by Tommy Johnson
The US coffee monopoly Starbucks claims to ethically source its coffee have proven to be a scam once again as investigative reports in Brazil expose child and slave labor at four of its sources in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Along with the use of slave and child labor, the report found workers eating cold meals and suffering low wages and inadequate accommodations.
17 workers had to be rescued from slavery at one of the Starbucks partnered farms in Brazil last year, including three teenagers. The children were found to be toiling in the hot sun and carrying heavy sacks. The farm and its roaster hold the Starbucks C.A.F.E. practices seal (Coffee and Farmer Equity). The monopoly giant claims that their practice “addresses the social and environmental needs of all the participants in the supply chain from farmer to consumer. The standard promotes transparency, profitability, and responsible coffee-growing and coffee-processing practices while improving the livelihoods of coffee farmers and workers and conserving natural habitat for communities.” This is a marketing tactic, a smoke screen to cover the child slavery really taking place.
Starbucks does not care about the workers on the plantation or in the shop where the coffee is sold. Starbucks has been fighting against the unionization of their shop employees, even taking the union to court in retaliation against the workers showing international solidarity. Most recently approximately 5,000 workers walked off the job during Starbucks’s busiest “Red Cup Day”.
The striking workers in the US affected hundreds of stores on the busiest day of the year, sending a message to the corporation that they demand a contract and an end to being overworked and underpaid. The imperialist and monopolist corporation will only be challenged with greater international solidarity between the workers in the US and those in the oppressed nations who break their backs harvesting beans for the monopoly.
