British American Tobacco

EDM number 472 in 2014-15, proposed by Jim Sheridan on 04/11/2014.
Categorised under the topics of Agriculture, Companies, Employment, Human rights, Immigration, Industrial health and safety, Industrial relations and Smoking.

That this House notes that Oxfam America, Human Rights Watch and the Farm Labour Organizing Committee (FLOC), being an affiliate of the US equivalent of the TUC, have highlighted onerous conditions faced by migrant farm workers in the tobacco fields of North Carolina and the American South, including exploitation, long hours, child labour and other human rights abuses; further notes that Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) is a major purchaser of the tobacco produced in those fields but refuses to grant freedom of association or workers representation to those workers, and that British American Tobacco plc (BAT) is the largest shareholder and a major customer of RAI; believes that only when migrant farm workers have a recognised organisation will their complaint about their working and living conditions be effectively addressed; further believes that BAT has a responsibility to ensure that its supply chain is free of human rights abuses and that FLOC's proposals to RAI can achieve that goal in the US; therefore calls on BAT to use its influence with RAI to reach an agreement with FLOC forthwith; further calls on the Government to ensure provisions within the Modern Slavery Bill would prohibit such human rights abuses; and further calls on the Government to raise these issues in trade discussions with US counterparts.

This motion has been signed by a total of 56 MPs.