Justice for Coffee Workers

In 2005, USLEAP challenged Starbucks to begin documenting and reporting on concrete advances for workers as a result of the company's 10-year effort to improve working conditions for workers. At the end of 2006, Starbucks indicated that the company would report in early 2007 on the impact of its sourcing guidelines on workers. While Starbucks has become the largest retailer of "fair trade" coffee which benefits small farmers and coops, most of its coffee from countries like Guatemala come from medium and large-scale plantations that can employ hundreds of workers. The sourcing guidelines, now called Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, trace their origin to the company's agreement in 1995 with USLEAP (then US/GLEP) to adopt a code of conduct for plantations from which it buys.

A couple of years ago, USLEAP asked the Starbucks Coffee Company to begin reporting on what impact its code of conduct has had on workers. Starbucks noted the request in its 2004 Annual Corporate Responsibility Report, quoting USLEAP, "The most fundamental corporate responsibility challenge faced by Starbucks, or any other coffee company, is to secure concrete progress in improved working conditions and respect for the basic rights of workers...."