Employee finds rat in Minute Maid plant

Auburndale, Florida July 10— Coca Cola’s juice producer fired a worker after alerting a USDA inspector of a dead rat found under a Minute Maid orange juice-capping machine. The action again calls into question Coca Cola’s product safety controls.

On June 19, 2001 Eric Meissner, a 30-year employee at the Auburndale, FL plant that produces Coca Cola’s Minute Maid and Hi-C products, was fired after reporting a rat-sighting to a USDA inspector.

“When I spotted the rat, I immediately searched for my supervisor. When I couldn’t find him, I alerted the closest person of authority who was an on-site USDA inspector,” said Meissner. “I followed the safety and sanitation procedures and they fired me.”

The day after reporting the rat, Meissner was suspended with pay while the company had an autopsy performed on the rat. The company later told Meissner that the autopsy results were not at issue, then fired him anyway.

“Eric Meissner was fired for trying to ensure the safety of Minute Maid Orange Juice,” said Ken Wood, Teamsters International Vice President and President of Teamsters Local 79, which represents workers at the Auburndale plant. “It should be a warning sign to Coca Cola that their juice producer would rather fire a worker with 30 years’ experience than address serious product-safety concerns.”

In 1996, Coca Cola brought in Cutrale Citrus Juices USA, a subsidiary of Brazil-based Sucocitrico Cutrale Ltd., to produce Minute Maid and Hi-C juice products in Florida. Since the operational changeover, workers in Auburndale have reported to Coca Cola that rats are prevalent throughout the plant, pigeon feathers and droppings have been found on conveyor belts, roaches swarm juice feed tanks, and mold grows inside production lines that are not shut down regularly for cleaning.

Conditions were so bad by January 2000 that workers initiated their own quality control reporting system and ultimately went on strike to protest unsafe conditions. After ignoring workers’ warnings and a failed Florida Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection, Coca Cola was forced to recall Hi-C products produced at the Auburndale plant in February 2000.

Since Coke turned over operations to Cutrale, there has been:

A failed Florida Department of Agriculture Food Safety inspection that cited 30 violations including: filth from floor buildup on food containers, flaky paint on ceilings over tanks and mold on ceilings and walls;

Two major chemical leaks which caused plant evacuations and shutdowns, worker hospitalizations and complaints of air pollution; a worker killed on the job in an electrical accident; and, citations by the Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for 15 violations, including 13, determined to be “serious.” OSHA penalized the plant on 10 separate occasions for violation in 1999-2000.

Currently, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in Orlando is considering whether to pull Cutrale’s operating permit in Leesburg because of high nitrate levels in the wastewater. Nitrate levels on some days are reportedly twice the state standard. Local residents have complained about smell and the danger of nitrate seepage into ground water.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents hardworking men and women throughout the United States and Canada.

Source: Teamsters Online: www.teamsters.org

Nike’s web-stream from the ‘sweatshop’

By Julia Scheeres

July 13— In a move to squelch its sweatshop image, Nike is inviting the public to take a virtual tour of one of its factories in Vietnam.

The sports-apparel maker debuted a 12-minute online video Thursday, which also includes scenes from facilities in China and Thailand.

The move was called a public relations gimmick by labor activists, an accusation with which Nike took great exception.

“We wanted the opportunity to show anyone who was interested what a Nike contract factory looked like inside,” said Nike spokeswoman Carolyn Wu. “It’s part of our goal to become more transparent in our labor practices.”

Before viewing the video, visitors must register their name, company affiliation and e-mail information on the corporate site. Users must opt-out if they don’t want to receive corporate information by e-mail in the future.

The film opens with shots of smiling Asians and upbeat synthesizer music, then cuts away to a giant white building emblazoned with the Nike swoosh and the company’s motto: “Just Do It!”

“Hello and welcome to a Nike shoe factory,” says Nike’s Director of Labor Practices Dusty Kidd as he strokes a black-and-white athletic shoe. “We’re delighted to have you here today.” The narrators - in English and Australian accents — claim that the multinational corporation has improved the quality of life for its foreign workers.

“The factory is a community,” says one narrator, explaining how Nike supplies free food, clean running water and clean air to its workers, which is probably their “first experience with all three.”

And while the average yearly wage in Vietnam is $260, the 40,000 Nike employees earn $660 a year, the video says. It goes on to summarize the company’s efforts at improving the health of its workers by switching petroleum-based glue for less toxic water-based formulas.

The message: Nike is a warm and fuzzy place to work.

Not everyone found the message endearing.

“They’re just playing around with the numbers,” said Thuyen Nguyen, the director of Vietnam Labor Watch.

Nguyen contends that Nike based its wage information on the country’s per capita income and that the average wage of city dwellers in Vietnam is more along the lines of $1,000 a month. Factory workers still must sleep six to a room to make ends meet, he said.

While Nike spokesman Tiger Woods is paid more than $55,000 a day for wearing the corporate logo, the average Indonesian worker is paid just $1.25 to make the gear that Woods wears, activists claim.

Nguyen scoffed at the idea that Nike has been reincarnated as a kinder, gentler company.

“The video doesn’t tell you how hot the factory is and how strong the chemicals smell,” said Nguyen, who contends that Nike still uses a lot of carcinogens in its plants.

The executive director of Global Exchange, a San Francisco labor rights group, agreed.

“Nike has been desperately trying to free itself from being the poster child for sweatshops,” Medea Benjamin said. “Instead of putting resources into workers’ salaries and independent monitoring, they put them into a PR scam.”

In a recent report, Global Exchange contends that Nike has not lived up to its promises to clean up its shop.

“Anyone who believes they really know what’s going on in a Nike factory by going to a Nike website - I’ve got a bridge to sell you,” she said.

Source: Wired: www.wired.com