Need more Nicaragua study abroad students!

NEED MORE PARTICIPANTS FOR SOCIOLOGY STUDY-ABROAD COURSE:
LABOR AND LABOR MOVEMENTS IN NICARAGUA
(3 semester hours credit, undergraduate or graduate level -
please forward to others who may be interested)

As announced earlier on the this list, Witness for Peace and Virginia 
Tech are sponsoring a study-abroad course and delegation to Nicaragua 
in August.  The course focuses on working conditions and labor 
movements in that impoverished Central American country - especially 
conditions and movements in the Las Mercedes free trade zone, which 
makes garments for the US market.  According to the National Labor 
Committee, workers in one of the zone's factories earn only 18 cents 
for each $24 pair of pants they make.

Right now we are just a few people short of having enough students to 
make the program go, so your application could put us over the top. 
We would need to get your application quickly, though!  If you're 
interested, please send me your mailing address, phone number, and if 
possible a fax number where we can send the application packet (reply 
to <dale.wimberley@vt.edu>; see the course website listed below for 
costs and other details).

In light of recent union-busting in Nicaragua, the call for 
solidarity with and understanding of Nicaraguan free trade zone 
workers is more urgent than ever.

A hot unionizing struggle is going on now in the Las Mercedes free 
trade zone.  Nicaragua's garment export factories had become the most 
unionized in Central America, but there seems to be a concerted 
effort to break those unions over the past few months.  Hundreds of 
union members have been fired from 4 large factories; criminal 
charges have been filed against 68 of those fired.  Nine members of 
the Chentex union's executive board were fired May 26.  One of them 
is Gladys Manzanares, the union's leader, whom I met at her home in 
1998 - she's the woman with cake icing on her face in the photo at 
the course website.  We plan to meet with some of these fired union 
members while we're in Nicaragua.  (For a report on the attempt to 
bust the strong union at the Chentex factory, check with the National 
Labor Committee at http://www.nlcnet.org/nicaragua/.)

The class begins July 3 with some reading and discussion over a 
listserv, and we go to Nicaragua August 7-17.  In Nicaragua we will 
meet and talk with union officials, government officials, many 
working people, and others.  We will live in Nicaraguan workers' 
homes for a few days of the trip.

The course will be a profound experience.  Join us!

The website with cost and other info on the course is 
http://fbox.vt.edu:10021/artsci/soc/wimberley/nicastudy/index.html. 
Please contact me if you have any questions. - DW
-- 
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Many little people in many little places making many little steps 
will change the world. - Brigitte Hauschild, Nicaragua

Dale W. Wimberley
dale.wimberley@vt.edu
Department of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia  24061-0137  USA