The six Cuban-Americans in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday demanded “an urgent meeting” with the head of IKEA in North America to discuss whether the company used Cuban prison labor to make some of its furniture in the 1980s.
“It is the responsibility of every company to ensure that its products and their respective components are derived from responsible labor practices,” the two Senators and four House members wrote in a letter to IKEA’s Mike Ward.
“They certainly should not derive from the dark prisons of authoritarian regimes that repress their own populations, including the denial of basic workers’ rights,” added the letter to Ward, head of IKEA North America.
It was signed by Sens. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, and Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, as well as South Florida Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera and New Jersey Democrat Albio Sires.
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