December, 11 2013, 02:06pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
National: Devika Ghai, Pesticide Action Network North America, 415 728 0169, devika@panna.org, (907) 355-0446
Alaska: Heather McCausland, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, heather@akaction.org, Vi Waghiyi, Native Village of Savoonga and Alaska Community on Toxics on harms of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, (907) 222-7714 or (907) 444-9194, vi@akaction.org
California & DC: Paige Tomaselli, Center for Food Safety, (415) 826-2770, PTomaselli@centerforfoodsafety.org
Florida: Jeannie Economos, Farmworker Association of Florida, (407) 886-5151, farmworkerassoc@aol.com
Oregon: Lisa Arkin, Beyond Toxics, 541-465-8860, larkin@beyondtoxics.org Human Rights Expert contact: Dr. Tom Kerns, Environment and Human Rights Advisory, tkerns@u.washington.edu
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Groups Call on State Department to Address Human Rights Violations of Global Pesticide Corporations
Urge immediate action to address human rights violations perpetrated by the six largest pesticide and agricultural biotechnology corporations at home and abroad
WASHINGTON
In recognition of International Human Rights Day yesterday, a coalition of farmworker, food, public health, Indigenous Peoples, and environmental health and justice advocates delivered a unique photo-petition to top officials at the U.S. State Department and White House urging them to hold the world's six largest pesticide multi-national corporations accountable for human rights abuses. During the first week in December -- in remembrance of the worst pesticide disaster in world history at Bhopal, India on December 3, 1984 and culminating on December 10, International Human Rights Day -- the groups collected widespread support and pictorial testimonies from people demanding an end to human rights violations by multi-national pesticide companies.
"The world's six largest pesticide corporations have trampled on the rights of people across the world, including in the United States," said Devika Ghai of Pesticide Action Network. "U.S. officials have a responsibility to stand up to powerful corporations and defend the rights of all people to health, life, livelihood and a healthy environment."
The petition -- addressed to Jason Pielemeier of the Business and Human Rights Section at the U.S. Department of State, and Susan Rice, the President's National Security Advisor -- calls upon the US Government to fulfill its obligations to protect human rights from corporate abuse, particularly by the pesticide industry, under the provisions of 'The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights', an international framework that U.S. officials helped draft.
The world's six largest pesticide and GE (genetically engineered) seed corporations - BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta - dominate the global marketplace. Together, the "Big 6" control 76% of the global pesticide market and 60% of the global seed market. And the harms caused by their pesticides and market domination are far-reaching.
"Farmworkers here in the Lake Apopka area of Florida were chronically - over decades! -- exposed to the same pesticides that caused reproductive anomalies in the lake's alligators and one of the largest bird mortality incidents in U.S. history on the contaminated Lake Apopka farm lands. Yet, to date, there has been no effort to address the chronic health problems of the people who worked daily in the farm fields while being regularly exposed to these same toxic pesticides. In an effort to garner attention to their concerns, community members created the Lake Apopka Farmworker Memorial Quilt to honor the farmworkers - friends and family members -- who had worked the vegetable fields and who have since passed away. The lack of accountability for the health impacts to the farmworkers - and their second generation children - I call this a human rights violation," said Jeannie Economos, of Farmworker Association of Florida. Many low- income farmworkers also ate fish caught out of Lake Apopka in order to supplement their diet, increasing their body burden of pesticides.
The impacts of the Big 6 pesticide corporations can also be felt in communities across the country. Facing exposure to many of the same pesticides (a very persistent class of pesticides known as organochlorines, the class to which DDT belongs), Indigenous families in Alaska also joined in the photo-petition. Because these persistent pesticides
travel northwards on wind and water currents, they accumulate in traditional food sources; these chemicals have harmed the bodies of Yupik and other Native peoples of Alaska and the Arctic, putting entire communities and ways of life at risk.
"When the simple, sacred act of eating our traditional foods puts us at higher risk of cancer, it's a violation of our human rights. We have a human right to food and subsistence, health, clean air, clean water and toxic free food," said Vi Waghiyi, Native Village of Savoonga tribal member and of Alaska Community Action on Toxics. "The governments and corporations of the world must protect the health and human rights of Indigenous Peoples. The U.S. signed the UN Declaration of the Rights Of Indigenous Peoples. We need to protect the health and well-being of our Indigenous Peoples, our children and future generations who deserve to gain the cultures and traditions passed on for generations from our ancestors."
In 2011, the U.S. Government, as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, endorsed 'The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights', an agreement to implement the UN Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework,. This framework lays out state and private sector obligations to protect and respect human rights, and to provide access to remedy when violations do take place.
In the petition delivered today, in recognition of International Human Rights Day, people across the U.S. are calling upon government officials develop a national action plan to implement the Guiding Principles -- and to prioritize pesticide industry violations.
Two years ago, the Big 6 were put on trial in India by the Permanent People's Tribunal for their gross violations of human rights. Over two dozen cases were heard from communities around the world who testified to a range of violations, from direct poisonings to forced child labor to harassment of farmers and facilitation of violent repression. After four days of testimony and deliberation, the jury pronounced the Big 6 guilty of "gross, widespread and systematic violation of human rights."
It is against this backdrop that the coalition, including Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Beyond Toxics, Center for Food Safety, Farmworker Association of Florida, and Pesticide Action Network, along with other partner organizations, delivered the petition to top officials at the State Department and White House today.
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
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'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
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U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
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Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
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'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
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"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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