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Activists wear “Clean Clothes or Nothing” in first-ever National “Sweatfree” Conference
With the loss of US manufacturing jobs and trade issues taking centrestage
in the presidential candidate debate, anti-sweatshop activists across the country
are pushing through a wave of historic reforms aimed at using tax dollars to
promote fair trade and anti-sweatshop alternatives. Albany, NY recently hosted
a conference, ‘Sweatfree Communities Conference’ for the same.
Conference organisers point out that US tax dollars often subsidise abusive
child and exploitative labour domestically and overseas and undermine the job
security of US workers who have fair pay and good working conditions when public
agencies purchase uniforms and other apparel. “We are paying to lose our
jobs and this has to stop now by reforming public policy from coast to coast,”
according to SweatFree Communities board member Mr Dan Hennefeld, and director
for the UNITE union’s Uniform Project.
“Conference participants are committed to wearing clean clothes or nothing
at all,” said conference organiser Mr Bjorn Claeson. “They will be
fair-trade models for their schools, cities, and states showing them that being
sweatfree is no sweat.” “We’re moving millions of purchasing
dollars to the workers’ cause,” says SweatFree Communities Board president
Mr Brian O’Shaugnessy. “That creates market demand that can force
companies to improve working conditions or face declining sales.” Mr O’Shaugnessy
is executive director of the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, host of
the conference.
Among conference participants were a group of Maryland high-school students
originally from Central America, who want their school district to go sweatfree
and help workers back in their home countries; a distributor for two worker-owned
fair trade apparel production facilities in Mexico and Nicaragua; clergy such
as World Mission Ministries of the Milwaukee Archdiocese; and a sweatfree baseball
campaign from Pittsburgh.
Sweatfree purchasing policies, including a milestone California state law that
just went into effect, require government vendors and their subcontractors to
abide by fair labour standards when doing business with the taxpayers’
money and supplying goods such as law enforcement uniforms, college sportswear
and footwear. The states of Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania have
also passed anti-sweatshop legislation, as well as dozens of cities and schools
of all sizes, from Boston to Milwaukee to Los Angeles to Toledo to Olympia,
Washington.
Source: Organic Consumers Association
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