Agriculture, Beverages & Food

“The living conditions – catastrophe: Mice running around the kitchen. When I tried opening the fridge, the door came off. You’d get a better sleep on the floor than on the beds provided,” Maria*, a Polish worker in the Netherlands employed by T&S Flexwerk, told CorpWatch. Read More

A Starbucks store in Buffalo, NY successfully voted to unionize at the end of 2021, becoming the first coffee shop in the chain to become part of a union. This created an unprecedented wave of unionizing efforts among Starbucks workers across the US.  Read More

An email titled “Why gas increase is good for hiring”, sent out by Wayne Pankratz, an executive director of operations for Applebee’s franchise Apple Central LLC, detailed how inflation and soaring gas prices are a great opportunity for lowering employees’ wages. Read More

A court in Atlanta, Georgia, has ordered Coca-Cola to turn over documents relating to the violent eviction of hundreds of families in northern Cambodia in 2008 and 2009. The families were evicted to make way for sugar plantations planned by Mitr Phol, a Bangkok-based supplier to Coca-Cola. Read More

Lawyers for a group of some 1,200 Nicaraguan banana plantation workers appeared before the Paris Trial Court in an effort to force Dow Chemical, Occidental Chemical and Shell Oil to pay $1 billion in compensation for health problems caused by Nemagon, a pesticide sold by the three companies. Read More

Stanka Becheva, a food and agriculture campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe, speaks by video with Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch about the Meat Atlas 2021, a report that documents the methods and impacts of the meat industry, naming and shaming the small handful of companies that control it. Read More

At least 52 workers have died after a fire broke out at the Hashem Foods factory in Narayanganj, some 16 kilometers southeast of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Many of victims were teenagers employed in violation of labor laws, who died because the gates to their workplace were locked. Read More

"License to Clear" - a new Greenpeace report on deforestation in West Papua - shines a light on the worst offenders: Korindo, Posco International, Nobel Group, Hayel Saeed Anam Group, KPN Corp, Eagle High Plantations, Indonusa, Carson Cumberbatch/Goodhope Asia, DTK Opportunity, Digoel Agri/Bumi Mitratrans Marjaya Group, Salim & Victory. Read More

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) plans to hold a protest outside the offices of Nelson Peltz, board chair of Wendy’s fast food restaurants from March 15-18. The protest will highlight ongoing human rights abuses faced by the agricultural workers in Mexico who pick tomatoes for the chain. Read More

The Yerisiam Gua indigenous community of West Papua filed a complaint six months ago against a Sri Lankan owned conglomerate for taking over their land to create a palm oil plantation. To this day, the industry body charged with oversight has yet to formally respond to their concerns. Read More