Two items on effort to promote clothing from sweatshop free
sources for web page (Note: Maine
Governor Baldacci letter to other governors is attached.) The
steering committee agreed to join the coalition to support the
multi-state effort at Saturday's meeting.
1. Fair Trade Makes a Difference in People’s Lives –
Multi-State Effort for Sweatshop-Free Public Purchases - Join the
Coalition!
South Sound Clean Clothes Coalition is initiating an effort to encourage Governor Gregoire to join a multi-state effort started by Maine Governor Baldacci to have state clothing and uniform purchases from sweatshop-free sources. Governor Baldacci sent a letter (copy attached) to the other governors stating: “Young women and children work long hours for poverty wages in inhumane conditions until they are worn out and unemployable. These abuses cause untold human suffering and economic and political volatility across the globe.”
The turning point on recycling came when states joined that effort. Providing for large quantities of sweatshop free clothes can keep items competitive and make sweatshop-free clothes available to consumers.
Dick Meyer, Coordinator with the South Sound Clean Clothes Coalition and the Washington State effort points out:
“The record of sweatshops around the world with forced labor or intolerable working conditions have led to many deaths and illnesses. This last February between 80 and 200 workers at a Bangladesh sweatshop were killed in a fire with employees locked in the building. Throughout the sweatshop industry there have been severe assaults on human rights and dignity. Fear and the race to the bottom with shop closures have created many victims.
“However, the public purchasing of clothes from sweatshop-free sources by states will expand the opportunities. Local retail stores would make sweatshop free options available to consumers much like fair-traded coffee is available now in local grocery stores.
“Most people do not want to wear clothes made in sweatshops but do not feel they have many purchasing options available. This campaign to enlist State of Washington support in this multi-state effort can make the difference. We are now asking people to join this effort.”
For information or to volunteer: e-mail: info@southsoundcleanclothes.org, phone: 360 705-2819 and see web page: http://www.southsoundcleanclothes.org/.
South Sound Clean Clothes Coalition is initiating an effort to encourage Governor Gregoire to join a multi-state effort started by Maine Governor Baldacci to have state clothing and uniform purchases from sweatshop-free sources. Governor Baldacci sent a letter (copy attached) to the other governors stating: “Young women and children work long hours for poverty wages in inhumane conditions until they are worn out and unemployable. These abuses cause untold human suffering and economic and political volatility across the globe.”
The turning point on recycling came when states joined that effort. Providing for large quantities of sweatshop free clothes can keep items competitive and make sweatshop-free clothes available to consumers.
Dick Meyer, Coordinator with the South Sound Clean Clothes Coalition and the Washington State effort points out:
“The record of sweatshops around the world with forced labor or intolerable working conditions have led to many deaths and illnesses. This last February between 80 and 200 workers at a Bangladesh sweatshop were killed in a fire with employees locked in the building. Throughout the sweatshop industry there have been severe assaults on human rights and dignity. Fear and the race to the bottom with shop closures have created many victims.
“However, the public purchasing of clothes from sweatshop-free sources by states will expand the opportunities. Local retail stores would make sweatshop free options available to consumers much like fair-traded coffee is available now in local grocery stores.
“Most people do not want to wear clothes made in sweatshops but do not feel they have many purchasing options available. This campaign to enlist State of Washington support in this multi-state effort can make the difference. We are now asking people to join this effort.”
For information or to volunteer: e-mail: info@southsoundcleanclothes.org, phone: 360 705-2819 and see web page: http://www.southsoundcleanclothes.org/.
Sample Bulletin Inserts:
Help Make Sweatshop Free Clothing A Reality.
Join a coalition to encourage our state to join a multi-state effort to make public purchasing from sweatshop-free sources! Recycling became economical after states joined the effort. The same can happen with sweatshop-free clothing. For information or to volunteer: e-mail: info@southsoundcleanclothes.org, phone: 360 705-2819 and see web page: http://www.southsoundcleanclothes.org/.
Join a coalition to encourage our state to join a multi-state effort to make public purchasing from sweatshop-free sources! Recycling became economical after states joined the effort. The same can happen with sweatshop-free clothing. For information or to volunteer: e-mail: info@southsoundcleanclothes.org, phone: 360 705-2819 and see web page: http://www.southsoundcleanclothes.org/.
2. IN US SENATE SENATOR DORGAN INTRODUCES BILL TO BAN SALE OF SWEATSHOP PRODUCTS
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced legislation Thursday to prohibit the U.S. sale of products produced in “sweatshop factories” abroad.
The ban would be enforced with fines of up to $10,000 for each violation, and a provision that allows competitors of retailers who sell sweatshop-produced products to sue for damages for each violation. Sweatshop factories would be defined under the legislation as factories that abuse their workers in violation of that country’s labor laws.
“Free trade” agreements negotiated between the U.S. and other countries have fueled a growth in sweatshop production, Dorgan said, since products produced by those countries enter the United States duty free.
A 1999 “free trade” agreement with Jordan was supposed to have created jobs for Jordanians and protected workers, but had the exact opposite effect, Dorgan said.
Jordan began flying in so-called “guest workers” from even lower-wage countries like Bangladesh and China to make products in Jordan for sale at stores like Wal-Mart. Working conditions for those workers were “slave-like,” Dorgan said. They were forced to work 20 hour days, often weren’t paid for months, and were often hit by supervisors and jailed when they complained. One worker was paid only $50 for five months of work.
“What we ended up with under the Jordanian Free Trade Agreement are Bangladeshi workers, working 120 hours a week, turning Chinese cloth into clothing for the U.S. market, which enters duty-free in the U.S. market,” Dorgan said.
Jordanian exports to the U.S. increased twenty five fold since the agreement took effect in 1999.
“It’s all part of a global strategy of big corporate interests to find the cheapest possible labor and to exploit free trade agreements,” Dorgan said.
“The best way to put a stop to it is to simply prohibit the sale of products sold in sweatshops, and make sure there are powerful incentives to see that the prohibition is respected and enforced,” Dorgan said.
On Thursday, June 8, in what I believe will be looked back upon as a watershed moment Senator Byron Dorgan introduced Senate Bill 3485, "The Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act" which will, for the first time, hold corporations legally accountable to respect the core International Labor Organization worker rights standards --no child labor, no forced labor, freedom of association, right to organize and bargain collectively and to decent working conditions. The legislation also includes an important right to private action, which gives individuals and organizations to sue corporations for violating the law. Further, Senator Dorgan’s legislation establishes strict sweat-free procurement standards to condition all Federal Government purchases.
Just as it took 20 years of struggle and debate to turn the ideas, values and vision of the New Deal into reality, we can expect a similar struggle now to re-make our economy with a human face.
A companion bill will be introduced this week in the House of Representatives.
Companies have been anxious to send the American people down the path of voluntary corporate codes of conduct and private monitoring schemes, which they know are a dead end leading to the privatization of human rights. The corporate joyride is over. We will accept nothing less that legal protections for human and worker rights.
The focus of this effort is not "inside the Beltway" in Washington. Rather, this legislation will be the vehicle for a massive popular education, outreach and mobilization campaign to take back our economy and remake it with a human face. Working people in communities all across America will finally have a positive alternative vision to business-as-usual in the global sweatshop economy.
The National Labor Committee, the United Steelworkers union and many others have worked for years to help create this positive alternative, one based on enforceable laws to protect human and worker rights.
Please spread the word. This campaign belongs to all of us, and we need your ideas on how to build momentum. email: nlc@nlcnet.org phone: 212-242-3002 web: http://www.nlcnet.org