Fiji Methodists Being Imprisioned for Speaking out against military regime. Tell Fiji Water to stop supporting this dictatorship!

Mother Jones magazine ran a scathing cover article about Fiji Water. The byline from the  article reads:

Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won’t sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?

Now, that dictatorship has started rounding up  and imprisoning Methodists and is actively trying to destroy the Fiji Methodist Church.  (Remarkably, Fiji might be the most highly population Methodist nation in the World.  Over 36.2% and 2/3 of the indigeounous poplutation of Fiji are Methodist. )

While Fiji water has been silent about the dictatorship, the Methodist Church in Fiji have been vocal critics of civil rights and human rights abuses.  As a reult, The Fiji dictatorship is trying to ban Methodist church gatherings for the next five years.  From a New Zealand newspaper:

High chief Ro Teimumu Kepa spent two days in military and police custody and the stress was clear as she was taken to court.

Her crime is that she supports and has offered her village as a venue for a Methodist conference next month.

All Methodists and democracy advocates should write Roll International Corporation, owner of Fiji Water, and demand that they change their corporate practices and speak out about the Fiji’s government ban of the Methodist Church.

Please write:

Roll International Corporation

11444 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310-966-5700

Filed under: Barack Obama, Christians, Mother Jones, church, economy, human rights, torture , Barack Obama, bottled water, celebrities, civil rights, democracy, dictatorship, Fiji, Fiji Methodist Church, Fiji Water, human rights, imprisonment, Mary J. Blige, Methodist Church in Fiji, Methodist conference, military arrest, New Zealand, Obama, Paris Hilton, Ro Teimumu Kepa, Roll, Roll International Corporation, violations, water

Fiji Water=Water of Death

I’ve weened myself off the water bottle habit (we’d buy a few cases of Ice Mountain from Costco) after I heard about books like Bottlemania: How water went on sale and how we bought it. This month’s issue of Mother Jones magazine takes the debate up another notch with the article “Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle.”

Celebs can’t get enough of this stuff! Obama has been photographed drinking it and Fiji has gotten support from even well known progressives like Arianna Harrington and Laurie David. Also count in Al Gore and Mos Def.  One Manhattan hotel only puts Fiji water into its dog bowls!  In fact, Fiji is now the U.S’ leading imported water brand.  (How crazy is that! Buying water from halfway around the globe).

Read the article but here are a couple of quick facts:

• Lonely planet warns travelers to the town where Fiji water is bottled that the tap water “has been deemed unfit for human consumption,” and groceries were stocked with Fiji Water going for 90 cents a pint—almost as much as it costs in the US.”  Shops in this town, Rakiraki, advertise cheap coffins.
• Fiji Water shelters its assets in tax havens like Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. It pays no taxes to the people of Fiji.
• Though Fiji Water brags about its carbon footprint and charitable giving, it is basically in cahoots with the dictatorship of Fiji and its advertising budget dwarfs any charitable giving.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Mother Jones, human rights, military, progressive , Al Gore, Arianna Huffington, Barrack Obama, bottled water, bottlemania, Cayman islands, charitable giving, Costco, dictatorship, Fiji, human rights, Ice Mountain, imported water, Laurie David, Lonely Planet, Mos Def, Mother Jones, Obama, Rakiraki, social justice, Spin the bottle, tax havens, water, water of death

Chipotle: Greenwashing or just green?

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The above picture is from a local Chipotle.  The poster reads:

“I hope all of our customers see this movie. The more they know about where their food comes from the more they’ll appreciate about what we do.”

If you go to the website, Chipotle urges you to see a free screening of Food, Inc.  I can’t wait to see  the movie, but does Chipotle really qualify as a fast food chain that that should get props from Michael Pollan or Eric Schlossler?  Or is this another example of a corporation greenwashing?

There is no doubt that Chipotle is way ahead of most fast food.  Check this blog out for more info about what the chain is doing right.

But all isn’t right.  I’m sure the workers who make the burritos are paid nowhere near a living wage.  More so,  Chipotle refuses to have labor standards for its tomato growers.  What kind of message is that? Does Chipotle really care that are pigs are cheated humanely but do not care  about the labor rights and civil rights  of the actual people who pick the tomatoes for their salsas?

McDonald’s hamburgers and Chipotle’s burritos earn about 45 cents for every 32-pound container of tomatoes they pick, a subpoverty wage that has remained stagnant for almost 30 years.

Here is a recent summary of the situation from the The Nation:

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has made great organizing strides and has succeeded in convincing numerous commercial giants, including both Burger King and Taco Bell, to increase wages, benefits and observe a strict set of guidelines outlining workplace safety rules.

Chipotle, however, the country’s fastest-growing fast food chain, has resisted efforts by farm-workers demanding a lasting commitment to ending the brutal exploitation in Florida’s fields.

Filed under: Food Independence Day, Immigration, Mexico, POlitics, agriculture, community organizing, farming, film, human rights, progressive , agriculture, chipotle, eric schlossler, farmworkers, florid, florida, food, food standards, human rights, immokalee, immokalee workers, inc, labor, living wage, michael pollan, organic farming, social justice, taco bell, the labor movement, the nation, tomatos, unions, workers