We went on this trip last month (actually to Reynosa last time) and highly recommend it. If you are interested in doing something cool over winter break but are short on funds, get with us for fund raising info. uhusas (a) gmail (dot) com
Here’s the email from the organizers:
The next Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera delegation, January 8-10, 2010, is open for early registration. Plan ahead before the holidays sweep you away.
The delegation will visit Piedras Negras, home city of our Mexican partners, the Comité Fronterizo de Obreras/os and of the Dignity & Justice Maquiladora, a worker-owned collective, struggling to pioneer a fair trade maquiladora model at the border. The delegation will also visit workers organizing in nearby Ciudad Acuña, a city which has long banned unions and inhibited labor rights in order to attract foreign manufacturers. Workers are turning the tide and engaged in affiliating with the first democratic union to represent labor in this “free trade zone.”
There will be time too and reason to celebrate international solidarity, human, labor and women’s rights, and, delayed by a few days, the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Austin Tan Cerca’s New Year’s resolution: Bring focus and attention to the connections between issues of labor, trade, immigration, detention, militarization and social and economic violence. Build solidarity between broad constituents. Bring people together to create alternatives.
Write for more info, to express interest or request a registration form: Judith Rosenberg, chelarose@gradecom.net. Delegations leave Friday morning, return Sunday evening. All costs, including translation and interpretation, covered by $225 fee. Passport required. Partial scholarships sometimes available.
Austin Tan Cerca is a project of the American Friends Service Committee.
Hey folks, it’s been awhile since we updated the blog but now we have great news. Last February 2009 we got UH administrators to terminate their business relationship with Russell Athletic because of labor violations in their plant in Honduras. Use the search box to find earlier related posts for that history. Anyway, after the largest boycott in the history of modern student activism, Russell agreed to reopen the factory immediately and hire 1,200 workers. Here’s the post from United Students Against Sweatshops listserv:
Just over a year ago, Russell Athletic announced it would close Jerzees de Honduras in response to workers’ organizing efforts. During that year, USAS organized the largest boycott in the history of modern student activism. Now, as a direct result of our efforts, we have won an unprecedented victory — the company has agreed to meet worker demands to reopen the factory and re-hire all 1200 workers, who have been without jobs for 10 months or more. View the details of the agreement here.
Landmark Victory: A Precedent is Set
This is one of the most significant youth-led campaign victories in recent times and one of the most significant campaign victories of the global justice movement. No one has ever forced a multinational corporation to reopen a facility it shut down in the global race to the bottom. This victory has also proven that together, we can successfully fight back when those in power take advantage of the economic crisis to attack working people. We should take strength and inspiration from the example of the workers of Jerzees de Honduras. We can fight back — and WIN — against policies that benefit a privileged few and hurt our communities.
Thank You!
Your campus organizing, e-mails, faxes, phone calls, direct action and donations were essential to winning this campaign. We are standing on the shoulders of previous generations of activists. We built on top of USAS victories of the past twelve years, from the sit-ins in the late 1990s that resulted in supply chain transparency and university labor codes of conduct to the formation of the Worker Rights Consortium in 2000. As Russell and SITRAJERZEESH work to implement this agreement, please continue to support our efforts by making a tax-deductible donation to USAS. We need your continued support to sustain our movement.
Our sister group got this email from Paul Rice, CEO and founder of Transfair USA yesterday.
paul@transfairusa.org
Dear Friends and Companeros,
I just today became aware of the incredible progress you guys have made at UH to get Fair Trade coffee on campus. Congratulations!!! What a fantastic accomplishment! I’m really impressed – and proud – of the great work you’re doing there. It truly makes a difference for so many people.
I was in Rwanda and Tanzania this summer, visiting Fair Trade coffee communities and farmers. Everywhere I went, every family I visited, I heard the same story: Fair Trade has changed our lives; Fair Trade gives us hope. In Tanzania, I saw new processing facilities and cupping laboratories, built with FT premiums, which allow farmers to improve their coffee quality and fetch a higher price for their harvest. I visited farmers who were converting to organics, allowing them to produce more safely, sustainably and profitably. In Rwanda, I met young women who had finished high school and are now in technical college – what they called their “dream come true” – thanks to scholarship programs set up with FT premiums. I saw Hutus and Tutsis, working together in the same co-ops, building true reconciliation from the grassroots up. Needless to say, I came home deeply inspired.
Know this: our efforts are working! YOUR efforts are working. Together, we are building a global movement that brings hope, pride and dignity back to millions of hard-working farmers and their family members. Your struggle there at UH is vital to the movement, showing other campus organizers across the country that it CAN be done. So keep the faith. Set new FT goals and continue your fantastic journey. I am proud to stand beside you, fighting the Good Fight – and if there’s ever anything that my team or I can personally do to help, please let me know.
With solidarity and admiration,
Paul
Paul D. Rice
President & CEO
TransFair USA
1500 Broadway, Suite 400
Oakland, CA 94612
Tel: 510-663-5260 ext. 312
Fax: 510-663-5264 www.transfairusa.org
Often times the corrupt system preys on those that are ignorant of their rights. It’s extremely important for activists to be aware of all their civil rights. One important law that UH SAS has learned is the Texas law on taping phone calls and other forms of electronic communication. Texas is known as a one party consent state. That means only one party has to give their consent to tape a conversation.
For example, if you were being harassed by a bill collector and thought that the speech veered into a criminal violation you could tape the conversation without asking bill collector’s permission. See this website for more information on the specific law in Texas: summary of Texas laws on one party consent.
Probably the most important right for activists is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which is also known as freedom of expression. Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief.
The First Amendmentprotects the freedom to speak your mind and protest in peace without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans cannot be silenced by the government.
The University of Texas, the flagship school in our state even has an explicit policy recognizing this important right:
“First Amendment Rights
In general, expressions of opinion by members of the university community that do not otherwise violate state and federal laws or university rules are protected as “free speech.” This is true even though the opinions expressed may be unpopular or offensive to some. With a population of 71,000, UT Austin encompasses a wide array of opinions and views. We encourage all those associated with the university to exercise their constitutional rights and freedoms responsibly. We do not, however, punish people who express views that may be unpopular or offensive, but who break no laws or university rules while doing so.”
Recently a lawyer with the Texas Attorney General’s office filed an extremely useless motion in a lawsuit that our member Tim filed for some shenanigans around his graduate education. We thought it would be instructive to post it to see how unfamiliar this silly lawyer is with the First Amendment… read and enjoy, very little of what is written in the motion is actually factual or based on any law, but that does not stop this silly man. It’s important to keep in mind the fact that this guy has to work for the public is because he couldn’t get a job at a big firm. Since he has very few legal skills (he has not been able to get Tim’s federal lawsuit against our University [now a year old] dismissed either) he has to spend his time imagining the First Amendment does not exist and wasting the taxpayers time and money by filing frivolous motions like this.
Jose Rangel is the Associate Vice Chancellor / Vice President for Legal Affairs and Deputy General Counsel at our University. Rangel also graduated from the University of Houston in 1975. Unfortunately for anyone who wants make the University of Houston a better place, particularly a place that values the contributions of all staff and contract workers on our campus, Mr. Rangel is not very helpful. In fact Mr. Rangel actively works against students like us who volunteer their time to work in solidarity with workers who supply our University with logo clothes, serve us food, or clean our classrooms.
We don’t mean to single out Mr. Rangel for his personal liability in furthering the oppressive conditions that our University engages in on a daily basis. It’s just that Mr. Rangel has been particularly unprofessional in his dealings with students advocating for workers rights. The post below has three video tapes that demonstrate Mr. Rangel’s thoroughly unprofessional behavior.
We thought it would be helpful to point out the huge gap in pay between Mr. Rangel and a UH custodian. Currently, the University pays custodians as little $6.56 an hour! You find that data right on the Houston Chronicle webpage where they are advertising for a UH custodian position: custodian opening UH On the other hand, Mr. Rangel pulls down a yearly salary of $177,699 which at 52 weeks a year and 40 hours a week works out to $85.43 an hour.
We’re not saying that Mr. Rangel is a selfish individual only concerned with himself, because we never engage in personal attacks. However we think that there is a possibility that Mr. Rangel has a hard time empathizing with the custodians and food service workers on our campus, many whom make minimum wage.
If you think that Mr. Rangel should behave a little better, then by all means call him or email him. His phone number is : (713) 743-0949 and his email address is: jmrangel@uh.edu
Remember, if you pay taxes, Mr. Rangel works for you!
This afternoon three of our members had a few quick errands to run on campus. We had to do some banking, we needed to add our fall meeting time to our banner, and then we had to go by the university general counsel’s office to set up a time to view some documents per a request that our member Brendan Laws made. We also had to pay $40 for another public information request. The Texas Public Information Act is really useful because it allows citizens a way to look at documents created by the government. Click here for a quick primer: Texas public info.
Anyway it was just another routine day on campus for a few activists. However as is often the case at the University of Houston, where they make up new laws everyday, the most mundane task can turn into an ugly incident of oppression of happy go lucky students.
It was about 1:45 when we walked toward the lawyers office. We came upon Leslie Pruski, (secretary to Dona Cornell, the general counsel) in the hallway. She asked who we were here to see and we told her Valerie Coleman-Ferguson, one of the lawyers on staff. Pruski went into the office and told someone. A woman came out and we told her the same thing. She told us to wait, which we did. We sat for around 15 minutes. Now bear in mind all we had to do was give them $40 cash and get a receipt and go. Another woman passed through the reception area we were waiting in and we asked her to check on things. She returned and told us they were checking on the law and would get back to us. They had to check on the law to see if they could accept cash? But wait it gets better. Then still another woman came out and showed our member Tim a receipt and took his $40, but instead of letting us have the receipt she said she had to take it and photocopy our money and our receipt.
So we waited another ten or fifteen minutes. Except now Brendan was going to be late for work because it was 2:30 so we went ahead and went into the hallway where the offices are and the video above shows what happened.
It’s important to note the the lawyer in this video, Mr. Rangel, is not just having a bad day, he has a bad day everyday students are around on legitimate business. For review and contextual purposes, below are two more videos showing Mr. Rangel acting unprofessional and ignorant. We think this accurately reflects most UH staffer’s attitudes towards students or at least the ones that we’ve encountered over the years of our activism.
Its also important to note that our group is primarily made up of working class students. We mention that because we had to buy this expensive video camera and we must continually buy tapes for it just to protect ourselves. Its bad enough that they jack up the tuition every year, but it is just ridiculous that we can’t do the simplest errand on campus without having these folks go beserk on us. This idiotic behavior of staffers just makes us use up more film and more time documenting it.
Emily Messa, assistant vice president for university services has been involved in a major greenwashing campaign at the University of Houston for some time now. First let’s define the terms. Merriam Webster dictionary defines greenwashing as “expressions of environmentalist concerns especially as a cover for products, policies, or activities.” Remember that Ms. Messa and the University of Houston’s main reason for existence is to ensure profits for corporations.
UH Students Against Sweatshops has been working for two long years on our campus to bring ethical garments to our school. Recently, as our previous post (see below) details, Knights Apparel released a letter to the affiliates of the Worker Rights Consortium. The letter contains details about a project Knights is working on to manufacture collegiate logo apparel in a socially responsible way. We got our school to affiliate with the WRC back in November 2008.
We requested a short meeting with Ms. Messa to discuss how UH could take part in this unprecedented opportunity. For example, Duke university made a commitment to purchase $250,000 worth of apparel from Knights Apparel to show their support for socially responsible garments. See: Duke to buy $250,000 in sweat free apparel
Instead of taking thirty minutes to meet concerned students, on June 5, 2009 Ms. Messa had her office issue a press release that is full of inaccuracies. Here’s the press release: Apparel (click link and you come to another page, then click link again) For example, the press release claims that “… by associating with the WRC the UH bookstore…” Now we’re to believe that the UH Bookstore (run by Barnes and Nobles) is a member of the Worker Rights Consortium! Actually only universities and schools can be affiliates of the WRC, see the list of affiliates on their website.
When we went to Ms. Messa’s office on Monday June 8, she refused to come out and speak with us. So as you see, UH is all about trying to make corporations look good, not about actually doing anything themselves like top tier school Duke did by making a quarter million dollar commitment to purchase the sweat free clothes. No, Messa and the rest of the corporate flunkies who run UH are only interested in getting money for their corporate masters.
Click the link to see the video of our appointment request:
Unfortunately for Ms. Messa and other immoral UH administrators of her ilk, we never stop fighting for social justice. In fact we and / or our allies make house calls. Last Saturday June 6 Students for Fair Trade stopped by Ms. Messa’s house on similar social justice causes to ours. See the Students for Fair Trade website for details on that house protest: SFT Messa house protest
Here’s one of several videos of the Students for Fair Trade in action at Emily Messa’s house:
The Knights Apparel company has been working for several years to provide a sweat free alternative to all the licensed collegiate apparel that is sold in college bookstores and other retailers across the country.
“Overall, we are very happy with the progress that has been made to date. To cite a key example of this progress, Barnes & Noble College Booksellers has committed to selling the Knights Apparel product in roughly 350 of their stores and they have made a strong commitment to launch a robust and multi-faceted marketing campaign to spread awareness of the initiative. This is obviously a very significant development: there is widespread agreement that achieving a higher level of respect for workers’ rights in the apparel industry requires greater participation on the part of large retailers. For a major retailer like Barnes & Noble to lend its enthusiastic support to this initiative is very heartening and we commend the company’s leadership…
Meanwhile, discussions on the ground in the Dominican Republic with the manufacturer, and with worker representatives and local civil society groups, are continuing. These discussions, which focus on the labor rights compliance and verification process, have gone very well. This work is being coordinated on the ground by the WRC’s staff person in Santo Domingo.”
UH SAS’ liaison with the WRC, Theresa Haas, informs us that the plan is to have the sweat free clothes in Barnes and Nobles bookstores as soon as the factory gets up and running. The University of Houston bookstore is run by Barnes and Nobles so we’re hoping to see a sweat free alternative on our campus soon.
If you click on the link below you can see the details in a 3 page memo from Joe Bozich, the CEO of Knights Apparel to all the universities (including U of Houston!) affiliated with the WRC.
On Tuesday, April 21 four Students Against Sweatshops members went to a “town hall” meeting that UH president Renu Khator was presiding over. As usual Khator’s thuglike security just couldn’t handle students wanting to exercise their first amendment rights. Here’s what happened:
The awesome folks at Sweatfree Communities released a follow up to their report “Subsidizing Sweatshops” which was all about state governments contracting with companies that use sweatshops to make their uniforms and other kinds of apparel.
Most readers wouldn’t be surprised to know that Sweatfree Communities researchers found out:
April 15, 2009– Subsidizing Sweatshops II, a new report released today by SweatFree Communities, documents severe violations of labor law and human rights in nearly all factories investigated, including:
Child labor (14 and 15 year olds work in two factories investigated)
Poverty wages (only enough to cover 1/4-1/2 of a family’s basic needs)
Excessive production quotas (resulting in 12 hour days, coming to work sick, and limits on bathroom usage)
Mandatory pregnancy tests (in two factories, as a requirement of employment)
Unhealthy work environment (suffocating heat; dust causing chronic respiratory problems; accidents resulting in puncture wounds and losing fingers)
Severe repression of union supporters (harassment, intimidation, firings and, in at least one case, blacklisting)
