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The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is one of the windiest locations in the world. Located in Oaxaca state, México, it has been historically famous as the shortest distance between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Today it is also the location of major conflict between Indigenous communities and wind energy companies.

Village land in Chikor Leu commune, Koh Kong province, Cambodia, was forcibly seized in 2006 to give to local companies to grow sugar for conglomerate Tate & Lyle. The former residents sued Tate & Lyle in the UK. In April 2023, the NGO Equitable Cambodia announced that 200 families were compensated for the land and the human rights abuse, although details were not disclosed.

Bui Thi Nhung, a Vietnamese migrant worker working in New Taipei, Taiwan, at the technology giant Garmin informed management that she was pregnant in March 2023. Shortly after, Nhung was given untranslated resignation documents to sign which she felt obligated to comply with. After labor and human rights organizations raised an alarm, Garmin agreed to rehire Nhung. 

Potássio do Brasil is planning to mine for potash, a key fertilizer ingredient, on the land of Mura Indigenous people in Amazonas state, Brazil. Courts have imposed a US$20,000 fine on the company for attempting to claim land for the mine in Soares village despite the fact that the local Mura have yet to give permission for mining to go ahead. 

Mobil Corporation (now ExxonMobil) began drilling in the Arun gas field in northern Sumatra in the 1970s. Indonesian soldiers, who were paid to provide security for the gas field, attacked local villages during a civil war against the Free Aceh Movement in the 1990s.

Société Financière des Caoutchoucs (Socfin) operates a 58,000-hectare palm oil plantation around the town of Mbonjo in west Cameroon that it acquired from the government of Cameroon in the year 2000. After two years of negotiations, villagers were given back three hectares of sacred land that contain ancestral graves as well as where they grow traditional medicinal plants.

Environmental groups Forest Ethics (now named Stand.Earth) and Greenpeace were sued by logging company Resolute Forestry Products for criticizing the impact of the company’s boreal forest logging on dwindling woodland caribou herds. A California judge tossed out the C$100 million lawsuit after a seven-year court battle.

Workers at JNB Global’s factory in Guatemala made clothes for U.S. mega retailer Target. In 2020, JNB demanded that all workers sign new contracts that would have wiped out benefits from the years of service they had put in. Seven workers refused to sign and were fired.

In August 2020, a huge explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, killed 218 people. The cause was determined to be a fire that ignited a cargo of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that had brought to the port on the MV Rhosus, a ship registered to Savaro Ltd., a UK company. Victims’ families sued Savoro in UK courts – and in February the High Court of Justice in London ruled that Savoro needs to compensate the affected families.

Fossil fuel giant British Petroleum (BP) was given the green light by Mauritania and Senegal for the proposed Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) offshore gas drilling project in the North Atlantic Ocean. Scientists who reviewed the company’s impact assessment of the project complained that it was inaccurate. After four years of lobbying, the company finally agreed to redo the assessment.

Palm oil and timber giant Korindo sued Mighty Earth and Rettet den Regenwald, environmental groups based in Washington DC and Hamburg, Germany, respectively, for publicly criticizing the companies’ deforestation of West Papua, Indonesia. When the court indicated that it would rule in favor of the NGOs this past February, Korindo agreed to drop the lawsuit.

Eli Lilly charges U.S. customers up to $300 a dose for insulin despite the fact that its production costs are around $10. Unlike most other countries, the U.S. refuses to regulate Big Pharma’s ‘market’ prices. Following a decade of protests, Eli Lilly bowed to pressure and capped U.S. prices at $35 a dose.

The United States is the only wealthy country that does not guarantee paid sick leave. By contrast France offers 21 days a year and Germany offers up to 84 weeks of paid sick leave at 70 percent of salary. So, when 5,000 workers at the U.S. rail giant CSX negotiated a guarantee for four paid days of sick leave a year, the unions rejoiced at the ‘significant accomplishment.’

Workers at construction materials company Saint Gobain’s factory in Cuaulta, Morelos, Mexico, defeated company-backed union Confederation of Workers & Peasants (CTC) to set up a new union named the Independent Union of Free and Democratic Workers of Saint-Gobain. The victory over CTC was a result of major labor law reforms enacted in 2019.

Workers at Vald’or, a garment factory in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, made clothes for PVH (formerly known as Phillips-Van Heusen), that owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands. The factory abruptly shut down in December 2021 and failed to pay severance or pension benefits to the 1,100 workers. With the help of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), the workers got a collective payout of $1 million.

The European Court of Justice ruled in favor of a Belgian beekeper, Nature & Progrès Belgium and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe to close a loophole that allowed companies like Bayer to produce and sell neonicotinoids – pesticides that kill bees and other pollinators – in Europe despite a 2013 ban.

A group of 230 workers in the San Francisco Bay area sued Golden Gate Restaurant Group Inc., a franchisee of Burger King, for forcing them to work off the clock including during their meal and rest breaks. The California Labor Commissioner’s Office ordered the company to pay $724,000 in unpaid wages and interest, plus a fine of $1.2 million. 

‘Rabbit Farm Resistance’ and ‘Shut Down T&S Rabbits’ successfully campaigned to shut down T&S Rabbit Nurseries farms in Rutland and East Bridgford in the UK in August 2022, by publicizing the living conditions for the rabbits, as well as how the company used a loophole to get around a 22-year old ban on breeding rabbits for their fur.

The Pakistan Accord on Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry signed in December 2022 is designed to prevent tragedies like the Ali Enterprises factory fire in 2012 in Karachi, Pakistan that killed some 260 workers. It is modeled on a similar initiative that was created in Bangladesh after the Rana Plaza Fire that killed over 1,100.

Singapore Airlines has changed its policy of requiring air stewardesses to resign before the end of their first trimester of pregnancy. Instead, pregnant staff will be allowed to apply for jobs on the ground and provided with 16 weeks of paid maternity leave after giving birth.