international library for a responsable world of solidarity ritimo

Le portail rinoceros d’informations sur les initiatives citoyennes pour la construction d’un autre monde a été intégré au nouveau site Ritimo pour une recherche simplifiée et élargie.

Ce site (http://www.rinoceros.org/) constitue une archive des articles publiés avant 2008 qui n'ont pas été transférés.

Le projet rinoceros n’a pas disparu, il continue de vivre pour valoriser les points de vue des acteurs associatifs dans le monde dans le site Ritimo.

Don’t Let Big Oil Off the Hook

We may not know the full impact of BP’s disaster in the Gulf for a long time to come, but one thing is clear- this is BP’s fault and it should pay for the harm it’s causing.

There is currently a $75 million cap on how much an oil company has to pay in the event of a disaster. Unfortunately, the fishing communities, restaurant owners, tourism industry and other individuals affected by this current disaster have lost more than this much already and will lose more in the days, months and years to come.

Can you take action to make sure the $75 million cap is lifted, and that BP will have to pay for all of the harm it has caused?

Take action

Luxury Brands Drag Their Feet, DESA Workers Fight for Their Lives

Think it’s fair for a woman to be fired just because she joined a union? If not, then buyers at the DESA factory in Turkey – including Prada, Debenhams, M&S, Mulberry, Aspinalls of London, Nicole Fahri and Luella – need to hear from you today!

As we approach the first anniversary of the beginning of the union struggle at DESA, workers are still protesting every day outside the factory to demand the reinstatement of 44 workers dismissed for organising a union.

In December 2008 and April 2009 the Turkish court confirmed that 25 workers had been illegally dismissed as a result of union activities and demanded their reinstatement. DESA decided to appeal the court’s decision. No new evidence was brought by DESA to the recent court hearings – an indication that the appeal is just another attempt to delay the process. This is a common tactic to drag out disputes in the hope that workers will be forced to end their campaign through economic hardship.

Better Bargain

Demanding change from the world’s giant retailers

Discount retailers like Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Carrefour, and Walmart try to lure consumers into their shops with low, low prices. A man’s suit for £25 at Tesco, a woman’s dress for $9 at Walmart, or jeans for €8 at Carrefour. How do they do it?

...If you’re a worker in the workshops or factories that supply these stores, you’ll have some of the answers – poverty wages, forced or unpaid overtime, no work contract, harsh repression of any attempts to organize to improve working conditions. CCC believes these workers deserve a better bargain.

The CCC Better Bargain campaign focuses on the policies and practices of large global retailers such as Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour, Aldi, and Lidl – referred to as “Giant” retailers. These retailers all have huge market shares and exercise enormous buying power – they are truly giants in the field of retail. Although they sell many different products from a range of sectors, they have profound and ever-increasing power in the garment retail market. Consumers should be able to do their shopping in stores where they can be sure that every effort is being made to ensure that no human rights have been violated in the production of their clothing.

* Read more about Better Bargain Campaign
* Campaign News
* Read also the CCC’s ’Cashing In’ report

The Paraquat case

Paraquat is easily the most controversial herbicide in the world. Paraquat is not approved for use in Switzerland. But in a number of developing countries plantation workers and small farmers regularly spray Paraquat to kill weeds. As a result, tens of thousands of people are poisoned every year and become ill. Thousands die painful accidental deaths or commit suicide. There is no antidote to Paraquat poisoning.

The Swiss agrochemical corporation Syngenta is the world’s foremost producer of Paraquat. (Syngenta sells it under the trade name Gramoxone). Syngenta sells hundreds of millions of US Dollars worth of Paraquat every year. By knowingly marketing their herbicide in countries where experts agree it cannot be safely used, the company is responsible for countless cases of serious or deadly poisoning caused by Paraquat.

The Berne Declaration is an independent organization engaged in a campaign together with many other NGOs and unions to ban the use and production of Paraquat across the world. To highlight the urgency of these campaign, it calls on civil society to publicly condemn Syngenta’s inhuman business policies. They hope to enlist the support of 50.000 people to vote and pronounce a guilty verdict in the case against Paraquat.

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