No Sweat

Following a large demonstration against the suspension of the Sussex 6, hundreds of students have staged a snap occupation in defiance of management and the state, following the granting of a High Court injunction banning ‘occupational protest.’

Bangladesh unions and international labour rights organisations are calling for immediate action from brands and the government of Bangladesh. A fatal factory fire killed at least 21 workers and injured a further 50.

No Chains, a collaborative project undertaken by the two worker cooperatives “20th of December” (La Alameda) in Argentina and “Dignity Returns” in Thailand, seeks artists, designers, and activists to assist in creating images for a global “sweat-free” brand of t-shirts to be launched on 1st of May, 2010. Five submissions will be chosen by the joint vote of both cooperatives in mid-March 2010 and produced as t-shirts that will be marketed to ethical consumers and distributed among unions, NGOs, labor activists as part of an international campaign to promote non-exploitative garment production, international labor solidarity, and sustainable workers’ self-management.

As the Olympic torch is handed on from this year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver to London, the Playfair 2012 coalition is launching a campaign for an ethical London Games.

...but for women working in the garment industry and their families, good food is just that -- not a given, but something they have to think long and hard about buying. When you?re paid poverty wages malnutrition is a way of life -- along with unsafe housing, lack of clean drinking water and limited access to health care and education.

Demand a Living Wage! from Clean Clothes Campaign on Vimeo.

From Clean Clothes Campaign

Dundee University students braved the cold today to strip off as part of an international campaign against sweatshops.
The students were taking part in the Buy Right Campaign, which proclaims, “We’d rather go naked than wear sweatshop clothes.”

From the IUF. For links to further reports etc visit:
http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/287

Domestic workers around the world are organizing to challenge the harsh, abusive, often slave-like conditions in which they work. They are organizing unions and support networks, and they are mobilizing in support of an international Convention that will finally recognize them as workers and establish their rights in international law.

From China Labour Bulletin

If you ask a factory worker or a waitress in Dongguan if they have had a pay raise recently, they will either stare at you blankly or just burst out laughing.

For all the hype in the Chinese and international media about 30 percent wage inflation and a "famine" (???) of more than one million labourers in the Pearl River Delta, the reality for migrant workers remains the same; low pay, long hours and no job security.

At least 21 workers have been killed in a fire at the Garib & Garib Sweater Factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh. A further 50 workers are suffering from burns or smoke inhalation. According to the company’s website, Garib & Garib Sweater Factory is manufacturing for H&M, Otto, 3Suisses International, Pimkie, TechTextile Russia, Provera and Mark’s Work Wearhouse, and has previously supplied Littlewoods, Lindex, JC Penney and Wal Mart.

Thousands of garment workers have recently held protests about pay and conitions in Rangoon, Burma.

"On 10th February hundreds of armed police were told to monitor closely a protest by some 2000 female factory workers in the capital Ragoon demanding a pay rise and better workplace conditions."

Read more, click headline..

The U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has announced plans to encourage a massive growth in apparel production in Haiti.

It will be for radical trade unions like Batay Ouvriye and their supporters like No Sweat to ensure that the jobs created are jobs with justice.

"In unprecedented campaign, the metal workers of Bundy and Hitachi agreed that 1% of salary their salary go to Haiti"

Workers at General Motors are meeting in the next 11 days to vote donation

SOURCE: WWW.SINDMETALSJC.ORG.BR

Rain pours new misery on quake-struck Haiti
Jim Loney and Joseph Guyler Delva
PORT-AU-PRINCE
Thu Feb 11, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Rain drenched quake survivors in the tent camps of the Haitian capital on Thursday, a warning of fresh misery to come for the 1 million homeless living in the street one month after the devastating earthquake.

http://defendsussex.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/occupation-statement-1/

We have occupied the top floor of Bramber House, University of Sussex, Brighton. There are 106 of us.

The decision to occupy has been taken after weeks of concerted campaigning during which the university management have repeatedly failed to take away the threat of compulsory redundancies and course cuts.

We recognise that an attack on education workers is an attack on us.

Port-au-Prince, 27th January 2010 - Statement by the coordinating committee of progressive organisations (see the list of the participating platforms and individual organizations at the foot of the text)  
  
To all our partners  
   
On January 12th 2010 an earthquake of unprecedented force struck our country with dramatic consequences for the people of many areas in the west and south east, and for the country as a whole. The tremor registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, and the irreparable losses it

The Haitian trade union Batay Ouvriye, active in last year’s struggle for a higher minimum wage, has made an appeal for solidarity in the wake of the devastating January 12th earthquake in Port-au-Prince. The UK anti-sweatshop campaign No Sweat is collecting money for this appeal: You can donate by clicking on the "Donate to No Sweat" button here:
http://www.nosweat.org.uk/product
Please mark your donation "Haiti".

No Sweat will forward all funds received in this way to Batay Ouvriye via the New Jersey account listed below in late February. We have already raised a thousand pounds from ticket sales for our comedy fundraiser. You can help get that figure up and help shape a sweatshop free future for Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — In a city still overwhelmed by rubble and desperate for food and money, a small miracle of commerce took place on Monday: a garment factory reopened.

But no sooner had the first sewing machines begun to clatter at the factory, DKDR Haiti, than the workers cleared the floor. The workers, almost all of them women, mistook the machines’ vibrations for an aftershock and scrambled for safety outside under the locust trees.

From China Labour Bulletin:

The New Year has already seen a number of announcements in the official Chinese media that seem, on the surface at least, to be good news for workers. Coal mine accidents are down, graduate employment is up, and the authorities in the central province of Hubei have launched a wide-ranging crackdown on forced labour. Of course, the reality behind these "good news" stories is not quite so laudable.

From China Labour Bulletin:

In December 2009, a magazine article exposed the extent to which labour relations in China had deteriorated over the last year, with enterprises deliberately taking advantage of the government's leniency during the global financial crisis to exploit their workforce. The writer called on the government and trade unions to take concerted measures, including the introduction of collective bargaining, to alleviate the growing conflict between workers and management.

· THE WORKING CLASS AND EMANCIPATORY STRUGGLES OF PEOPLE IN IRAN
· Stop killings and torture!

· Farzad Kamangar in danger of execution!

· Free Haft Tapeh labour leaders!

From Workers Iran:

· Free Osanloo and Madadi now!

· The last of May Day 2009 detainees still in jail! Free Mehdi Farahi Shandiz now!

· Free Majid Hamidi now!

· Please use the Sample Protest letter and act now!