Labor Group Criticizes U.N. Ambassador for Promoting Nespresso, Calls Nespresso to Switch to Fair Trade Coffee

In a video released on their website, the Swiss labor rights group Solidar Suisse is criticizing the human-rights advocate and U.N. ambassador Mr. George Clooney for his endorsement of the large Nespresso coffee company who allegedly not committed to fair trade coffee standards.

In the video, a look-alike of Clooney is seen being knocked down by an Espresso sign. "That's what it feels like to be exploited as a coffeemaker," the video announces. "Nespresso is one of the most expensive coffees but sadly is not fairly traded. George Clooney can change this."

Watch the video here:



On their website (http://www.solidar.ch), The labor rights group calls on Clooney to stop promoting Nespresso, a Nestlé coffee company, since it reportedly does not cooperate with fair trade coffee rules.

"…promoting a company that does nothing to stop the exploitation of coffee pickers is really not right," it says. The group calls on the ambassador to make Nestlé choose between fair trade coffee and having him in their commercials.

The group accuses the Nestlé company, one of the world's largest coffee dealers with an annual turnover of 800,000 tons of coffee, of not ensuring fair trade in coffee to protect the coffee workers who are being exploited, including women and young children, who work hard to earn a living at coffee plantations in Nicaragua, the third poorest country in Latin America.

"They are exploited, sexually molested and humiliated by unscrupulous plantation owners, and all for a daily pittance of 3.80 Swiss francs," the group explains on their website, referring to tens of thousands of women who work at the coffee plantations in the Latin American country in slave-life conditions, fair trade of coffee not being implemented there.

Describing the conditions of the people working at the coffee plantations where coffee fair trade is not secured, the group adds that "Anyone foolish enough to fight back against unfair treatment and exploitation is fired on the spot and forced to leave the plantation together with their family."

The labor rights group vows to continue their battle for fair coffee trade and not give up their fight against the unfair treatment of the coffee workers until every plantation owner treat every plantation worker as a human being, not as a slave, and multinational coffee dealers ensure that coffee pickers earn a decent wage.