No fair trade without farmers' unions

Zurayk criticized the absence of farmers' unions in Lebanon. "Fair trade has very strict requirements for laborers. Under fair trade, farm labor has to be unionized and should present demands as a union to gain strength by unity. However... labor unions [in Lebanon] have been unfortunately dismantled by generations of sectarian politics," he said. Zurayk praised the role of FTL but said that fair trade in itself cannot remain in the realm of NGO's. "We strive to make changes toward global justice, and this cannot come from only 50 farmers out of 200, 000," he said. Instead, he argued, fair trade can only become powerful when it becomes the dominant form of trade, and everyone should work to achieve that. http://www.aub.edu.lb/news/archive/preview.php?id=105621