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Ford, Chrysler, and Sony: Don’t Buy From Factories That Fight Against Human Rights
  1. Signatures
    1,863 out of 2,500
    Petitioning
    1. Chairman and CEO, Sony (+ 22 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • Chairman and CEO, Sony (Howard Stringer)
      • CEO Chrysler (Sergio Marchionne)
      • Yoshihiro Gouda
      • Chairman and CEO, Sony (Howard Stringer)
      • Chrysler Communications (Shawn Morgan)
      • Michio Saitoh
      • Senior VP of Procurement, Sony (Marilou E. Pych)
      • Chrysler Communications (Tina Sullivan)
      • Ford Media
      • GP VP of Public Policy (Robert Ferguson)
      • GM Communications Manager Manufacturing & Labor (Chris Lee)
      • Hitachi media (Lauren Garvey)
      • Ford Global Manufacturing and Labor Affairs (John Fleming)
      • Hitachi Canada
      • Ford President and Chief Executive Officer (Alan Mulally)
      • Hitachi media (Natsuro Tanaka)
      • Ford Government and Community Relations (Ziad S. Ojakli)
      • Hitachi investor info
      • Yutaka Nagao
      • Ford VP of Labor Affairs (Martin J. Mulloy)
      • Corporate communications, Sony (John Dolak)
      • Masaharu Kida
      • Corporate communications, Sony (Elizabeth Boukis)
  2. Created By
    In Defence of Charles Hector campaign team
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

Big companies have a responsibility to ensure that workers making their products aren't being stripped of their basic human rights. As such we call upon companies including Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Hitachi, Sony, and Toshiba to use their leverage as customers to stop a series of human rights violations by Asahi Kosei, a Japanese manufacturing company in Malaysia, or to immediately remove them from their supply chain.

The cascading series of human rights violations started earlier this year:

First, 31 Burmese migrant workers complained about their working conditions at an Asahi Kosei factory in Malaysia. In response, they were threatened at their hostel, and four were immediately taken to the airport to be deported.

Local human rights lawyer and activist Charles Hector, after having received a complaint from workers about threats of terminations and deportation, contacted the company, Asahi Kosei, to confirm the details and urge the company to ensure that the Burmese workers’ rights were respected. He Recieved no reply, and so began to document the situation on his blog and advocate for protection of the 31 workers and particularly those workers who were facing immediate deportation. In response, Asahi Kosei - who is keen to keep the story quiet - sued him for libel to the tune of $3.2 million (€2.16m) and demanded he remove the blog posts that contained the stories he’d been told by workers.

We call on Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Hitachi, Sony, and Toshiba  and other major customers of Asahi Kosei, to demand that the suit against Charles Hector to be dropped and just defence for the workers to move forward without hindrance.

The next hearing is May 25th and the trial is June 28-29, so their immediate action is necessary.

 

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Stop human rights violations within your supply chain

Greetings,

As a major customer of Asahi Kosei manufacturing, we call upon you to demand they drop their lawsuit against Charles Hector, a Malaysian human rights lawyer, and work to address the human rights violations in their factory he has been seeking to highlight. I feel that so long as Asahi Kosei is a part of your supply chain you are equally culpable for any human rights violations they commit.

As background on this case, earlier this year 31 Burmese migrant workers complained about their working conditions at an Asahi Kosei factory in Malaysia. In response, the workers were threated at their home, and two were immediately taken to the airport to be deported.

Local human rights lawyer and activist Charles Hector heard about the issue and took up the case to defend the workers. He also wrote up a blog post telling the story of the workers. In response, Asahi Kosei - who is keen to keep the story quiet - sued him for libel to the tune of $3.2 million (€2.16m) and demanded he remove the blog posts that contained the stories he’d been told by workers.

We ask that you use your leverage with Asahi Kosei to demand they drop this lawsuit and promptly address the complaints of the workers in their factory.

I look forward to your response at the address provided below.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

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