Actually, the National Labor Committee (spearheading this campaign) is
fairly well linked to the workers already. NLC was formed by AFL-CIO
dissidents in the 1980s to oppose US policy in Central America. The boxes
of brochures I get from them are mailed by the UNITE! (garment workers'
union) office in New York. UNITE! is a key backer of the NLC. When I
interviewed Nicaraguan garment worker organizer Pedro Ortega last summer,
he had last year's Season of Conscience pamphlet on his bulletin board next
to a giant "Modern slavery - the free trade zone" cartoon; NLC activity had
helped breathe new life into the union movement there in 1997. NLC could
do better at being in contact with the factory workers themselves, but at
this moment supporting this effort seems the best way to be in solidarity
with the maquila workers I've shared time with over the past couple of
years.
The larger movement to which this effort belongs is a pretty interesting
global network! (Campaign for Labor Rights, etc.)
>
>Walmart is in a class by itself. They employ 835,000 people, had sales of
>$118 billion last year and pre-tax profits of somewhere in the
>neighborhood of five to six billion smackeroos (stats gleaned from
>Walmart's epistle to cyber-tinsel at www.wal-mart.com). And unlike
>most other department stores, sales and profits continue to grow at 20%
>rates.
>
>Who pays the price for this? Workers do, of course
>(see http://www.walmartsucks.com/index3.html for the glories of the
>Southeast Asian labor market). Which is why all these morality campaigns,
>while nice things in themselves, also need to be part of a thriving labor
>movement, both here and abroad
>(e.g. http://www.corpwatch.org/corner/worldnews/other/other19.html).
>
>-- Dennis
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Many little people in many little places making many little steps will
change the world. - Brigitte Hauschild, Nicaragua
(If you can translate this sentence into languages other than Spanish,
German, French, or Russion, please contact Brigitte at
cwalter@nicarao.apc.org.ni)
Dale W. Wimberley
Department of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University