What does a Fair Trade premium mean to a family in Sialkot?

Chandrika is 30 year old and works as a tapper on Frocester Estate, the first supplier of FSC-certified fairly traded rubber that is used in Fair Trade Sports products. She is pictured here holding a pair of sneakers from our sister company Autonomie Project which are made with the same eco-certified materials we use in our sports balls. Chandrika's husband is a mason and they have three sons (13, 10, 6), all of whom attend government school.

The joint body of Frocester decided to spend the Fair Trade premium from 2007 to provide clean water for a total of 64 families. This represents 227 people, 115 of whom work on the estate. All three water plans are in the one far away section of the estate, which until the arrival of the new manager had been totally neglected in all respects. While the water provided by the new plan is not enough for all needs (laundry still is done with water from the river or open wells), it is the first time in the history of these "labor lines" that clean water is available from taps.

What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that the Fair Trade money would barely have sufficed for two of the three plans, which include two wells with pumps, storage tanks, piping and taps. The new manager arranged for some unused material (e.g. a pump) to be utilized, the estate paid some of the cash costs, and the workers themselves contributed work and cash to complete the project. The remainder came from the Fair Trade premiums (reminder: we do not pass these premiums on to you, our consumers).

For one of the water plans the workers for the storage tank, the estate paid for the well, and the Fair Trade premium money paid for the piping. In another scheme the workers added more taps, and in two cases they even installed shower facilities. Two of the three plans require pumping; the estate provides the first 11 liters/fuel per month free, a water committee/plan charges families a small monthly fee to pay for the rest.

All of this has contributed to much better labor relations in the area. During an island wide plantation strike for higher wages in December 2006, Frocester was the only estate which produced throughout the strike.

Bijad is 24 years old and single. He was born in Gidpur, Pakistan and went to school in nearby Sialkot. He started stitching soccer balls to help his family when he was 18. He used to stitch four or five soccer balls in a day.

Bijad likes Pakistani music and playing pool, so when he was 20 years old, he took out a micro-credit loan through our group's Fair Trade fund at or manufacturer's Sialkot location and purchased a small building with a pool table. Bijad spent the rest of the loan money on equipment to set up a barbershop.

While he can earn quite a bit of money every day for offering shaves to supplement his income from the pool table business, it is from pool that Bijad earns a good income...twice what he earned from stitching soccer balls. He completely paid off the loan in 25 installments over two years.

The pool table also offers a welcome form of entertainment in a poor village where there is very little in the way of entertainment options for young people. His friend, Mohamed, is keen to point out that "This is the best thing to do here; before we got bored."

June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor.

Ending the economic exploitation of children can only be possible when free, compulsory and quality education is assured for all children regardless of gender, race, religion, and social or economic status.

The elimination of child labor and education for all are two sides of one coin. Just as we fight against child labor at the beginning of our product cycle with our certified Fair Trade soccer balls, we also encourage children's education at the end of our product cycle by pushing our after-tax profits to Room to Read and Boys & Girls Club of America. Until we begin producing significant after-tax profits, Fair Trade Sports donates $1000 annually to each of these organizations. Learn more here.

Please consider doing the same with your charitable dollars this year, and help fight child labor through education.

When her husband died in an accident 17 years ago, Vasanta (age 46) was offered her deceased husband's job as a tapper, an estate tradition. Since then Vasanta has been working for the New Ambadi rubber plantation (where we source our eco-certified Fair Trade rubber for our sports ball air bladders), as well as bringing up her three children.

Meryn (23), her elder daughter, is married and lives with her husband, a lab technician in a hospital in Chennai. Vasanti visits them and her 2.5-year old granddaughter there once a year for about a week. The overnight journey by overland bus costs Rs. 450 one-way. Her son Manu Stephen (18) has three months until the final exams of a two-year hotel management course. The course costs his mother a total of Rs. 30,000 in fees. The youngest daughter Subi (17) is in the 11th grade at a government school where Vasanta pays for her books.

Vasanta lives with Manu and Subi in a small house in a village five km away from New Ambadi. The house has four rooms, a kitchen/bath, and an outside toilet. The house has electricity, but the communal water tap opposite her house only operated 1.5 hours a day, so it is only used for drinking. There is an open well next door, which serves all the other needs of the family - and of the neighbors next door.

Every morning, Vasanti takes a bus to work while it is still dark because as the sun and the temperatures rise, the warmer weather causes freshly tapped latex to dry up too quickly, which lowers the yield. As a tapper, she does two tapping rounds per day, usually ending up with two buckets full of freshly tapped latex.

Most tappers carry these by bicycle to the nearest collection station (some even have motorbikes now), but Vasanta prefers to carry the latex on her shoulders: 45 kg of liquid - 18 kg of rubber. For this she earns 126 Rupees (a basic wage equivalent to about $2 USD), plus 40 Rs. in bonus. The second round is worth another Rs. 72.

Officially, the work week is only six days but like most tappers, Vasanta works on Sundays as well because the bonus is much higher. On a good day she can make the same as working two to three weekdays. Fortunately, her colleague Nagappan is happy to help carry at least the first round of her harvest with his bicycle.

...it would be hard not to after watching Radiohead's "All I Need" video that they did with MTV's EXIT initiative (End eXploitation and Trafficking).

The video (shown to the right) shows a split screen, depicting a day in the life of a well-off child from a Western country versus a day in the life of a poor child who is forced to work in a shoe factory sweatshop.

Ed O’Brien said Radiohead became interested in the issue in part because of author Naomi Klein’s book No Logo which highlighted the production-to-retail practices of companies. Klein's book also ranks as one of my favorites.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that lead singer Thom Yorke lauded MTV for taking on such issues, given the fact that the network's hands aren't exactly clean.

Yorke said the band had linked with MTV to highlight such issues as child slavery, enforced servitude and sex trafficking because it was "about exploiting a situation while you have the chance."

"All power to MTV for taking this on because its obviously going to be difficult for them in terms of the advertisers," he said. "If you talk about slave labour, then the issue of cheap goods from the East is all about that.

With the [All I Need] video their lawyers had to beg to make sure there wasn't a single white [sneaker] with a logo on it because the implication would be a little too close. But the implication is still there," he concluded.

I spend a good portion of my working hours with the Not For Sale Campaign, fighting against slave labor in a way that my skill set allows (ecommerce, marketing, biz dev, that kind of thing). It is a logical tie-in to my other company, Fair Trade Sports, with our certified Fair Trade sports balls (read: adult workers paid a fair wage and ensured healthy working conditions).

If you are so inclined, we'd love to have your help with the Not For Sale Campaign. We've got lots of volunteer opportunities. You can make a direct, positive impact on this global problem...

Plenty Magazine recently featured our sports balls in a lineup of cool (and useful) green gear for this Spring on a New York morning TV show. Check out the article and the video.

Waylon Lewis is a funny guy. Quite funny, in fact, but also a poignant speaker on current events. Take a glimpse into life in Boulder, Colorado in this short elephant magazine video clip of Waylon. Be sure to check out the rest of their video series as well.



Props to Mathew Gerson at eConscious Market for supplying Waylon with the Fair Trade soccer ball to pitch from the stage.

Sameena Nyaz is 18 years old, single, and lives in a village called Chak Gillan, near Sialkot, the world capital of soccer ball production in Pakistan.

Her father runs the snack shop in the soccer ball stitching center 200 yards away, which was built by Talon Sports, our Fair Trade soccer ball supplier. Sameena goes there to stitch soccer balls, too. After home-based stitching stopped, the center became one of the first places where women could continue such work. As companies moved the work into big factory units in order to prevent child labor, they effectively locked out women who could not be away from home for the whole day.

Sameena is one of 11 siblings, seven sisters and four brothers. Two of the older ones also stitch balls. Stitching wages are low - only Fair Trade buyers like Fair Trade Sports pay enough to enable the three to provide their family with all the basic necessities.

Sameena never had the chance to attend school - instead, she has been contributing to the family income from early on, and has now been stitching for three years. The family has a small hut and a kitchen garden, where everyone helps out.

Recently Sameena had to have a thyroid operation - the bandage on her neck was still there. All costs were paid by the Talon Fair Trade Welfare Society - the health care program made possible by the Fair Trade premiums, a first for workers, which include Sameena and her family.

Kitman is 67 years old and still works a full-time job. Since he started working, he has been a rubber tapper on the Frocester Plantation in Sri Lanka.

By local standards, Kitman is a successful man. Each of his seven sons has found work in the capital of Colombo (two hours away by bus). The eldest son is in charge of a small business, two have become tailors, two work as drivers, and two are employed as shop assistants. One of his daughters is a teacher, while the other works as a rubber tapper on the same plantation as her father.

With their joint savings, Kitman has managed to improve the basic accommodations provided by the plantation to the extent that the structure of what once was called battery housing is hardly noticeable anymore. The house is currently being occupied by nine people: Kitman and his wife, three of their daughters-in-law and two grandchildren, as well as their daughters.

The house has one major drawback, however; there is no running water.

Water must be fetched from an open well that is 100 yards across the village road. According to the medical officer of the plantation, many people in the area suffer from dysentery and other water-borne diseases as a result of the lack of a safe water supply.

In an agreement with the plantation owners (the first Fair Trade deal in rubber), our group ordered rubber for our products (the inside air bladder of a Fair Trade soccer ball is made of latex, which comes from rubber) and paid a Fair Trade premium for it.

In line with Fair Trade criteria, the management and the workers established a Fair Trade Welfare Society and jointly decided how this money would be spent. One project will be the installation of a pump and a piping system, so that 20 households around the well will each get a tap in front of their unit. Kitman's house is one of them.

The other major Fair Trade project agreed upon is the restoration of a restroom for the workers at one latex collection station, which includes a canteen area to keep food safely and a unit with sanitary latrines, along with a place where workers (mostly women) can change into their working clothes.

Arguably, all of this should have been provided by plantation management, particularly since rubber is selling well right now with strong global demand. However, our purchases of rubber have led to an agreement that management will provide the funds to ensure that these projects will be completed, even though the initial Fair Trade premium is not enough to cover the costs.

I was speaking with students at the University of Washington last week about this topic and realized I had not yet done a blog post summary on it. So here you go...

As suppliers of Fair Trade soccer balls, we've signed up to a pioneering initiative where soccer ball stitching is organized into small work units in the villages of Sialkot, Pakistan - with dedicated units for women, who - in an Islamic society - could not work in the same room as men.

As part of Fair Trade requirements for sports balls (PDF), the working conditions in these units (ventilation, lighting and access to safe drinking water) are being improved each year.

The key component of Fair Trade criteria, however, is that the workers in these centers receive a substantially increased wage for all soccer balls ordered under Fair Trade conditions. These wages are calculated - if it were applied for all their work - to meet the basic needs of a family, allowing the children to go to school instead of having to work.

Furthermore, a basic health care program is provided for all those involved in the production of Fair Trade sports balls - a first for this type of employment. And in order to reduce the workers' dependency on the ball-export production (which can be seasonal), micro-credit loans are offered to improve the village economy and to provide alternative or additional income opportunities to the workers.

To finance these changes, a Fair Trade premium is also placed on the price of each unit. And as with all other products that carry the Fair Trade certification, compliance with these criteria is subject to constant independent monitoring. The Fair Trade certification does indeed guarantee a better deal for all producers.

In the case of Fair Trade soccer balls, the price of every ball includes a premium that we pay (but not pass on to you the consumer), which contributes to the health care and micro-credit programs described above, the improvement of working conditions, and above all ensures that whoever stitched your ball has received a fair wage.

We believe this gives an entirely new meaning to the term, "customer satisfaction"!