Student Anti-Sweatshop Activists Score Big Win for Honduran Workers
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In what is being hailed as the biggest victory ever by student anti-sweatshop activists, Russell Athletic, the largest supplier of team uniforms and logo-wear, has agreed to reopen a Honduran factory shut down in January shortly after its workers formed a union and will rehire the 1,200 union members.
When Russell shut the factory and moved production to cheaper nonunion plants, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) mobilized on college and university campuses across the country. Their actions persuaded nearly 100 schools, including Harvard, Michigan, Miami, North Carolina and Stanford universities, to end their agreements with Russell for violating the workers’ rights.
Today Is World Day for Decent Work
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Today is World Day for Decent Work, and union members in more than 100 countries are mobilizing to address the global economic and employment crisis and demand fundamental reform of the world economy.
The deepest global recession since the 1930s has led to a jobs crisis with millions of people out of work. The International Labor Organization (ILO) predicts that as many as 50 million more workers could be kicked out of jobs worldwide in the next year and could lead to a dramatic increase in the number of working poor.
Live online coverage of the activities around the world, including videos, photographs and messages from events in every continent, will be broadcast on a special website, www.wddw.org, which will be updated via a 24-hour live feed.
Student Week of Action Promotes Employee Free Choice Nationwide
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This past week, students across the country mobilized to pass the Employee Free Choice Act in the Student Labor Action Project’s annual Student Labor Week of Action.
The Week of Action commemorates the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez and their efforts on behalf of dignity and justice for workers. Student organizations taking part included United Students Against Sweatshops and the United States Student Association.
In 28 states and the District of Columbia, hundreds of students from dozens of campuses held rallies, community service days, petition drives, educational forums and other public events to promote workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain and to mobilize for a fair economy.
Student Week of Action Focuses on Employee Free Choice
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This week, Jobs with Justice’s Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) kicks off a week of action in support of the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and the freedom to form unions and bargain cooperatively to create a strong economy.
As part of SLAP’s week of action, held each year to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and Farm Workers founder César Chávez, students in 28 states and the District of Columbia are getting involved in the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act. In coordination with the student week of action, Jobs with Justice will hold a “Resistance and Recovery” week of events.
You can find out about student actions in your area here.
World Social Forum: Making Young People at Home in Union Movement
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Brian Finnegan and Gladys Cisneros gave us this update from the ninth World Social Forum held in Brazil from Jan. 27-Feb. 1.
On the opening day of workshops at the World Social Forum, U.S. youth labor activists from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center and the United Steelworkers (USW) joined the youth commission of Brazil’s chemical workers confederation (CNQ-CUT) in a discussion of young worker participation in the labor movement. Carlos Jimenez from Jobs with Justice was also present at the workshop.
The debate also dealt with the current financial crisis, since young workers are especially vulnerable to layoffs, and other measures that employers take to reduce costs.
Brazilian youth labor activists from the chemical sector discussed workplace organization, youth-specific collective bargaining concerns and promoting innovative union structures to encourage youth leadership. They also argued for the need to bridge the digital divide and use new media and information technology to build national movements and maintain communication between workers in different countries.
World Social Forum: Another World Is Possible
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Patrick Young from the United Steelworkers (USW) reports back from the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil. Young was part of a delegation of U.S. union activists who participated in this year’s forum from Jan. 27-Feb. 1.
The World Social Forum, launched in 2001 as an alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, allows grassroots activists to debate and develop proposals to make the global economy work for everyone.
We arrived at this year’s World Social Forum in Brazil in a time of crisis. Following decades of unfair trade, privatization and deregulation, the world’s financial markets have collapsed. People around the world are being forced from their homes by foreclosures; major global banking institutions have gone bankrupt; and unemployment rates are skyrocketing as hundreds of thousands of workers are being laid off.
Students, Workers Urge Georgetown to Defend Workers’ Rights
Students at Georgetown University today called on the school to honor its ethical commitments and cut ties with an apparel manufacturer that students say busted a union and violated workers’ rights at a plant in Honduras.
At a rally on the university’s campus in Washington, D.C., Moises Elias Montoya Alvarado and Norma Estela Mejia Castellanos, who work at Russell Athletics’ Jerzees de Honduras factory—which produces Georgetown logo apparel—described how the company closed the plant this past weekend and shipped the work to cheaper nonunion plants. The Jerzees de Honduras factory, located near Pedro Sula, Honduras, is the only unionized Russell plant in the country.
“We have been campaigning for a year and a half to end the abuses in our factory and ensure that we are treated with dignity and respect,” said Montoya Alvarado.
World Social Forum Kicks Off in Brazil
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| Brian Finnegan of the Solidarity Center, left, and Steelworkers member Patrick Young get ready to march in the rain at the World Social Forum. |
Brian Finnegan and Gladys Cisneros of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center report from Belem, Brazil, where the World Social Forum began this week. The World Social Forum, launched in 2001 as an alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, allows grassroots activists to debate and develop proposals to make the global economy work for everyone.
The World Social Forum opened Jan. 27 with thousands marching through relentlessly heavy rain in the Brazilian city of Belem. The downpour did not deter the drums and dancing of the crowd that advanced from the restored old Amazon waterfront docks to the Workers Square four miles away.
Members of the Brazilian national labor centers—CUT, Força Sindical and UGT—were joined by thousand of local and international labor, youth, environmental, indigenous, cultural and community activists of all ages. The Brazilian national labor centers are similar to labor federations like the AFL-CIO. U.S. labor participants included representatives of the Solidarity Center, United Steelworkers, Jobs with Justice, United Students Against Sweatshops and the United Electrical Workers.
