Tallahassee, FL – 25 students at Florida State University (FSU) picked up their picket signs to protest a pro-sweatshop economist who spoke on campus here, Feb. 7. The FSU Economics Department brought Ben Powell, a right-wing libertarian economist, to speak in favor of sweatshops and exploitative working conditions.

Before the event, student activists handed out flyers about workers’ rights abuses in sweatshops to about 75 students who showed up to the event. Many held signs reading, “Unions for sweatshop workers!” and “Fund public education, not exploitation!”

When the event began, the protesters packed the room with their signs and challenged Powell’s claims. The tension was palpable as many students vocally contradicted Powell during his hour-long presentation.

When Powell’s presentation concluded, students peppered him with pointed questions and rebuttals. Activists pointed out that U.S. corporations make tremendous profits off sweatshops with low wages and horrible working conditions. One student spoke about how sweatshops exploited workers and left countries, like Haiti, underdeveloped. Another held a sign about the November garment factory fire in Bangladesh that killed 112 workers and left another 200 injured, mostly women.

Student leaders spoke about the U.S. violently overthrowing independent governments. Some students learned of this earlier in November while protesting outside the School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia. The SOA is where the U.S. trains Latin American military death squads that kill trade unionists in Colombia and suppress progressive movements in other countries. These actions, argued one student, are carried out in some cases to benefit corporations that want sweatshop labor.

Powell was visibly frustrated and uncomfortable.

“Powell did not seem to understand how colonialism created poverty in most of these countries that rely on sweatshops for employment,” said Jessica Schwartz, an FSU student and organizer of the event. “More economic liberalization isn't going to fix the problems that neo-liberalism has created.”

FSU has a long history of fighting sweatshops. In 2002, United Students Against Sweatshops held a series of protests, culminating in a tent city on campus. The campaign succeeded in getting FSU administration to sign up with the Workers Rights Consortium, an anti-sweatshop watchdog group. Several former students involved in the 2002 United Students Against Sweatshops campaign attended the protest to confront the ugly reality of sweatshops once again.

#TallahasseeFL #UnitedStudentsAgainstSweatshops #AntiSweatshop #workersRights #BenPowell

February 20, 3:30 a.m. – Under a banner that read, “The Whole World is Watching,” fifty-four students, workers and concerned community members slept in the office of University of Wisconsin Chancellor, David Ward. They occupied the chief administrator's office to protest university links to sweatshop labor. The peaceful scene was shattered by the approach of over 60 police dressed in riot gear, with billy clubs at their side and tear gas rifles ready.

Four Days Earlier: Occupation Begins

The occupation of the chancellor's office started 4 days earlier, on February 16. Seven students entered the office, demanding a meeting with Chancellor David Ward to discuss the University's ties to sweatshop labor. A cop pulled the shades and locked the doors, isolating the seven from the 300 other demonstrators that had marched into the building.

Two hours later, six armed police officers entered the building carrying large bags of tools. Representatives of the protesters approached the police to find out what they were up to. The police responded with pepper gas. “They sprayed us without warning,” said one victim of the police violence.

As the cloud of pepper spray filled the hall, students and workers sat cross-legged and sang, “We Shall Not Be Moved.” The occupiers were determined to stay until the Chancellor addressed their demands.

UW T-shirts, sweatshirts and other logo apparel are made in sweatshops. The University receives millions of dollars each year from this exploitation. The protesters' demands, focused around the monitoring of factory conditions where UW logo apparel is made, came out of five years of coalition work between students, unions and the community.

Over one year ago, the administration agreed to pull out of contracts with clothing companies that didn't provide a living wage, give out locations of their factories, or provide guarantees against the exploitation of women in these factories. As of the deadline on February 12, none of these conditions were met.

The occupiers also demanded that the University pull out of the corporate-controlled Fair Labor Association (FLA), and fully affiliate with the Worker's Rights Consortium (WRC). The Worker's Rights Consortium is a monitoring group that focuses on the right of workers to organize, and on developing relationships with worker groups where the clothes are made.

By 8:00 p.m., February 16, Ward bowed to community pressure, saying that the UW would stop participation in the FLA, becoming the second university in the country to make this move. Two days later Ward announced the UW's “provisional” membership in the WRC, but the protesters wanted an explicit commitment to worker's rights. They vowed to stay until such a commitment was made. Ward made it clear that the protesters would be allowed to stay through Monday.

54 Arrests

Chancellor Ward broke his promise. The riot cops entered Bascom Hall early Sunday morning, February 20. Despite the intimidation tactics, the crowd of sixty, including seven protesters locked to each other with U-shaped bicycle locks, was in good spirits.

As the police counted down five minutes before they would start arresting people, the crowd sang “Strangers in the Night” and “I Feel Good.” Police, attempting to remove people from the office, applied pain holds. By 5:30 a.m., only the seven protesters U-locked by the neck remained in the office. The police said that they had no experience with the U-lock tactic, and were unsure how to remove them. One protester who was U-locked stated, “It was horrifying, they had to put wet towels on our heads to prevent the sparks from starting us on fire.”

By Sunday night, at 9:00 p.m., all 54 protesters were out of jail, some after being kept in isolation.

The occupation was the biggest civil disobedience on the UW campus since 1971. The community has vowed to keep pressure on the administration to end its ties to sweatshop labor.

#MadisonWI #News #StudentOccupation #WorkersAndGlobalization #AntiSweatshop

University officials say they will not drop out of the FLA, but will consider joining the Worker's Rights Consortium. The school's official human rights advisory board, the University Human Rights Committee, favors leaving the FLA.

There is a rising tide of activism on the part of U of I students, who have strong backing from the local labor movement. The massive anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle added fuel to the fire. The many events and protests here are part of the growing national movement that insists on breaking all ties with sweatshop labor.

#IowaCityIA #WorkersAndGlobalization #AntiSweatshop #WorkersRightsConsortium

The protest, which drew more than 50 people on one day notice, follows several recent protests at other area Gap stores.

Building on anti-sweatshop victories at the UW earlier this year, students and local Union activists have begun a campaign to confront local businesses that reap huge profits from sweatshop labor around the globe.

The Gap has become a target of protests nationwide because of the plight of workers in its offshore factories. It's recently become under renewed attack after ABC's 20/20 aired an expose of conditions at The Gap's factory in Saipan.

Manufacturers such as The Gap are not required to abide by US labor laws concerning wages, hours or working conditions. Profit-driven corporations like The Gap take full advantage of the situation by squeezing as much as they can out of the workers while giving back as little as possible.

“We're not going to allow companies that ruthlessly exploit sweatshop workers to come into our community without some kind of protest,” said SLAC activist and Memorial Union Labor Organization member Brian. “The Gap says it rigorously monitors conditions in its factories, but clearly that's a lie.”

Activists pledge to continue the pressure on The Gap with more protests planned over coming months. “Workers everywhere have the right to a living wage and safe working conditions,” says Brian. “Until The Gap guarantees these basic things to workers who make it's clothes, we'll be back!”

#MadisonWI #News #AntiSweatshop #TheGap

Draft versions of the Code were widely criticized by students, Unions, and anti-sweatshop activists nation-wide. “The draft code was almost worse than nothing at all. It included few real protections for the workers but made the Universities seem like they were sincerely doing something,” said Samantha West, a UW student and a leader of the student anti-sweatshop movement, locally and nationally.

The draft code failed to include assurances that factory locations would be released to independent monitors, that workers would receive living wages, or that women would be protected against sexual harassment and restrictions on reproductive rights.

Students at the UW, and at other Universities including Duke, Georgetown, and the University of Toronto, organized protests and sit-ins throughout January and February to demand the Universities' include these critical provisions in the final code. According to Jennie Capellaro, sit-in participant and member of Madison's Student Labor Action Coalition, “Because people organized and demanded more, we'll likely see a stronger code that could have a real impact on workers lives.”

While the students' victory was mainly due to many months of organizing and militant action, community support helped push their struggle over the top. “Students and local Labor activists really worked together on this one,” said IBEW Local 159 member, Joel Shoemaker. “It was great to see a real coalition of students and workers in action.” Local Labor activists supported the students' demands through letter-writing campaigns, speaking out at public forums organized by the Chancellor, and turning out for numerous protests. “This was a victory for the students, Labor, and all the community activists who stood up for workers' rights,” said Shoemaker.

Confident about the possibilities for building the movement, Madison activists hope to win even more significant battles in the future. Capellaro said, “We might not have changed the world, but we proved that when students, Labor, and the community band together, we can win!”

#MadisonWI #News #studentActivism #AntiSweatshop

“Without disclosure of the location of overseas factories, it's impossible for independent groups to monitor the working conditions under which these products are made,” according to Samantha West, a UW student activist who helped found the Madison Anti-Sweatshop Coalition (MASC) at the UW.

The picket line coincided with the the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights. While store management was unmoved, activists educated shoppers, sang anti-sweatshop holiday carols, and even enjoyed hot chocolate while standing up for justice.

Student activists have been pressuring the University of Wisconsin to strengthen the recently-proposed Collegiate Licensing Corporation's Code of Conduct for athletic apparel manufacturers. If adopted, the CLC's proposed code would include approximately 160 universities and colleges nationwide and set minimum standards for working conditions at manufacturer's plants in the US and abroad. But the Code has been criticized for not including several critical provisions such as guarantees of living wages for workers and full disclosure of factory locations.

MASC has led the fight on campus to force the UW to include these critical provisions through an aggressive petition campaign, organizing several rallies, vocally participating in forums sponsored by the Chancellor, and reaching out to the broader community for support. “The University might try to adopt this watered down code and just hope we'll let it go, but we are building a strong coalition that will monitor their implementation and continue to fight for strengthening its provisions,” said West.

Madison students, union workers, and other concerned activists are mobilizing to confront the corporations and institutions like the University that are complicit with the abuse of workers at home and in sweatshops abroad. While the fight is difficult, activists are committed to continue the struggle because they know that “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

#MadisonWI #News #WalMart #AntiSweatshop