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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Call for Action |
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by Nick Berveiler
Email: naberve (nospam) ilstu.edu (unverified!)
Address: Call for Action |
05 Oct 2001
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Earlier today, I wrote this and sent it to the IMC e-mail list. Looking back I realize that this is news more than it is a dialouge. News needs to be treated that way sometimes although dialogue is very neccesary and for me and is constantly desired. If anyone has any comments or ideas in Urbana about this anti-sweatshop abuse campaign, please post them for everyone else to read. I realize that I have not laid out all of the details I know and it is beacue I am so involved without having time for full communication with others. Ask me a question and more than likely I will have an answer. |
Everyone,
I hope there are people available for organizing. As some of you may already know, I am heavily involved in United Students Against Sweatshops at Illinois State University (ISU). We are having a large mobilization campaign this month to improve working conditions in Bangladesh. This is a national anti-sweatshop campaign being led by the National Labor Committee(NLC). The NLC has ties with labor unions in Bangladesh factories that are ready to act when we release our campaign at the end of October. Some of
the information released by the NLC is a clear violation of labor laws and should cause immediate action in Bangladesh. The NLC is hoping to publicize that and other information of abusive situations and poverty wages in Bangladesh and ride on that wave for massive improvements of workers
rights in Bangladesh.
The NLC campaign officially begins on October 24th in Wisconsin where the NLC will release all information and will start touring the US with labor and students against sweatshops to protest multinational corporations and demand that universities take action to improve working onditions. This is going to be a huge campaign and here at ISU, we need your help in Urbana. We have the NLC coming to ISU and Bloomington Normal on Friday, October 26th. The NLC tour is very full and this is the only day we have available. Unfortunately, ISU is having Homecoming that weekend and there will be a lot of homecoming activities beginning on Friday that we will have to compete with. It is because of the homecoming activities that it is critical that ISU students against sweatshops get support from all available resources. This is a very significant campaign because of our opportunity to improve working conditions immediately in Bangladesh.
I am interested in putting together a radio show via the Urbana Indymedia Center after the NLC tour gets under way and I have audio from the tour. The tour will consist of the NLC and Charles Kernaghan as well as two women from Bangladesh who have worked in sweatshop conditions and can provide strong arguments to the American public.
Here in Bloomington Normal, the current plans are to have a demonstration - rally on the quad at aprox. 3 or 4 PM on October 26th and then there will be an evening event where the NLC and Bangladesh women will speak at a labor hall in West Bloomington. This is on a friday afternoon - evening which, along with Homecoming, hinders us and makes our campaign difficult. We have considered holding a protest at a shopping center however discussion so far has led us
to believe we would be much more effective with publicity if we simply campaign at ISU and release all our relevant information there. The more people present on the quad at ISU, the more publicity we will get and the more effective our campaign will be.
The NLC has information relevant to Urbana as well as Bloomington Normal. This is an opportunity to combine forces and improve working conditions overseas. I will be in Urbana on Sundays at the Independent Media Center and I ask that anyone interested in learning more about this campaign and getting involved meet at 6 PM at the Independent Media Center on Sunday. I would like to hold weekly meetings at 6PM up until the event if that is all right. I am hoping to reach out to local labor and students in Urbana Champaign as well as media activists and to do that I definitely need your help.
for more information about the NLC, current press releases and previous campaigns, visit their website at www.nlcnet.org
Please forward or mention this message to anyone you think would be interested in helping to make this event a success.
Thank you,
Nick Berveiler |
