Since its beginning, the National Consumers League (NCL) has cared deeply about the conditions under which consumer products are produced. In the early 1900s, NCL helped pass landmark state and federal laws that protected children from the ravages  of child labor.

In 1989, in NCL’s 90th year, it helped launch the Child Labor Coalition (CLC) to ameliorate the worst forms of child labor and to protect teen workers from health and safety hazards. This fall, the CLC, co-chaired today by NCL and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), marks its 20th anniversary, still going strong. The Coalition brings together 22 groups, including several of America’s largest labor unions, committed to reducing exploitative child labor and child trafficking.

“The CLC’s unique mission is what has made it successful for two decades,” said NCL’s Executive Director Sally Greenberg, who serves as co-chair of the CLC. “By bringing together both domestic and internationally-focused groups, our collective voice carries significant weight and attracts some of the nation’s leading human rights organizations.”

The idea for a coalition of nonprofits, unions, and other advocacy groups to fight child labor emerged rather suddenly in 1989. Several Washington, DC groups had participated in a Capitol Hill child labor forum organized by Bill Goold, a Congressional aide. The energizing forum prompted attendees including NCL’s then-President Linda Golodner and Pharis Harvey, the executive director of what was then called the International Labor Rights Fund (now the International Labor Rights Forum), who immediately saw a need for a collaborative approach to end child labor. A coalition of such groups, they believed, could leverage the resources of its members and speak with a stronger voice than each individual could alone.

Bill Treanor, the founder of the American Youth Work Center, along with Harvey and Golodner, became the original three chairs of the coalition. The AFL-CIO provided $10,000 in seed money, and the CLC was born. Attempts to fund the Coalition over the years have been difficult, noted Golodner, a co-chair of the coalition for 18 years. “It was hard then, and it’s hard today,” she explained, adding that for the most part, the foundation world has turned a “blind eye” to the child labor issue.

Over the last two decades, the CLC has enjoyed a number of successes. Coalition members wrote a model state child labor law that several states used in part. The CLC also worked to eliminate “timed delivery” within the fast food industry, successfully ending Domino Pizza’s 30-Minute Guaranteed Delivery, preventing driver deaths and injuries.

The CLC has hosted child labor forums and meetings, providing an opportunity for nonprofit advocacy groups and the federal officials charged with reducing child labor to coordinate their work and learn from one another. In its 20 years, the CLC has also issued a number of major reports, on such issues as trafficking, to draw the public’s attention toward the child labor issue and guide policy.

The CLC helped organize Global March Against Child Labor activities in North America, bringing much attention to the issue. Fifteen years ago, the CLC helped launch RugMark, the innovative, highly successful child-labor-free certification program for handmade carpets in South Asia.

“We became the voice for child labor advocacy from the United States,” said Darlene Adkins, a former NCL Vice President and the CLC Coordinator for 17 years. “In the early years, our focus internationally was on the consumer: ‘We don’t want products coming into the U.S. made by child labor.’ As the years went by, we got more involved in the global discussion of child labor—‘let’s end child labor globally…let’s make sure children have access to free basic education’.”

In 1999, NCL and the CLC joined the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs to launch the “Children in the Fields” Campaign to reduce child labor among migrant and seasonal farmworker children, who work long hours in the fields legally through exemptions in U.S. child labor law. Today, that campaign has several fulltime staff people; farmworker advocates are optimistic that a legislative remedy will  be passed under the new Administration.

In many industries, it takes the bright light of public scrutiny to bring about action on a problem like child labor. The CLC focuses that light. “The League has been one of the central voices for child labor for 110 years, and that is significant,” added Adkins. “It’s been a core, central part of our mission since the League was established. We are one of just a handful of groups that have had that concern, and I think that’s remarkable.”

In September 2008, Sally Greenberg testified in the United States House of Representatives on behalf of the CLC, urging the Department of Labor to greatly expand its number of child labor investigators. When Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis took office this year, adding labor inspectors was one of the first things she did. To learn more about the ongoing work of the CLC, visit www.stopchildlabor.org.

By Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

The holiday season is a time of joy best spent with family and friends. Keep those you love safe, happy, and healthy by following these simple tips:

When Cooking

• Wash hands with soap and warm water for 20 seconds, both before and after handling food items. Take special care when handling raw meat.
• Numerous holiday recipes, from eggnog to fruitcake, call for eggs. All eggs – even grade A, with uncracked shells – can be contaminated with Salmonella, so it is imperative to cook dishes containing eggs thoroughly. If cookie dough or cake batter contains raw eggs, resist the temptation to lick the spoon.
• Keep raw poultry, meat, and eggs away from other foods to avoid cross-contamination.
• Clean all surfaces that come in contact with raw meat or poultry – such as cutting boards, utensils, dishes, and countertops – with hot, soapy water or a bleach solution.

When Entertaining

• Keep guests out of the kitchen, to prevent individuals from touching food and spreading sickness-causing bacteria, which is present on the fingertips of approximately half the population during the holiday season.
• On the buffet table: Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.
• Serve hot foods in chafing dishes, warming trays, or crock pots, and use a food thermometer to ensure that dishes maintain an internal temperature of at least 140˚F.
• Place trays of cold foods on ice.
• Throw away any food that has been sitting at room temperature for more than two hours, to better avoid foodborne illness.
• To avoid bacteria contamination from guests’ hands, refrain from adding new food to nearly-empty serving dishes, and replace the entire dish instead.
• Keep alcoholic beverages out of reach of children and teenagers and near the watchful eye of a responsible adult.
• Ensure that the apple cider you serve is pasteurized. Unpasteurized juice, which is labeled as such, can cause vulnerable individuals to become extremely sick.

After the Party

• Do not drive home if you have had too much to drink. Call a cab, or catch a ride home from a sober driver.
• If you take leftovers with you after a holiday party, refrigerate them immediately once you arrive home
• Leftovers stored in the fridge should be consumed within three to four days. When reheating leftovers, ensure that foods reach 165˚F throughout.

By Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

Last week, the National Consumers League sent a letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg strongly encouraging the agency to enforce and expand its mandate to prevent the deceptive labeling of tomato products. A plethora of products currently on the market carry false and misleading labels implying that they have been made or packed directly from fresh tomatoes when they are actually created from concentrate. These labeling claims include statements such as “packed full of premium vine-ripened tomatoes,” “made from California vine-ripened tomatoes,” “packed from 100 percent California tomatoes,” and “picks the freshest tomatoes,” and often share the label with pictures of whole, vine-ripened tomatoes. Such claims are misleading to consumers and should be better monitored by the FDA.

Nineteen years ago, NCL urged the FDA to define the term “fresh”; to issue guidance differentiating products made directly from fresh ingredients from those created from concentrate; and to take enforcement action against such products bearing false or misleading labels, steps that the agency consequently took. While these measures reined in misleading tomato product claims at the time, the agency has not consistently enforced them, and, in recent years, tomato products bearing misleading labeling have proliferated. Furthermore, in order to circumvent the FDA guidance, many marketers are using terms such as “vine-ripened” that convey the same meaning as “fresh” to consumers, and that do not in any way suggest that products labeled as such are made from a thick industrial tomato concentrate, weeks or months after the concentrate is manufactured.

In its December 10 letter to Commissioner Hamburg, the League suggested a series of steps for FDA to take, in order to stem the tide of false and misleading labeling of tomato products. First, in order to send a clear message to industry, the agency should take enforcement action against remanufactured tomato products currently on the market that bear false or misleading claims. Second, FDA should issue a new, updated guidance to industry that expands the agency’s enforcement policy to include claims that imply – in addition to those that specifically state – that a reconstituted tomato product was packed or made from fresh tomatoes. Third, the agency should require fruit and vegetable products made from concentrate to be labeled prominently as such on the principal display panel of a package, as is currently required for juices; this measure will ensure consistency in labeling requirements among this group of products.

Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of NCL, stated, “In order for food labeling to be effective, it is imperative not only that the label not include false or misleading claims, but that it quickly and easily convey accurate and important information to consumers. The fact that a tomato product is remanufactured with added tap water from concentrate, rather than packed from the fresh tomatoes in a single, continuous process, is material information. It is our hope that the FDA will take the necessary enforcement action, as well as issue new guidance to industry, in order to bring transparency to the labeling of all fruit and vegetable products from concentrate and prevent consumers from being misled.”

The League’s efforts to bring transparency to the labeling of reconstituted tomato products continue its long history of demanding truth in advertising.

It’s that time of year – the snow is falling, friends are calling, noses are running, and throats are aching.

YOU have the power to fight the germs and take control of your health by washing your hands.  What better a way to celebrate Hand Washing Awareness Week than to remind you of these few simple steps from the CDC:

With old-fashioned soap and water:

• Wet your hands with clean running water and apply soap. Use warm water if it is available
• Rub hands together to make a lather and scrub all surfaces
• Continue rubbing hands for 15-20 seconds. Need a timer? Imagine singing “Happy Birthday” twice through to a friend
• Rinse hands well under running water
• Dry your hands using a paper towel or air dryer. If possible, use your paper towel to turn off the faucet
• Always use soap and water if your hands are visibly dirty

With an alcohol-based hand sanitizer:

• Apply product to the palm of one hand
• Rub hands together
• Rub the product over all surfaces of hands and fingers until hands are dry

Earlier this week, NCL’s Executive Director Sally Greenberg testified before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce at a hearing on the Calling Card Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 3993), where she discussed the need for greater consumer protections in the purchase and use of prepaid calling cards. When Sally last appeared before the committee to discuss the issue, she equated the prepaid calling card marketplace with the “Wild West,” where unwary consumers too often fall victim to unscrupulous sellers and merchants. On Thursday, a year later, she said she is “sad to say that the situation for consumer remains more ‘Gunsmoke’ than ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

Read Sally’s full testimony *here.

 

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