Contact: Adrienne Fitch-Frankel (Cocoa campaign director) 510 919 5496
Kirsten Moller (Global Exchange Executive Director) 415 606 9365
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2008
Napa, California
Global Exchange and Harrington Investments Present Shareholder Resolution to Create Board-Level Human Rights Committee at Hershey
HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA - With Abusive Child Labor Still a Threat to Shareholder Value, San Francisco-based human rights organization Global Exchange and Harrington Investments, today presented a resolution to create a board-level human rights committee at the Hershey's Corporation.
In response to media exposes and the resulting public outcry starting eight years ago, in 2000, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would require slave-free labels on all chocolate products. In lieu of this legislation, Hershey's and other major chocolate manufacturers signed the voluntary Harkin-Engel Protocol, in which they committed to certifying cocoa as free of the worst forms of child labor by July 2005. When industry missed this deadline, it extended the deadline to July, 2008 and is set to miss the deadline once again. The resolution seeks to create a forum for the board to address these issues.
"As shareholders, we were quite surprised to see Hershey's board recommend against a resolution that would help them protect children," said Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Economic Justice Campaigner for Global Exchange.
As part of making shareholders aware of the importance of this resolution, Global Exchange distributed Hershey's kisses with an extension to the iconic white tag with blue print. The extensions, which resemble the Hershey's tags, featured quotes from government and media reports documenting child slavery, such as "Twenty-nine percent of the child workers surveyed in [Ivory Coast] reported that they were not free to leave their place of employment should they so wish. (Report by International Labor Organization, 2002)" and "We left our country only because of money…We have become slaves because of cocoa. -Slavery: A Global Investigation (UK Channel 4)." The kisses were created by Boston-based visual artist/teacher Kassandra Derby. "It's so innocent just to have a small Hershey's kiss. It is hard to imagine that something so small and tasty could have such a huge impact on the lives of so many children who are at risk of abusive child labor in producing countries. Voting on Global Exchange's shareholders resolution also seems like a small choice, but it can have a big impact on ending suffering for hundreds of thousands of children," said Derby.
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Hershey Shareholder's Meeting 2008 Remarks
By Global Exchange, Proponent of Shareholder's Resolution Number 4: Creates a board-level human rights committee
Good morning. My name is Adrienne Fitch-Frankel. I run the cocoa program at the human rights organization, Global Exchange, which is a shareholder of the Hershey corporation. We believe that eliminating human rights violations from the supply chain, is not only consistent with the ethical standards for which this company has always been renowned, but is also imperative to eliminate significant and persistent threats to brand image and profits at Hershey's.
For this reason, we congratulate Hershey's for the strides it has made by creating new standards to address non-cocoa inputs into its supply chain.
Global Exchange is pleased to present Resolution 4, which would create a board-level committee on human rights, an important tool for continuing the work Hershey's has begun in eradicating human rights violations from its supply chain.
Fellow stakeholders in Hershey's - shareholders, employees, community members - I would like to invite you to consider a question. When history books look back at this period in the history of the company…what do you want those history books to say? The books will start by reflecting on how Milton Hershey was a famed innovator in worker rights and community relations, far ahead of his time. After his death, we, all of us, inherited the company.
And in 2000, we, as a company - board members, shareholders, employees, community members, encountered a problem not of our own making. Child slavery and abusive child labor on a massive scale in West Africa - source of 70% of the world's cocoa. Do we want the history books to say that when WE were custodians of the company that we continued the noble tradition that Milton Hershey began, of leading the way in the industry by ensuring that workers rights and human rights were respected? Or do we want the history books to say that, on our watch, we set the company hundreds of years backwards in labor relations, by tolerating child slavery?
In the 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol, Hershey's, along with other major chocolate manufacturers made a commitment to us, its stakeholders - shareholders, employees, consumers, and the children of cocoa growing regions.
Our company committed to certify all cocoa as free of the worst forms of child labor by July, 2005. When the industry did not end abusive child labor and slavery in the supply chain by 2005, it extended the deadline to July of 2008 and narrowed its scope to only 50% of farms in Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana.
I would like to point out two reasons that Hershey's urgently needs a board-level human rights committee. First, abusive child labor is still pervasive in the cocoa fields. In Fortune Magazine on Valentine's Day of this year, Christian Parenti, who was reporting from the cocoa fields of the Ivory Coast, wrote "[T]oday child workers, many under the age of 10, are everywhere." Second, a report funded by the US Department of Labor, in October of last year said that what the industry is calling certification is "a misnomer." In short, with the second deadline barely two months away, Hershey's cannot certify that it has eliminated the worst forms of child labor from its cocoa supply.
Two years ago, with continuing reports of child labor abuses in the cocoa industry, Global Exchange presented a different shareholders resolution that would give the company tools to maximize shareholder value by ending abusive child labor in cocoa.
The board's recommended against our resolution and assured shareholders that it would take care of the problem.
Two years later, the child labor situation still has not been addressed. Global Exchange has brought another shareholder's resolution - this time to create a board-level human rights committee. Creating a board-level human rights committee will not commit the board to any particular course of action, but it will give the board a forum to address these issues, and where organizations who are monitoring this issue can provide the service of bringing issues of concern to the attention of the board and be in dialogue so that we can work in partnership to protect stock value and protect children.
Once again, the board is recommending against the resolution. Once again, the board is saying it will take care of the problem. It has provided you with a response citing codes of conduct and other company documents most of which have no reference to human rights whatsoever and have not been effective in ending this problem.
I have a question for each and every person here to answer. What would you like this company to look like two years from now? What would you like this company to look like in the history books? Do you want there to still be a child slavery problem? Or do you want a board committee empowered to bring this problem to an end? I urge you to think about this question for a moment. And then I urge you to mark your ballots for Resolution 4.
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