Proponents of the fair-trade movement, which began in the 1980s in Europe (and where flowers and even soccer balls are labeled fair trade), say the low prices that most companies pay to producers in economically disadvantaged countries cause widespread misery: poverty, unsafe work conditions and forced child labor.
TransFair USA, founded by a group of activists in 1998, says it audits American companies that receive its certification to ensure that third world farmers of coffee, cocoa, fruit and other crops receive a "fair, above-market price." The group says the system has improved conditions on farms and that the additional income, subsidized by higher consumer prices, has enabled farmers to send their children to universities and communities to build clinics and schools.
Fair trade has a particular appeal to a generation of consumers that came of age during campus labor protests. In 1996, Kathie Lee Gifford was humiliated on national television by the news that children in Honduras were making clothing bearing her name, and, in the ensuing years, student protesters demanded better conditions for workers making clothing with university logos; some streaked through campus because they would "rather go naked than wear sweatshop clothes."
After graduating from the New School with a degree in literature in 1993, Sander Hicks, 36, the founder of Vox Pop, worked at a Kinko's, where he and his fellow workers experimented with union organizing and even a worker collective. Now, he's proud of his high-quality coffee, but asserts that the fair trade label gives it an additional "karmic kick."
Not everyone is feeling it.
Some industry observers and journalists have identified labor abuses on farms producing crops that have been certified as fair trade by international groups, like paying migrant workers below a country's legal minimum wage.
Jean Walsh, a spokeswoman for TransFair, conceded that this was sometimes the case. "But the fair trade system," she said in an e-mail message, "is the only mechanism that begins to guarantee small-scale farmers the income they need to be able to improve the wages of laborers on their farms."
(Unlike food, items such as clothing and other non-agricultural goods, when sold in the US, have no single recognized certification system. Instead, consumers have to trust the wholesalers and retailers.)
And though many people buy fair trade products in reaction to what Codey of the New York fair trade coalition calls "mainstream commercial culture," others point out that to make a real impact, fair trade has to become much more widespread, even if that means losing some of its in-group appeal.
Larger corporations, including McDonald's, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, now offer some fair trade coffee, but, "it's still too limited in the US, to just a few commodities," said Kevin Danaher, a founder of TransFair.
"It's not places like Gorilla that are going to make a difference," said Janice Allen, 27, a barista at Gorilla Coffee, with a piercing just over her lip and chipped blue nail polish. "Maxwell House going fair trade, that would make a difference."
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