Hershey Company (The)

The Hershey Company is a member of the World Cocoa Foundation and the National Confectioners Association, trade groups that have historically opposed mandatory due diligence legislation for cocoa supply chains. Hershey’s own 2024 Advocacy Expenditure Report details corporate expenditures for lobbying activities, though the company states it does not use corporate funds for political contributions. For over two decades, Hershey and its industry peers have faced litigation alleging the use of child and forced labor in West African cocoa sourcing; a 2021 lawsuit by eight children from Ivory Coast specifically named Hershey as a defendant. While the company publishes sustainability goals and is a signatory to industry frameworks, these voluntary measures have persisted alongside ongoing allegations and legal challenges concerning labor abuses in its supply chain. This pattern of engaging in industry lobbying while facing repeated, serious allegations of human rights violations in cocoa sourcing constitutes a use of corporate influence to shield its practices from stricter regulatory oversight.

The Hershey Company hired six union-avoidance firms to oppose an organizing drive at its Stuarts Draft, Virginia, plant in early 2022. The company created an anti-union website and held mandatory “captive audience” meetings for the plant’s approximately 1,300 workers, warning them that unionizing would subject them to leaders who “gamble” with their interests. Workers also alleged the company was illegally monitoring their in-person and online activities. The union vote ultimately failed in March 2022. This documented campaign of active interference with worker organizing constitutes a clear pattern of anti-union activity.