The “People’s Lawyer” has to go to court to defend his actions

We filed a lawsuit against the “Apparel Task Force” on April 1, 2009. Since we are not a corporation or a non-profit charity group, just an officially registered UH student group, we had to put file the suit in one of our members names.  The suit is captioned O’Brien v. Alderman, 2009 – 20328, and its in the 280th Judicial District Court in Harris County.

This morning we handed out 300 flyers at the People’s Law school, which is a program that Richard Alderman, on of the five faculty on the Task Force, has run for quite a while to pump up a populist image of himself. Earlier blog posts can describe what happened the last time we passed out flyers back in October, 2008.

Here’s the text from our flyer that hopefully recounts the whole story. Feel free to email or call us with any questions (contact info on our “About” page).

BE CAREFUL ABOUT TAKING
LEGAL ADVICE FROM
“THE PEOPLE’S LAWYER”

WHY? STUDENTS ARE SUING HIM!

Here’s the skinny: In the spring of 2008 the U of Houston “shared governance” system which is the faculty, student and staff governing bodies decided unanimously to affiliate with the Worker’s Rights Consortium. The WRC is an independent third party labor monitoring organization that almost 200 top universities belong to. The shared governance system also agreed to sign on to the Designated Supplier Program. The  DSP  is a proposal by the WRC and the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)  to address working conditions in the apparel industry for the workers who sew collegiate apparel.

Well, UH President Dr. Renu Khator actually couldn’t wait until the shared governance ran its course, shortly after the student government signed off on the WRC and the DSP she appointed 5 unqualified (in that they never published on any relevant topic, labor, globalization, marketing, social responsibility, etc.) faculty + 1 staffer and 1 student and called it the “Apparel Task Force.” So in April 2008 the task force invites us, the UH Students Against Sweatshops to give a presentation about the issue and we videotaped it. Then in July, 2008 the Apparel Task Force released their final “report” (actually more of a press release since the 5 faculty did not show any scholarship, not even one footnote) claims that we, the students said we said our presentation (and that we already pushed through student government and by this time both the faculty and staff agreed) that there would “…Likely will be little impact from joining WRC or the DSP.” Even though we’ve been pushing the DSP and the WRC for more than two years, and have tons of paperwork from 2 prior UH presidents to prove it, and in this case VIDEOTAPE OF THE ENTIRE PRESENTATION, the People’s Lawyer and his cronies had to throw a big fat lie in their no scholarship “report.” Now of course as you might expect Dr. Khator is ignoring the shared governance and won’t sign the DSP (although we did force her to get UH to affiliate with the Worker’s Rights Consortium, making us the first in Texas to do so. Yea! – power to the people!)

Of course that’s a ludicrous lie about our campaign and Richard Alderman, the people’s lawyer, drafted most of the final report, probably because he was the only LAWYER on the task force and since he’s the “People’s Lawyer” he should “know his rights” and know that he can be held accountable in a court of law. (we did public info requests to get all the emails between task force members, that’s how we know Alderman did the dirty work). Anyway we asked the Apparel Task Force chair Steven Craig (an economics prof) in writing about 3 or 4 times to remove the false statements about us and he refused. About ten days ago we even met with Mr. People’s Lawyer and instead of removing the false statement, the Richard Alderman offered us a bribe: Here’s the email he sent us:

From: Alderman, Richard M <RAlderman@central.uh.edu>
Date: Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Subject: RE: deadline pending act now – U of H factory disclosure PROVES SWEATSHOP use
To: UH SAS <uhusas@gmail.com>

Tim,
This is to confirm our agreement that if you delay filing suit against the UH Apparel Taskforce Committee for a reasonable period not to exceed September 1, 2009, I will either pay you $250, or hire you at the rate of $25 per hour.
Richard Alderman

The suit was filed April 1, 2009 and is captioned O’Brien vs. Alderman, 2009 – 20328, 280th Judicial District court

Media Advisory “People’s Lawyer” sued by UH students

MEDIA ALERT:

WHO: University of Houston Students Against Sweatshops (UH SAS)

WHAT: Press Conference

WHERE: In front of the M.D. Anderson library on the main campus of the University of Houston, 3400 Calhoun, use entrance 1.

WHEN: April 2, 2009 @ noon.

WHY: Students Against Sweatshops are filing a state lawsuit against UH Chancellor and President Renu Khator, Richard Alderman, the associate dean of the UH Law Center, and four other UH professors and a UH staffer alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation and defamation for their involvement and press releases related to the “Apparel Task Force” set up by Dr. Khator last spring.

Richard Alderman, also known as the “People’s Lawyer” and for his twice a week appearances on KTRK Channel 13 and his weekly Houston Chronicle column, drafted the “Apparel Task Force” final report and offered a $250 bribe, in writing to the UH Students Against Sweatshops to delay filing the lawsuit.

The “People’s Lawyer” can’t stand the truth!

Richard Alderman is a faculty member at the University of Houston’s law school. For many years Mr. Alderman has been pushing a populist image of himself as the “People’s Lawyer.” He writes a weekly column for the Houston Chronicle, the only daily paper in the fourth largest city in the country. He also appears on channel 13 Houston’s ABC affiliate.

Earlier this summer Mr. Alderman took part in a scam on the University community and all taxpayers that was known as the “Apparel Task Force.”

Here’s a quick history: Back in January we got our student government to unanimously pass a bill  to join the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC, a third party non-profit labor monitor made up of students, college administrators and labor rights experts with 181 university affliates: WRC ) and to sign the Designated Supplier’s Program, (DSP a proposed solution that would designate factories who meet basic labor conditions the right to make university licensed apparel) our president / chancellor Renu Khator set up an appointed “apparel task force” with 5 profs (none of whom ever published on labor rights, sweatshops, corporate responsibility or other related field) 1 staffer and 1 student. We gave a presentation to the “task force” (which they conveniently scheduled at the end of the semester when our college paper stopped publishing) where we laid out the facts and messaged DSP as the solution. We of course video taped our entire presentation and you tubed it.

In the apparel task force’s “report” which documents we obtained revealed Alderman drafted, the task force members claimed “Students Against Sweatshops said that the there likely will be little impact from joining WRC or the DSP.”  We of course took issue with their blatant lies and asked 3 times in writing for them to retract and correct their falsehoods. They refused. Read their “report” Task Force report

So this morning we passed out over 300 flyers to attendees of Alderman’s “People’s Law School,” at the U of H law center. Read the flyer: alderman-flier-revised

Well Mr. Alderman and one of his associates were none to happy that we would stand on a public sidewalk and exercise our first amendment rights. Here’s what happened:

Bright and early a couple of us stood outside the law school and handed out the flyers. Everybody thought we were part of the program and gladly took a flyer. One campus cop was sitting in his car nearby. After about 10 minutes a well dressed middle aged man confronted one of our members (we think he was a law professor too) and said what we were was doing was “wrong,” and that our member was “insane.” We just replied we’re standing up for workers rights. He took issue with that and said that we were “vilifying” the people’s lawyer who does so much to “help people.” We replied yeah unless they are garment workers or students working to improve labor conditions. The unknown white male asked what the size of the lawyers house had to do with anything and we said we thought it demonstrated how the people’s lawyer was all about taking for himself and not giving back. Then the unknown white male stomped off in a huff. We thought our flyer comparing wages and living conditions of the People’s Lawyer and UH garment workers in Bangladesh would make these white males more aware of their privilege. It certainly got their attention. Interestingly enough one attendee later told me that us she asked if they would help her fill out a complaint for small claims court and they told her no they didn’t do that. So it seems that the whole event is just an opportunity for lawyers to troll for clients.

A few minutes later the “people’s lawyer” himself came up to us with the campus cop (who of course knows us well) in tow. About that time two more cop cars rolled up. Then Mr. People’s Lawyer claimed he tried to help us. We said lying about our campaign and the DSP doesn’t help anyone. Then he trotted out the tired excuse that no one signed the DSP! We said 45 schools have and that he could look at the WRC’s website and see for himself. Then he slipped up and said that he was “Trying to stop the school from signing the DSP,” he had read the DSP letters from other schools!  In a polite as tone as possible we said “We don’t have to listen to you and please get away from us,” and continued to hand out fliers. Mr. People’s Lawyer didn’t know what to do and then the cop said to him “What do you want to do?” Mr. People’s Lawyer said its OK. I guess ordering a cop to arrest students for passing out fliers would have been too much for the people’s lawyer to live down later. Then we told him if he wanted to speak to us he could make an appointment. He didn’t like that too much and stomped off.

Tell the People’s Lawyer to stop fronting for a corrupt UH adminstration and tell the truth about the university and their oppression of garment workers: You can email him here: alderman@uh.edu or call him at his office: 713.743.2227.

Five UH profs claim earth is flat, Elvis lives and no sweatshops!

Question: What do five University of Houston professors have in common with people who believe the earth is flat or people that believe Elvis is still alive?

Answer: They all ignore the facts, evidence, proof, and documentation.

Imagine if these five professors let their students engage in the same behavior they do in their classes. If they did, then all their students would get A grades. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In July five university professors, (Steven G. Craig, Econ, Richard M. Alderman, Law, Jim Granato, Poly Sci, Saleha Khumawala, Acct., Harrell Rodgers Jr., Poly Sci) claimed that UH logo apparel was not made in sweatshops.

Well UH USAS you ask, they must have based their claims on facts, evidence, proof or some kind of documentation, right? No. In fact this “task force” claimed to have visited factories, but did not report what they saw! Mainly this task force met, discussed and reviewed the Worker Rights Consortium, Designated Supplier Program and “Fair Labor Association” (corporate front group, see: flawatch.org) They also met with the manager of the bookstore and concluded “Barnes and Noble Bookstore, has taken reasonable steps to ensure that it is not selling apparel produced by sweatshop labor.” In other words if the bookstore manager said so IT MUST BE TRUE. You’ll just have to take their word for it! Don’t bring up those pesky facts like the bookstore has a profit motive to sell clothes and not reveal where they are made and under what conditions. Surely a corporate bookstore manager always tells the truth!

So let’s sum it up, these five faculty members asked the UH Barnes and Noble bookstore manager if he was taking “reasonable steps” to make sure the UH logo clothes weren’t made in sweatshops and Mr. Bookstore Manager of course said he was, so that’s the end of the story. Of course we don’t know what these “reasonable steps” are, but hey you gotta just take their word for it. You can read their entire “report” here: 070708apparel-tforce-report.html

Save your tuition money and don’t take any classes from these professors. If they make statements about no sweatshops without any evidence how can they have any academic credibility? But wait it gets better, not one of these professors has ever published in a field related to sweatshops, labor, corporate responsibility, marketing or anything remotely related to the issue. There are UH professors that have published peer reviewed articles on sweatshops or related topics but they were not picked to be on the committee. Avoid these profs like the plague. Next thing they’ll be telling us is that UH is a first tier university!!! Just take their word for it, no evidence needed.

If you are unlucky enough to have one or more of these professors for a class, just tell them that you did your homework, no need to check. Then tell them they need to let you grade your own exams. No need to turn in your exams they can take your word for it that you got an A. Hey they said Barnes and Noble bookstore can assure them that they don’t use sweatshops to make UH apparel then certainly a student can assure them that they got an A on their exam!

Unfortunately unless your clothes were union made you can almost guarantee that they were made in a sweatshop. Learn the basics about sweatshops in a few minutes on Coop America’s great website: Coop America sweatshop basics

And read up on university apparel manufacturing here: Sweatshops 101