By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Toyota’s current recall saga reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day – every day it’s the same thing, or a variation. First it was Toyota cars experiencing unintended acceleration caused by improper floor mats and sticky gas pedals, causing the Japanese automaker to issue a massive recall of millions of vehicles, stopping production, and bringing sales to a halt. Then, very quickly, the company announced it had a fix. So soon? (By the way, “product recall” is a misnomer that I find misleading because it suggests the product, in this case a Toyota car, will be retired or taken out of service permanently. That’s not what “recall” means. In this case, a consumer brings in his or her recalled car to a dealer, who fixes the problem at no charge. Recalls are mostly launched because of an inquiry and agreement with the company that it will fix the problem, prompted by consumer complaints about safety.)

I spent 10 years working on auto safety matters at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, and I’ve had a hard time sorting out what exactly is going on with Toyota, so I can only imagine how confusing the series of events, reactions, and news coverage must be for consumers who own Toyotas. Members of Congress have scheduled a hearing next week, and two members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are asking Toyota officials to clarify what exactly happened leading up to this recall. U.S. Toyota President James Lentz apparently told committee staff last year that the company first learned of the sticky pedals in vehicles driven in Ireland and England in April and May of 2009. But Lentz *went on the Today Show this week and claimed that Toyota first became aware of the sticking accelerator pedals in late October of 2009. House members – and consumers – want this inconsistency explained.

Sean Kane, who runs a group called Safety Research and Strategies, documented more than 2,000 instances of unintended acceleration involving Toyotas, resulting in more than 800 crashes and 19 deaths since 1999. Carol Mathews of Rockville complained in 2003 to NHTSA about her Lexus’ sudden acceleration into a tree. Apparently Mathew’s complaint launched an NHTSA investigation.

Meanwhile, to avoid problems with electronic throttles and sudden acceleration, some automakers have introduced brake override systems, which is an electronic adjustment that allows drivers to stop the car even if the throttle is stuck open. But Joan Claybrook, longtime President of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and a former NHTSA Administrator, asked a good question: “If it was just a floor mat problem, taking the floor mat out would correct the problem – so why are they putting the brake override in?” Toyota told the Washington Post that this was “an extra measure of confidence like other passive safety features on our vehicles.”  Confidence is likely the last thing many consumers are feeling right now about their Toyotas.

Toyota could have avoided the negative publicity by more being upfront and open about safety problems, letting consumers know it was the company’s intent to fix safety problems. Instead we got inconsistent statements, confusing information, and a rushed fix, which – for better or worse – has been met with skepticism about its effectiveness. There’s a lesson here for all companies: consumers will respect your quick attention to address any safety concerns you uncover and will work with you to get the problem fixed. Don’t bury your head in the sand or blame the consumer for safety problems, as some dealers did.

Toyota — which should agree to be organized by the United Auto Makers union — makes a solid and popular line of vehicles; however, its handling of this recall has been plagued by confusing information and new safety concerns daily. Consumers deserve better. We hope Toyota can deliver on its promises to fix the flaws in the newer models and slow down its production line — if even a little — so that it can return to being the automaker many Americans trust to turn out a great product.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.

February is *American Heart Month and this Friday, February 5, we remind everyone to wear red to support women’s heart disease awareness. Heart disease is the number one killer of women each year, and one American dies every minute from a heart attack. By taking a few simple steps, you can reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

The President, in a *proclamation issued earlier this week, reminds us that while costly and devastating, heart disease can largely be prevented. He suggests we protect our families from the disease by taking ‘responsibility for our health and that of our children – including *exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy diet, *avoiding tobacco, and raising our children to spend more time playing outside.’

*Remind your friends and family to love their heart.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings

Part two of a four-part series, in which we present the food issues we anticipate will affect American consumers the most in 2010.

By Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

Even in the best of times in modern-day America, amid a near-constant stream of news about the obesity rate and the overabundance of calorie-dense foods, hunger has remained a problem in American society. The current economic downturn has caused a dramatic increase in the number of Americans going hungry.

According to a USDA report on household food security in 2008, 14.6 percent of households – comprising 49 million individuals – were “food insecure” at some point during the year.  These figures reflected a sharp rise from 2007, when food insecurity affected 11.1 percent of households, or 36 million people.  And, while the statistics on household food security for 2009 are not yet available, USDA SNAP monthly data shows that the number of Americans receiving aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps,” rose dramatically throughout the year.  In December of 2008, nearly 32 million individuals were enrolled in SNAP – up from almost 28 million in the first month of the year.  By September of 2009 – the last month for which data is currently available – that number had risen to over 37 million.  As the New York Times reported at the end of November, one in eight Americans and, alarmingly, one in four children now rely on food stamps.  Approximately 20,000 new individuals enroll each day.  And as the discrepancy between food insecure individuals and SNAP enrollment reveals, a large portion of the population still experiences hunger, whether steadily or intermittently, without the benefit of the supplemental nutrition safety net.  Of those who do receive SNAP, approximately six million individuals rely on it as their sole source of income, according to a December New York Times article.

While the federal government continues to fund the ever-growing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and food pantries find creative ways to serve a growing number of clients despite declines in donations, it will require more than patches to the nutritional safety net to reign in hunger in the United States.  The Healthy People 2010 objectives set the goal of decreasing U.S. household food insecurity by 50 percent from the 1995 baseline of 12 percent to 6 percent in 2010.  Clearly, this was an overly ambitious goal.  In October 2008, during the presidential campaign, President Obama pledged to end childhood hunger by 2015.  As the official campaign statement noted, “The most effective way to eliminate childhood hunger and reduce hunger among adults is through a broad expansion of economic opportunity…Barack Obama understands that poverty is the primary cause of hunger and has a comprehensive plan to reduce and alleviate poverty.”  Coalitions such as the National Anti-Hunger Organizations (NAHO) and the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger continue to provide policy recommendations and ground-level support for meeting food security objectives, but it will require that the government make a lasting, financial commitment to providing the economic opportunities and income supports necessary to permanently reduce hunger.

In a country as wealthy as ours, access to an adequate supply of nutritious food should be a basic human right.  And for those not swayed by the moral argument, there is also a strong economic argument to be made for reducing hunger, particularly among children.  As NAHO explains:

Over the past ten years, researchers have confirmed what educators, child caregivers and healthcare professionals know through observation: When children don’t get enough nutritious food, they fall behind physically, cognitively, academically, emotionally and socially.  They, their families, communities and country suffer the life-long consequences of these reduced outcomes.  Adults who experienced hunger as children have lower levels of educational and technical skills.  Ill-prepared to perform effectively in today’s jobs, they create a workforce that is less competitive…Ending childhood hunger in America will improve the health of its people while reducing short- and long-term healthcare costs, elevate the educational status of its people, and help the nation regain its workforce competitiveness and economic strength.

The ultimate goal of hunger-relief programs should not be merely to provide the necessities of life to those who need them, but to enable all consumers to be just that – individuals able to work and earn enough money to purchase food with which to feed themselves and their families.  And, while the Healthy People 2010 objective to decrease U.S. household food insecurity to 6 percent clearly will not be met, the year 2010 is nevertheless a fitting time to commit to the reduction of hunger in America.

by Reid Maki, Child Labor Coalition

This post originally ran in Media Voices for Children, an Internet news agency for children’s rights.

In November, I reminded folks that young children—children who are 12- and 13-years-old and even younger in some cases—harvest fruits and vegetables on many U.S. farms and that many of them are allowed to do so because of loopholes in U.S. child labor law that go back to the 1930s. Child advocates have been trying to close those loopholes for years, and today, I’m happy to report that the campaign is progressing well.

Last week, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) became the 68th member of Congress to cosponsor the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), HR 3564, which would close the legal loopholes and apply the same child labor laws to all working children. The bill, introduced by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) in September, would preserve an exemption for family farmers so their children could help on the farm, but the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers who work for wages would have to wait till they are at least 14 to work. The U.S. Department of Labor would evaluate the safety of agricultural jobs to determine if some can be performed by 14- and 15-year-olds. The CARE Act would also prohibit teens in agriculture from doing jobs recognized as very dangerous until they were 18—the age limit in all other industries.

Campaign organizers, including the 24 members of the Child Labor Coalition, the American Federation of Teachers, the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, Human Rights Watch, and First Focus Campaign for Children, are pleased that members of Congress from states with large farmworker communities have embraced the bill. Twenty members of the California delegation have cosponsored CARE. Texas, another state that is home to many migrant farmworkers, boasts seven members who have co-sponsored the bill. The Progressive Caucus has been incredibly supportive with 43 members co-sponsoring the legislation.

Efforts to gain support among advocacy groups are also gaining strength. To date, more than 50 groups have endorsed the CARE legislation, including all the national farmworker groups—Farmworker Justice, the United Farm Workers of America, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the National Farmworker Ministry, Student Action with Farmworkers, the Migrant Clinician’s Network, Migrant Legal Action Program, the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association and the National Association of State Directors of Migrant Education have all endorsed the bill. It’s great to have such unanimity within the community.

In addition to the farmworker unions, several of America’s largest national unions have also endorsed CARE: the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the Teamsters, the National Education Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and the Laborer’s International Union of North America have said that CARE is needed to protect child farmworkers and help farmworker families escape the generational poverty that traps them.

Hispanic advocacy groups have also spoken as one. The National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Hispanic Federation, the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, and MANA, a National Latina Organization have all given CARE an emphatic thumbs up.

Other advocacy groups that have endorsed the legislation include the American Association of University Women, Interfaith Worker Justice, the International Labor Rights Forum, the NAACP, the National Collaboration for Youth, the United States Student Association, and the National Organization for Women. We are so pleased that these groups have come together to support farmworker children. In the past, the plight of these kids has not gotten much national attention, but we were really pleased with the ABC News coverage

of these working children in November. The report, which appeared on Nightline, Good Morning America and the ABC World News, found several children under 12 in Michigan picking blueberries, including a 5-year-old. The children sometimes work till 9:00 p.m. One 11-year-old told reporters he was in his third year in the fields. Another small child talked about the danger when pesticides are sprayed nearby.

Josie Ellis, a nurse with Migrant Health, told Nightline that the fields in North Carolina, where she is based, are full of working children.

She noted that the kids acquire severe rashes, respiratory illnesses, and neurological impairments from their contact with pesticides. They also miss out on their childhoods because they are working long hours. “Play is something that migrant children know very little about. Work they know,” said Ellis. “We see frustration. We see really tired kids. We see depression in children….despair…the inability to dream…the inability to see past high school…the inability to see past junior high school….I think it’s shameful that our nation tolerates child labor,” added Ellis. We are told that NBC News is working on a piece that should appear sometime this spring.

The Children in the Fields Campaign organizers were also pleased that La Opinión, the nation’s largest circulation Spanish-language newspaper endorsed the CARE Act on September 26th: “The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE) begins to correct legislation that harms primarily poor, Latino, and immigrant children and young people. There is no justification for permitting minors to work in the fields when it is unlawful for them to work in other types of employment under better conditions. Children of agricultural workers deserve the protection granted to all youth.”

One of the great things about being involved in a campaign like this is the amazing people you meet. In a prior blog, I spoke about Norma Flores, a young woman who spoke eloquently about her experiences in the fields and the many friends she worked with who became exhausted and overwhelmed by their work and dropped out of school. Now in her twenties and working on the Children in the Fields Campaign, Norma recalled her years as a child farmworker. “I hated it,” said Norma. “I hated to work in the fields. I hated getting sweaty and dirty. I hated getting blisters and cuts and sunburns. I hated finishing my row of work only to see there was no water to drink at the end. I hated to have to walk half a mile to go to a dirty portable toilet. I hated how the work affected me outside of the fields. I hated having to enroll in school late every year, to have to make up months of assignments and have to fight to get my school credits.”

Recently, I received moving testimony about working in the fields as a child from Julia Perez, who lives in Arizona and has also become a part of our movement to end this injustice:

My earliest memories start at the age of 5, when I was pulled out of school to start working in the strawberries in Oregon. We then headed to another labor camp in Idaho where I was handed a knife to start topping onions. I cut myself a lot, once really bad on my knee because as it turned out I needed glasses. My days consisted of early, wet, mornings starting at 4am and long 10-12 hrs days of work. This went on for 6 months a year in 10 different states. This was the end of my childhood. I was five, but my back and knees ached like an old person, I had scars from all the cuts, I hated the camps with bathrooms outside. We were so tired at the end of the day, we only showered once a week and mostly I didn’t want to miss school.

Julia noted that only one of her 20 nieces and nephews have gone to college. Child labor robs children of their futures. Can we continue to ask these children to make such huge sacrifices? Please call your Congress member and urge the passage of the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment—the CARE Act—today.