Nonprofit Verité Launches Three-Year COFFEE Labor Project

Massachusetts-based nonprofit Verité

, which addresses labor conditions in some of the most exploitative industries throughout the world, has received funding for a three-year project addressing labor in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

Funding for the project — called the Cooperation On Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project — comes from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, and Verité says it already has a stakeholder network of some 18 organizations and counting. That network currently includes 10 “major” coffee roasting and trading companies, according to Verité, plus eight industry associations, multistakeholder groups or third-party certification agencies.

Neither Verité nor the USDOL have made public the funding amount for the three-year term, although the department previously granted Verité USD $2 million for a five-year program designed to address child labor and forced labor in Guatemala.

Verité has long been involved in projects designed to address and/or eradicate illegal or inhumane labor conditions in a range of sectors, from natural resources such as gold to agricultural products and electronic goods.

According to the USDOL’s most recent global annual “List of Goods” report

, there is evidence of illegal child labor or forced labor in coffee production in at least 17 different countries.

Verité says its three-year COFFEE program will align with the eight steps of the USDOL’s “comply chain” model, which promotes a voluntary social compliance system for corporations and their supply chains. In addition to the compliance system, the project will also involve the creation of a toolkit on improving labor conditions in the coffee sector, plus trainings on how to implement the toolkit.