The pressure is working! Over 65,000 of us have signed Deepa's petition on SumOfUs Community calling on Unilever to clean up its toxic mercury mess in India, where hundreds of workers were poisoned.
Now, Unilever CEO Paul Polman has tweeted he's "determined to solve fast". And our friends at 38 Degrees just delivered our signatures to Unilever's headquarters in London.
But Unilever still hasn't made concrete commitments to clean up and compensate the families effected.
We need to keep up the pressure on Unilever to act by showing them we're not going away. Here's what you can do:
| 1. Click here to post on Dove's Facebook wall. Unilever: Clean up your act in India! https://community.sumofus.org/p/unilever/ |
| 2. Tweet at Dove and the Unilever CEO to get their attention. When will @paulpolman and @dove clean up the Unilever mess in India and compensate the victims #polmanpollutes https://community.sumofus.org/p/unilever/ |
| 3. Don't use social media? Forward the email below to at least 5 of your friends. |
Thanks for all you do,
Paul, Angus, Nicole and the whole of SumOfUs
|
Mohamed,
I'm Deepa, and I live in India.
For 14 years, Unilever -- the maker of lots of well-known brands like Dove soap, Magnum ice cream, and Lipton tea -- has been ignoring the plight of workers poisoned by toxic mercury at its thermometer factory in Kodaikanal, India.
But together with the Kodaikanal community and grassroots activists, I've been working to pressure Unilever to finally act.
An Indian rapper just launched a new music video with us calling on Unilever to make amends. The video's gone viral, with almost 2 million views on YouTube.
Huge pressure has forced Unilever to respond. But so far the company's only saying it's "working hard" to resolve the situation. That's just not enough for the workers who've been battling for justice for 14 years.
We need international pressure to win this campaign. Together, we need to make it too costly for Unilever to keep ignoring Kodaikanal.
Unilever's plant in Kodaikanal made mercury thermometers to export to the United States.
Some workers died, hundreds were poisoned. Mercury is still leaking into the local environment and groundwater.
Malarkodi, a 46-year old labourer, started working at Kodaikanal when she was 18. "I used to clean mercury off the ground without any protective equipment. I lost my first child half an hour into her birth, and have developed illnesses myself," she says. "We have been fighting for 14 years, but the company is refusing to clean up the mess they left behind or compensate the workers who were affected."
Workers like Malarkodi weren't warned about the health hazards of mercury. Mercury was often dumped around the plant, and still hasn't been cleaned up.
CEO Paul Polman has carefully built a public image of Unilever as a responsible company, and says he believes in 'business as a force for good'
We're doing everything we can in India. But we need you to stand with us. It's time for Unilever's CEO to use his power and resources to make Unilever live up to its spin.
Thank you,
Deepa Gupta with the whole SumOfUs team
More information:
Indian Rapper Calls Out Unilever to a Nicki Minaj Beat, The New York Times, 31 July 2015
A Chennai Girl Used Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" To Protest Unilever Dumping Toxic Waste, Buzzfeed, 31 July 2015
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Keep_Mailing" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to keep_mailing+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to keep_mailing@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/keep_mailing.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/keep_mailing/CAGLz4tAxkxX%2B7XUSASySg_xZj%3D7Zhh8MB0C6_R3x4ovEVQQLHw%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment