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Tariffs are not the only threat to business for big companies selling coffee in the United States. On Thursday, a watchdog group petitioned the Trump administration to block coffee imports that it says are produced with forced labor akin to modern-day slavery in Brazil, the world\u2019s largest coffee grower.<\/p>\n
The petition to Customs and Border Protection<\/a>, filed by the nonprofit Coffee Watch, names Starbucks, by far the largest coffee retailer in the country, as well as Nestle, Dunkin\u2019, Illy, McDonald\u2019s and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the owner of Peet\u2019s, as companies that rely on potentially dubious sources. It asks the Trump administration not to allow distribution of any imports from Brazil that \u201cwholly or in part\u201d rely on human trafficking and forced labor.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t about a few bad actors,\u201d Etelle Higonnet, the founder and director of Coffee Watch, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re exposing an entrenched system that traps millions in extreme poverty and thousands in outright slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n The request for U.S. action was filed a day after another group, International Rights Advocates, sued Starbucks in federal court<\/a> on behalf of eight Brazilians who were trafficked and forced to toil<\/a> in \u201cslavery-like conditions,\u201d said Terry Collingsworth, a human rights lawyer and the founder of the group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The suit seeks certification as a class action representing thousands of workers who it says have faced the same plight while harvesting coffee for a major Starbucks supplier and regional growers\u2019 cooperative in Brazil called Cooxup\u00e9.<\/p>\n \u201cStarbucks needs to be accountable,\u201d Mr. Collingsworth said in an interview, adding that \u201cthere is a massive trafficking and forced labor system in Brazil\u201d that the company benefits from.<\/p>\n Amber Stafford, a spokeswoman for Starbucks, denied the allegations and said the company was committed to ethical sourcing, including helping to protect the rights of people who work on the farms its coffee comes from. \u201cThe cornerstone of our work is our Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices<\/a> verification program, which was developed with outside experts and includes robust third-party verification and audits,\u201d she said in an email.<\/p>\n Mr. Collingsworth contends that despite the verification program, the company has not made its practices transparent. The lawsuit, he said, will help his group get more information about the company\u2019s supply chains.<\/p>\n Several of the companies named in the petition to block imports take part, along with the Rainforest Alliance, in the Sustainable Coffee Challenge<\/a>, whose stated aims include improving the lot of agricultural workers. Apart from Starbucks, the companies either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The advocacy groups issued a joint statement on Thursday, saying their efforts expose \u201cthe hidden human cost behind one of the nation\u2019s most beloved commodities: coffee.\u201d <\/p>\n The groups\u2019 goal is to disrupt a segment of the Brazilian coffee industry that they say supplies companies abroad in part by trafficking vulnerable workers. The coffee sector in Brazil was founded on slavery and continued to depend upon it, they say, even though Brazil abolished slavery in 1888.<\/p>\n The groups say that illegal labor brokers \u2014 known as \u201cgatos\u201d or \u201ccats\u201d \u2014 seek out workers from poor, rural communities, some of whose inhabitants descend from enslaved people, making false representations about jobs and advancing funds for food and travel. The laborers end up in \u201cdebt bondage,\u201d working off what they owe by harvesting coffee under conditions not so different from those of their enslaved forebears.<\/p>\n Other human rights groups<\/a>, as well as news organizations<\/a> and the U.S. government<\/a> have reported similar findings.<\/p>\n In April, four coffee producers that are part of the Cooxup\u00e9 collective were added to a slave labor blacklist<\/a> by the Brazilian authorities after inspectors found dozens of workers, including a teenager, who were being subjected to conditions akin to slavery, according to Rep\u00f3rter Brasil<\/a>, a Brazilian nonprofit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In some cases, the workers do not have running water, beds or toilets, according to advocacy groups. They work long hours without protective equipment and often do not receive their full wages or any pay.<\/p>\n The Brazilian government has repeatedly taken action, but because coffee harvesting is a seasonal activity, it is not subject to as much monitoring as other fields of employment.<\/p>\n The eight workers in the Starbucks complaint withheld their names out of fear of retribution at home. \u201cThese traffickers are dangerous guys,\u201d Mr. Collingworth said. Workers who try to leave or report abuses face death threats and are often prevented from leaving the farms, he said.<\/p>\n The legal actions were based on records from the Brazilian authorities, nonprofits and journalists \u201cshowing a persistent pattern of labor abuses throughout Brazil\u2019s coffee sector,\u201d the advocacy groups said. The system, rights advocates contend, is bolstered by corporations abroad who rely on Brazilian suppliers \u2014 and by unwitting American consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cNo coffee produced by slaves should enter American homes,\u201d said Ms. Higonnet of Coffee Watch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n