BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO AND PREVENTING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN US TOBACCO FIELDS

That this House, noting that Oxfam America and the Farm Labor 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, that Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) is a major purchaser of the tobacco produced in those fields but refuses to grant freedom of association or worker representation to those workers and that British America Tobacco plc (BAT) is the largest shareholder and a major customer of RAI, holds that only when migrant farm workers have a recognised organisation will their complaints about their working and living conditions be effectively addressed; 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; and therefore calls on BAT to use its influence with RAI to reach an agreement with FLOC forthwith.