Corporate Social Responsibility -- THE WIETA

This article is a huge sigh of relief. You never hear about these better practices in the news, in fact society is usually only informed of the sweat shops and slave drivers that force young children to work long hours and who treat their employees like dirt. The fact that there is an organization that is willing to stand up and put a stop to the injustice deserves applause and recognition. The WIETA, the Wine Industry Ethical Association, is taking a giant leap forward for third world countries who produce wine, particularly Africa.

One can only hope that more people will begin to put this organization's values and beliefs to action and eliminate the unfair/unethical treatment of workers in third-world countries. I think my favorite part about WIETA's standards and rules is that no child under the age of 15 will be forced to work and the children who are able to work choose to do so, and that the industry they work for can not interfere with the child's school schedule. I particularly encourage this rule, because so many children in third-world countries are having to leave school at such a young age and end up not only losing their education but also miss out on their ability to see the world in a different light and take hold of new opportunities that an academic education could provide them.