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Kalpona Akter, labor rights activist, arrested in Bangladesh Anne Kelly, the Coalition's Fair Trade Coordinator shared a meal with Kalpona Akter earlier this year. Former Sweatshop-free Coordinator Jordan Wells traveled with the speaking tour. Read Anne's note about what we can do. Updates on NY and the Sweatfree Purchaising Consortium, Sweatfree SUNY and the labor rights victory in Honduras • "So far, system-wide sweatshop-free purchasing for SUNY schools is only on paper" Rev. Billy, students, LRC's Sweatshop-free Campaign call for SUNY schools to end ties with sweatshops New York's role in the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium is a "game-changer" Governor Paterson announces NYS affiliation with the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium Sweatshop-free policies change lives Honduran workers at RussellAthletic and their union reached an agreement in November 2009 with vital support from the anti-sweatshop movement, especially United Students Against Sweatshops. See photos and an article in the May 2010 E-Justicing. Subsidizing Sweatshops II documents continuing violations in government supplier facilities "OGS's grounds for concern are obvious, said LRC Sweatfree Coordinator, Jordan Wells. "What is not clear is on what ground they stand. New York needs clear, codified expectations of sweatfree working conditions in our supplier factories. We also need to join with others in the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium to better leverage compliance with these expectations." In addition, the report documents positive actions taken in response to Subsidizing Sweatshops I, issued in July 2008. For more, see "State labor pressure helps Honduran workers" in Schenectady's Daily Gazette. UAlbany rally backs sweatshop-free SUNY The University at Albany is sweatshop-free. But it's one of only four SUNY campuses in the 64-school system that has discontinued the production of school apparel in sweatshops, according to a group comprised of local labor leaders, activists and lawmakers. Sweatshop workers are subjected to a grueling schedule in substandard conditions for minimal pay. Read more from the April 9, 2009 Times Union's Campus Notebook (PDF) . Click here for the rally news release (PDF) from the office of Assemblyman Rivera. For background and more about the Ethical Business Conduct in Higher Education Act, click here. Report links Wal-Mart's school uniforms to Bangladesh sweatshops NYSUT and the state Labor-Religion Coalition are sounding the alarm over a recent report that links a popular school- uniform clothing line sold at Wal-Mart to a Bangladeshi factory that forces its workers to labor in extreme sweatshop conditions. More from New York Teacher, Dec. 4, 2008 Published by SweatFree Communities, the Sweatshop Solutions? report is both an account of a particularly abusive factory and Wal-Mart's response to the findings. It raises questions about Wal-Mart's factory auditing system that appears to be failing workers and about the company's responsibility in one of the poorest countries in the world. Click here to view the entire report. Ithaca (NY) Journal: City urged to join anti-sweatshop coalition The City of Ithaca should ensure that its employees' uniforms aren't coming from sweatshops, a group of Cornell students say. Cornell Students Against Sweatshops and the Cornell Organization for Labor Action (COLA) are petitioning Ithaca's Common Council to join a coalition of municipalities across the country that have pledged to ensure that public tax dollars are not being spent to support factories that exploit and endanger workers. Read the full article published on October 24, 2008 followed by a clarification from SweatFree Communities. NYS Dept. of Labor: Sweatshop-free provisions fell short of their original intent LRC News Release, September 22, 2008, "Department of Labor report opens door to stronger sweatshop-free action by New York State" New York Daily News article about the report Sunday, August 31, 2008, Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY The proposed state and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium would enable states, cities and counties to pool their resources and coordinate monitoring and enforcement activities that would be tough to handle on their own. Click here for full article.
New York state tax dollars fund sweatshops according to a study released July 1, 2008. New York's existing sweatshop-free purchasing laws expired September 1, and have failed to achieve their intended effect, as evidenced by the report. New York and other U.S. states, cities, and counties are inadvertently using millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase goods from companies engaged in serious human rights and labor violations, according to a first-of-its-kind report released by SweatFree Communities. The study, "Subsidizing Sweatshops: How Our Tax Dollars Fund the Race to the Bottom, and What Cities and States Can Do," includes in-depth case studies of 12 factories in nine countries that produce public employee apparel for nine major brands. The Sweatfree Consortium will help New York and other states and cities to accomplish the goal of ending public purchasing from sweatshops by investigating factory working conditions and creating a market for “sweatfree” suppliers. Absent requirements that New York apparel be produced sweatshop-free and without a system for monitoring compliance with sweatfree specifications, vendors and their suppliers have operated below the radar, resulting in abuse and exploitation. While no individual state has adequate resources to monitor working conditions, nor enough leverage to hold its suppliers accountable, according to Labor-Religion Executive Director Brian O’Shaughnessy, “We must not tacitly subsidize sweatshops. Basic morality dictates that taxpayer dollars should support sweatfree alternatives.” O’Shaughnessy continued, “ New York can lead other states and cities on the path to sweatfree public purchasing—by enacting a Sweatfree Code of Conduct that enumerates worker rights principles for inclusion in state apparel contracts and by formally affiliating with the State and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium.” "Subsidizing Sweatshops" reveals widespread human rights and labor violations throughout the uniform industry, including: child labor; illegally low poverty wages; forced and unpaid overtime; verbal, physical, and sexual abuse; pregnancy testing, excessively long work hours causing physical ailments; disregard for freedom of speech or association; and elaborate schemes to deceive factory auditors. The report documents sweatshop abuses in factories producing for several New York vendors: Rocky Brands, Lion Apparel, and Eagle Industries. Rocky Brands Last Updated: 08/18/2010
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800 Troy-Schenectady Road Latham, NY 12110-2455 ph. 518/ 213-6000 fax 518/ 213-6414 info@labor-religion.org |