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Domini Social Investments LLC today announced that it has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court that supports San Francisco activist Marc Kasky in his effort to hold Nike accountable for its statements concerning the company's use of sweatshop labor.

Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker, is heading for a showdown with its 100,000-strong German workforce after trade unions rejected company proposals to increase the working week to 35 hours without extra pay late on Monday.

To commemorate World Day Against Child Labour, BBC News has spent a day with child miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who work for about one dollar per day. At Ruashi mine, in the Eastern province of Katanga, almost 800 children dig for copper and cobalt.

Trade unions proliferated in Brazil from 1991 to 2001, but their power did not keep in step, says a report that is fuelling debate now that the nation's president is a man was a unionist himself, former metalworker Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

UNITED NATIONS -- Leaders of international environment and development NGO coalitions today challenged governments' indecision in failing to protect the political accomplishments of the 1992 Earth Summit. And they attacked several Northern governments for attempting to undermine the carefully-structured consensus of Rio.

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.

The World Trade Organization praised El Salvador Wednesday for taking steps to open up its economy, but ignored a damning report from a global grouping of trade unions that accuses the country of dismissing workers' rights, particularly in export processing zones (EPZs), known locally as 'maquilas.'

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.

Child labor has not yet been eradicated in Brazil due to cutbacks in social spending aimed at ensuring payments on the foreign debt, Social Watch, an international network linking non-governmental organisations from 60 countries, said Wednesday.

West Coast dockworkers and the shippers who employ them agreed to federal mediation Wednesday, providing a glimmer of hope in the bitter labor lockout that has paralyzed trade at 29 ports from Seattle to San Diego.

Three overseas sweatshop lawsuits involving dozens of the United States' largest retailers and a 30,000-member class of garment workers have settled for $20 million.

A Swedish businessman, whose multimillion-dollar pension came under fire, has lost his job as a spokesman for a U.N. program promoting ethical business practices

Until 1998 Sherri Bufkin happily worked as a manager for Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, N.C. But in 1997, when workers in the giant meatpacking plant there began to organize a union, her superiors - she has testified - forced her to join their campaign to "do whatever was necessary to keep [the union] out."

Here is an interview with Laura Jo Foo of the Asian Law Caucus and President of Sweatshop Watch on the issue of a Living Wage.