Are you really sure you want that gold ring (bracelet, necklace, ...)? Read this--all of it:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=5551166

Do you still want it?

Thanks for posting the article. This is awful. It's the same thing (child labor) that went on in this country in the coal mines and factories not all that long ago. The farm industry still uses child labor to a degree.

It's much worse than farm work here: these children are not with their families--they're hundreds of miles from them, living in large encampments with other children and men, and have no way to get home. They use their bare hands to rub the dirt with mercury, which binds to the gold. Then they wash their hands in the runoff water--full of mercury--and eat the little rice they have, with their bare hands. They breathe the fumes when the mercury is burned off to leave the gold. Mercury attacks the brain and can cause tremors, speech impediments, retardation, kidney damage and blindness. Those are just some of the details.

The gold market is such that it's all mixed together in Europe; any gold you buy probably has some of this gold in it. No gold for me. It's as bloody as diamonds.

Yes, thanks for that article! Invisible rings work just as well.

What a horrible way to live! My heart goes out to these children. I've always just "not liked" gold... silver for me... But after reading this, I can't help but wonder if something similar happens in mining for silver.

Apparently and sadly, the short answer is yes, there are abuses in silver and other metal mining, as well. That AP report focused on the biggest and worst. But the people at this site (see link below) seem to be working on solutions by helping regular people (us) and jewelry retailers know how to create market demand for responsibly mined metals:

http://www.ethicalmetalsmiths.org

Please don't think that I was trying to diminish the seriousness of the children being used as an expendable resource by mentioning past labor practices in the US. It is very hard for me to grasp the idea of people handling mercury with bare hands, especially children who are in no position to say no. I'm a teacher and I do a unit on the labor movement in the US. My high school students who don't like to work are shocked at the pictures of the little children in the mines and factories. I'll have to add this to my lesson. They think that this doesn't go on any more.

Oh, LROSS, I don't think that. It just took me awhile to get my head around what this all means, too.

This is so sad. Makes me glad I don't wear real jewelry but the fake knock-off stuff...

Things don't change much, do they? In Dickens' era, chimney sweeps took on "apprentices" known as "climbing boys". Their job was to physically climb up chimneys and clean them out with hand held brushes and tools. No safety precautions, respirators, etc. Many died from choking on soot or falling down chimneys. Those that survived were faced with, among other things, burns, lung diseases, deformed joints, and a form of testicular cancer caused by the soot. It was not until the middle of the 19th century that England passed a definitive law against it. Still, violators were only given a ten pound fine.

http://www.executivechimney.com/pages/hist.html

There are people in this world that will do anything for a buck
America has pleny of Companies and people that will do anything
they can get away with or buy their way




RAISIN CITY, Calif. - California, the nation's leader in heat-related deaths among farmworkers, sought to turn that trend around three years ago with new laws aimed at ensuring people toiling in sweltering fields had such basics as a water break and an umbrella for shade. But if anything, the problem has gotten worse.

Since then, 12 farmworkers have died in suspected heat stroke deaths, six this year alone. That's twice the number of such deaths in the nearly three years before the laws were passed.

An Associated Press investigation found that an understaffed labor agency fails to consistently hold farms and labor contractors accountable for heat deaths or ensure they pay for violations and improve conditions in one of the most brutal jobs in America.

One recent high-profile death of a pregnant, teenage vineyard worker led Cal-OSHA - the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health - to issue a record fine of more than $262,000. But the fines often drop when appealed and have averaged less than $10,000 in other heat-related deaths. In one case, it ended up at just $250.

Currently, 210 state inspectors look for heat-related violations and other safety hazards at farms and all other kinds of work sites. But with just one inspector for every roughly 90,000 workers in California, the gaps are evident.

One day last month in Raisin City, about 20 miles southwest of Fresno, the owner of a cherry-tomato farm was fined $3,365 for violations that included offering no first aid and nothing to drink except a jug of foul, undrinkable water. But about 20 miles away in Kingsburg that same day, Ramiro Carrillo died after hand-picking nectarines in the 112-degree sun; he had gone home after apparently telling co-workers he felt sick.

"Why did no one run over to help him in an emergency? Maybe his life could have been saved," asked his grieving sister Natividad, who said she also fainted from heat stroke this year after pruning bushes at a San Joaquin Valley nursery. "People's lives are being lost but sometimes I wonder if anyone cares if another Mexican immigrant dies."

Only firefighters suffer from heat stroke at a higher rate than farmworkers, and no occupation sees more deaths from it.

Cal-OSHA Chief Len Welsh said inspectors have stepped up sweeps through the fields this summer in anticipation of a deadly string of heat waves, and set each penalty according to strict formulas.

"You see people crouching underneath tractors when you go out in the fields. We think workers should be able to rest with dignity," Welsh said. "If somebody doesn't have shade up and available for workers this summer, they're going to get a whooping."

Violations are common: The agency conducted 1,018 heat inspections last year and found that 490 companies had violated heat illness laws.

The AP review, however, found that authorities have yet to collect fines in several heat death cases. In four of the cases, the agency's appeals board cut the fines by around half, or sometimes more.

One central California farm paid the state just $250 after a 38-year-old man died harvesting lettuce seeds, following the farm's appeal of a $13,500 penalty, according to records.

Welsh said his office has no authority over the appeals process, and said the department that collects fines from employers has been slow to respond.

"Collections has been a problem historically and we need to fix it. I can't sugar coat it," he said. "People have been dying all along every year for decades, and now that we're finally focusing on it we're finding all these heat fatalities. We're doing all we can with the very limited resources we have."

The highest-profile heat death in the fields has been that of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a pregnant 17-year-old who died May 14. Authorities believe she collapsed because her supervisors denied her access to shade and water as she pruned white wine grapes for more than nine hours in nearly triple-digit heat.

Cal-OSHA recently hit the contractor in that case, Merced Farm Labor, with a $262,700 fine, the highest penalty the agency has ever issued to an agricultural firm, and state authorities now want to revoke the company's license. Merced has appealed the fine.

Outside of that incident, however, companies were fined an average of just $9,945 for farmworkers who died from 2005 to 2008, even in the case of "serious" violations. Merced's fine was higher because state officials concluded that its violations were deliberate.

State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, an Alameda Democrat who sponsored a failed bill to give Cal-OSHA stronger enforcement powers, said the system is broken because employers don't have to fix hazards while the state's citations are being challenged.

"Unscrupulous employers can game the system by filing frivolous appeals," Swanson said. "We cannot expect our workers to endure a lengthy series of appeals, especially when people have actually died from these conditions."

Bryan Little, director of labor affairs with the California Farm Bureau Federation, said most growers strictly follow the rules and make a conscious effort to teach foremen how to watch for the signs of heat stroke.

Heat deaths are a nationwide problem at work places including farms, construction sites and oil derricks. At least 34 farmworkers in the U.S. have died of suspected heat stroke between 2003 and 2008; 18 of those were in California.

California is one of 21 states that has its own worker safety program.

Before the current law took effect, there were no specific employer rules regarding heat illness although they were required to have an injury and illness prevention program. A string of 10 deaths - four of them farmworkers - in a two-month period in 2005 prompted regulators to toughen the rules.

California Farm Bureau's Little said giving the agency still more oversight won't keep people from dying.

"Is the purpose of Cal-OSHA to induce compliance and protect workers, or is the purpose to collect fine money from employers?" Little said. "Encouraging employers to settle gets the hazards abated more quickly, and gets employees protected more quickly."

Advocates argue that lowering penalties - even when a worker has died - renders the regulations toothless.

"I completely understand that Cal-OSHA is overworked and understaffed, but what's offensive is that the agency is reducing fines with no justification," said Michael Marsh, an attorney with the nonprofit California Rural Legal Assistance. "In some cases, companies are paying pennies on the dollar from the original fine imposed."

" ... Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?"

Not much changes, does it?

not to mention the Glyphosate poisoning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In my old stomping grounds of Oklahoma-to-Montana
and Iowa-to-Idaho there are lots of illegal Mexican migrant workers.
It is common to house them in derelict outbuildings
such as tractor sheds, chicken coops, and disused coal bins
with no electricity, no water, no windows, no doors, no furniture.
When I was young I thought this was the natural order.
They are worked very hard for very little pay
and that pay was typically disbursed only at the end of the season .
All this they seemed to bear quite cheerfully,
looking forward to bringing significant finances home
to their families at the end of the contract.

I got to know some of these people quite well,
as the younger children sometimes attended our school
and the adults were usually very friendly
and happy to teach the little gringo a bit of Spanish
as well as sharing their tortillas, frijoles, and especially tamales!

Now comes the bad part-
these were "wetbacks", illegals, and had no rights whatsoever.
Farmers could technically be fined for hiring them
(though I never heard of that happening)
and when apprehended, the workers were rounded up
(often with lariets from horseback
and later from those three-wheeled motorcycles),
stored in jail, and bussed back to Mexico.

A very common cost-saving technique was this-
when there was only a day or two remaining in the contract
the farmer would telephone Immigration
and that night the workers would be rounded up and shipped off
before they collected a single dollar of their hard-earned wages.

I saw this happen time and time again
and it still happens today.
The most common place I personally know of
is in the sugar beet fields.

Oh, and the farmer was frequently eligible
to receive a cash 'reward' for reporting this 'crime'.

But then the basis of Western morality seems to be
whether or not a financial profit can be made.
If so, it's "business" and anything goes.