -- on everything from the environment to labor practices -- front and center. |
 | Meat Packer's Union on the Chopping Block by Sasha Lilley, Special to CorpWatch April 18th, 2005 Today's meat packing industry relies increasingly on high-speed, treacherous disassembly lines. Perhaps that's why Tyson Foods, Inc. -- a giant in a flourishing industry -- is working to take apart a union that prioritizes safety over speed. |
 | Egyptian Asbestos Workers Dying of Cancer by Aaron Glantz, Special to CorpWatch January 13th, 2005 Workers at Aura-Misr, a Spanish-Egyptian asbestos company in Cairo, have been laid off since Christmas, after a ban on asbestos took effect in the country. Many of the fired workers have been diagnosed with cancer and they worry that other workers may soon fall ill and die also. |
 | Sweating for the Olympics by Sasha Lilley, Special to CorpWatch August 11th, 2004 Behind the five intertwined rings of the Athens games, underpaid workers are sewing the shirts, gluing the shoes, and putting zippers to running suits and track apparel branded as Olympic--in working conditions that would make even the most highly trained athlete sweat. |
 | Sweet and Sour by Jim Lobe, Special to CorpWatch June 23rd, 2004 A new report from Human Rights Watch reveals that American corporations such as Coca-Cola may be getting sugar from plantations in El Salvador that employ child labor. |
 | Poison and Profits by Chris Thompson, East Bay Express April 7th, 2004 First California semiconductor firm AXT, Inc. exposed its workers to arsenic. Then it fired them and sent their jobs to China. |
 | The Smell of Money: British Columbia's Gas Rush by Shefa Siegel, Special to CorpWatch March 13th, 2004 In Canada's British Columbia, ExxonMobil, Talisman, Shell, and other energy giants are racing to tap the region's "sour gas". But the potential toxicity of the gas is being ignored. |
 | Money for Nothing and Calls for Free by Nidhi Kumar and Nidhi Verghese, Special to CorpWatch February 17th, 2004 As the outsourcing of jobs has become a hot election year issue in the US, call centers in India continue to multiply. Local workers answer calls for US corporations at a fraction of the cost of an American worker. |
 | Operation Sweatshop Iraq by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch February 12th, 2004 Halliburton is hiring temps to work in Iraq: $100 a month for locals, $300 for Indians and $8,000 for Texans. Meanwhile taxpayers are getting charged top dollar, prompting investigations from the United States military. |
 | Jordan's Sweatshops: The Carrot or the Stick of US Policy? by Aaron Glantz, Special to CorpWatch February 26th, 2003 While the world braces for a US war against Iraq, Washington is using its newly inked Free Trade Agreement with Jordan to open sweatshops and secure an ally in the region. |
 | Sweat-Free School Purchasing Resolutions: A New Trend? by Ben Plimpton, Special to CorpWatch February 6th, 2003 School Districts and city governments are promising to purchase "sweat-free" uniforms and sports equipment. Organizers say the grassroots initiatives are a cutting edge in the fight against sweatshops. |
 | West Coast Dockworkers: Victory in the Face of the Bush Doctrine by David Bacon, Special to Corpwatch January 2nd, 2003 West Coast Dockers negotiate a contract despite federal intervention on the side of business. But the Bush administration has fired a warning shot at labor. |
| The Prison Industry: Capitalist Punishment by Julie Light, CorpWatch October 28th, 1999 The CMT Blues scandal and the host of human rights and labor issues it raises, is just the tip of the iceberg in a web of interconnected business, government and class interests which critics dub the ''prison industrial complex.'' |
| La Linea: Gender, Labor and Environmental Justice on the US-Mexico Border by Julie Light, Special to CorpWatch June 30th, 1999 TECATE, Mexico -- Tecate's coat of arms dubs this Mexican town ''Baja California's Industrial Paradise.'' About 30 miles from Tijuana, the city is home to the Tecate brewery and also houses an industrial park filled with assembly plants, or maquiladoras. This ''industrial paradise'' is one of several Mexican border boomtowns that is part of a global production system. |
| Engendering Change by Julie Light, Special to CorpWatch June 26th, 1999 For women working in Mexican assembly plants, known as maquiladoras, insisting on their legal rights takes what are colloquially referred to as cojones. It indicates that Mexico's low wage feminine labor force may not be as docile as foreign employers would like to believe. It also is a harbinger of an incipient movement inside Mexico's expanding export-processing sector. |