WalMart Exclusive: Childsweat covered Blueberries

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

ABC News Investigation: The Blueberry Children

Walmart has severed ties with one of the country's major blueberry growers after an ABC News investigation found children, including one as young as five-years-old, working in its fields.

The children were discovered at the Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, in South Haven, Michigan, this summer by graduate school students working with ABC News as fellows with the Carnegie Corporation.

The full report on the investigation airs tonight on Nightline.

A five-year-old girl, named Suli, was seen lugging two heavy buckets of blueberries picked by her parents and brothers, aged seven and eight.

An 11-year-old boy in the Adkin fields told the Carnegie fellows he had been picking blueberries since the age of eight.

The owner of the company, Randy Adkin, was once featured on a Walmart billboard advertising his "locally produced and locally sold" blueberries.

...

[Y's_habibitk 2]

Are the kids on the company's payroll(IE- are they aware of this) or are mom and dad taking them to work and letting them "help"? Either way the company should be held accountable to some extent. I guess we'll see when the full story comes out.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Wal Mart knows this. It's only when discovered that they will stop selling it.

What about the sweats from those children overseas? I doubt there are any concern for that because we can't help it.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Wal Mart knows this. It's only when discovered that they will stop selling it.

What about the sweats from those children overseas? I doubt there are any concern for that because we can't help it.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

This isn't anything new - and it isn't only Walmart that's at fault for this. Sports clothing manufacturers still have their manufacturing operations in India and the far east - in one documentary I saw the kids were actually sewing on labels that said that the product was not manufactured by child labour.

Tesco supermarket in the UK was importing produce from Zimbabwe up until relatively recently - regardless of the fact that there isn't enough food to sustain the native population.

Worst thing I heard of was of rich commercial farms in Sudan which were actually preselling their crops to middle eastern customers, while the citizens in that country starved on a massive scale.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I have done thorough research in this area on my free time in the past when the price of imported jasmine rice was 2x the regular price.

Rice is the primary staple of Asia. Where do cheap rice comes from? Cambodia. Where does most of the cheap and high quality rices goes to? Thailand (sometimes they grow their own, but, they buy from Cambodia for a low price and sell them back to Cambodia at a high price), China, France, USA, Vietnam, etc...

So, there was temporary ban on export of rice from the Kingdom of Cambodia in 2007 for about one month because the people of Cambodia makes roughly 1 dollar or less/day and cannot afford to pay for rice that they have grown. Therefore, there were many people suffering from hunger.

When I see a poor person begging for 2 penny (about 300 riel) and is all bones, plus is very old (90 years) I get mad. I get mad that this happens, and I can't do a thing about it.

This isn't anything new - and it isn't only Walmart that's at fault for this. Sports clothing manufacturers still have their manufacturing operations in India and the far east - in one documentary I saw the kids were actually sewing on labels that said that the product was not manufactured by child labour.

Tesco supermarket in the UK was importing produce from Zimbabwe up until relatively recently - regardless of the fact that there isn't enough food to sustain the native population.

Worst thing I heard of was of rich commercial farms in Sudan which were actually preselling their crops to middle eastern customers, while the citizens in that country starved on a massive scale.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

This isn't anything new - and it isn't only Walmart that's at fault for this. Sports clothing manufacturers still have their manufacturing operations in India and the far east - in one documentary I saw the kids were actually sewing on labels that said that the product was not manufactured by child labour.

Tesco supermarket in the UK was importing produce from Zimbabwe up until relatively recently - regardless of the fact that there isn't enough food to sustain the native population.

Worst thing I heard of was of rich commercial farms in Sudan which were actually preselling their crops to middle eastern customers, while the citizens in that country starved on a massive scale.

True, there's much of that going on and I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a place where you could rest assured that the product you purchase doesn't have stains of child sweat on it. What I found intersting about this story is that we're not talking about the usual suspect places but about Michigan where these children are exploited.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Not too surprising if you consider illegal immigrant labour in CA.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Not too surprising if you consider illegal immigrant labour in CA.

Check where all that fresh produce comes from, no matter what store you go to. From Easter to Thanksgiving, a good portion is probably local. The rest of the year, it's almost all coming from south of the border, as far away as South America. Families do what it takes to survive.

Edited October 30, 2009 by Lone Ranger

[Chica Yeyé 41]

And people ask us why we do not shop at Walmart

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

And people ask us why we do not shop at Walmart

The supermarket chains are no different, when it comes to produce, probably have even less scrutinity than Walmart. Ask banana boy on EP. He will probably tell us all the horror stories from Raley's.

[kaydee457 13]

Umm, not sure I get the point of this thread.....Five years old? Was she just helping Mom and Dad or actually employed, and if so what was her work schedule? Was this a one time, or perhaps weekend chore or was she toiling 15 hours a day, seven days a week? One needs some perspective here.....

I myself had my first News Paper route at 10 y/o and was slugging around a bag with 60+ newspapers that weighed more than I did at the time.

This was the youngest age in NY that would allow children to be hired and paper routes were the exception at that age. All other jobs required a minimum of age 12 to get a "work permit".

I did this seven days a week; 5 days after school and on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Wednesday/Sunday papers were the worst in terms of weight as all the ads appeared on those days of the week. The bag was so heavy that I had to do half my route at a time. I must've been abused?

Point is, who says these children are abused because they toil at a job? You hoighty-toighty liberals?? Get over yourselves already!

[Chica Yeyé 41]

How stupid and moronic can you be. Child labor is very different from a stupid paper route. But then again, with your grade 2 education I cannot expect any different from you.

[SMR 368]

How stupid and moronic can you be. Child labor is very different from a stupid paper route. But then again, with your grade 2 education I cannot expect any different from you.

Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. As he pointed out, the article lacks some perspective. If she's working 10 hours a day, seven days a week, that's different. If she helps out after school and on weekends, that's a lot less of a difference.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The article actually says that the company in question is being investigated separately by the Department of Labor.

In other words - there are multiple complaints about the conduct this particular company.