Sweatshops

Campaigning against Sweat Shops

Scandal of East End Sweatshops By Jean Lane Indonesia: embassy protest Nike's naked greed exposed! Scandal of East End Sweatshops Months of activity and investigation by activists from the GMB union and No Sweat have revealed evidence of a large number of East End sweatshops which pay illegal wage rates and breach basic health and safety regulations. These sweatshops seem to be producing garments for some of the biggest high street retailers. The 15 sweatshops listed in the GMB's latest factsheets all pay less than the legal minimum wage - currently £4.10 per hour for adults (rising to £4.20...

The other games

By Karen Amas A lively demo and a fundraising night at Manchester Metropolitan University finished a week of activity calling for Sport Without Sweatshops at the Commonwealth / Share the wealth / Corporate wealth Games. Luckily there was a bit of sun between two traditional Manchester downpours. So, armed with foam javelins and cardboard medals for Number One Sweatshop Exploiter, over 100 people took to the streets to put across the message that behind the "Friendly Games" were some very nasty sweatshops. It was not to easy to find out much about where the official Games merchandise came from...

Who really cares about "fair trade"?

An estimated 12,000 Fair Trade protesters formed a giant queue along the Thames embankment and across Lambeth Bridge in what the organisers claimed was one of the biggest events of its kind ever held. Campaigners were calling for a better deal for poor countries. The Trade Justice Movement believes poorer countries are not competing on a "level playing field", and it wants trade barriers to come down, as well as big companies to pay workers a "living wage". The Tories and New Labour were keen to jump on the bandwagon, and both parties expressed their support for the lobby. More honestly, Ruth...

Help us raise $50,000 for Indonesian workers!

[1] An appeal: Solidarity with Indonesian workers! The British anti-sweatshop campaign No Sweat is appealing for funds to help the Indonesian workers movement. We are raising money for the campaigning union organisation, the National Front for Indonesian Workers Struggle (FNPBI), whose most prominent leader is Dita Sari. Dita, on behalf of herself and the FNPBI, recently refused to take a "human rights award" of $50,000 from the sportswear transnational, Reebok. Reebok gives this award, annually, to a number of activists, because it is cheaper than paying the Third World workers who slave in...

Sweatshop campaigning latest

"Standing protesting outside Gap is a strange thing to do when civilians are being killed in Afghanistan," Globalise Resistance's Guy Taylor tells a fawning Andy Beckett (Guardian G2, Jan 17 'Has the Left Lost Its Way') To that, we say "Bollocks!" We think that, whatever the armed forces of imperialism are up to, the struggle of workers across the globe against insulting and abusive labour practices goes on and continues to deserve our full support. If you agree with us, you might be interested in the following: Friday March 8 - International Women's Day: Originally proposed by Lenin, the date...

Get campaiginig against sweatshops

The latest news and activities from No Sweat - the UK campaign against sweatshops. Campaigning: International No Sweat, the UK campaign against sweatshops, is launching a solidarity campaign with Indonesian workers. If you are involved in a student / trade union or other organisation, why not twin them with a union branch of the FNPBI (the largest free trade union federation in Indonesia) and help them in their fight to organise the workers making the goods for Nike and other multinationals. Also, if you can get your hands on any good, second hand computer equipment that could be useful to a...

How Nike treats its Vietnamese workers

28 cents an hour, 78 hours a week. Nike owners have become very rich from the exploitation of workers - Chief Exec, Phil Knight, has a personal fortune of almost $4 billion. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the average Nike worker earns $47 a month. Sewers making Nike clothes in factories in Dhaker, Bangladesh, earn between 11 and 20 cents an hour for a 78 hour week; workers are prevented for talking to each other and are often abused by supervisors. Nike makes massive profits on its shoes and clothes. Christian Aid estimated (1995) that the labour costs involved in making one pair of Nike trainers is...

Mind the gap

Gap, the San Francisco-based store-chain (which includes Old Navy and Banana Republic), with 4,100 shops world-wide, including 180 in the UK, hit the news in the second week of January with record losses. Sales in December were down 11% on the same month the previous year. Gap said that in the three months to February it would make a loss of $52m. The company has debts of more than $2bn. Gap has a nice image and has spent millions on advertising. But the reality is that Gap is also a notorious sweatshop employer. In October 2000 the investigative TV programme Panorama exposed Gap as using...

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