It is challenging, to say the least to work for progressive
social change. Our corporate and government opponents are well-funded
and firmly-entrenched. They have a well-organized and highly effective
propaganda system, known as the mainstream media, which does its
job while proclaiming the great freedom of our society. Furthermore,
they control a heavily armed police and military and are always
ready to use it.
Yet against all these odds, against this behemoth of
a system, social change does occur. People stand up daily and
challenge the system and make a difference in their lives, and
in the lives of others.
What ultimately needs to happen is this: people confronting the
system, people obstructing the system, and people withdrawing
support for the system. It is vital that we support the many individuals
and organizations that are working to create a better society
and a more equitable system.
CLR is one such organization that needs your support. The workers
on whose behalf we struggle need your support.
One of the biggest challenges though, can be the sometimes overwhelming
sense of despair one gets while reading the news or watching society
evolve (or devolve) around you. When life, or the struggle for
life, appears to be so bad for so many, it can seem easier to
just withdraw into our comfortable (though often not content),
relatively secure lives. Fortunately, that is not an easy option
for those who are aware of what is really going on in the world.
I recall what I told the judge at my trial for crossing onto
Ft. Benning to demand that the School of the Americas be closed.
This school for Latin American military officers is also know
as the School of Assassins. I said, “Your honor… when
I closed my eyes I could still see their tortured bodies and when
I covered my ears I could still hear their screams…And now
your honor, that awareness is in your head, and now you will have
to deal with it.” I bring this up because I see my job as
raising awareness amongst people about the many wrongs taking
place in, or as a result of, our society. I do this not to depress
or discourage, but simply because we must have knowledge and awareness
in order to act.
Key to this plan is raising awareness, i.e. reaching people.
As an organizer, I have much experience doing community presentations
and workshops. In the past, CLR has been known as the “grassroots
mobilizing arm of the anti-sweatshop movement.” While this
is still who we are, our grassroots base is not as considerable
as it used to be. CLR’s board has given me the mission to
rebuild that base, thereby increasing CLR’s effectiveness.
To do this I need to reach people, I need to be with them, having
discussions and hearing their thoughts and ideas. With your help
I can raise their awareness. For a grassroots base to
be effective they need to know what is happening to workers in
the factories and in the fields, what kind of trade deals are
being negotiated in Washington and what their purchases support.
For CLR to be most effective we need a strong, informed, grassroots
base. What I am asking is your support to build our base. To do
this I need to give presentations and facilitate workshops in
communities and at conferences around the country. This will allow
people to learn about our work and to become active allies in
the struggle for justice. This will also allow individuals to
link up with others in their community so that they can work on
local issues while supporting national and international struggles.
When workers need support, we must be able to call upon tens
of thousands of supporters. We do have thousands of people like
you, but we need many times more. When a corporation refuses to
respect the rights of workers, we must be able to fill the streets
with people calling for justice, and to flood the company’s
phone lines and mailboxes with demands for justice. When Congress
attempts to pass another trade agreement that benefits the wealthy
at the expense of the poor and the environment, we must be ready
to express our disapproval of their actions. Simply put, we need
to build our grassroots base so that we can respond to any situation
quickly and effectively.
But we don’t only want to respond or to be reactive. We
also want, and need, to be proactive. We need to educate
people about the effects of trade, and how we can have trade that
benefits the majority of people, rather than the minority of the
wealthy. We need to inform people of the different models being
used to benefit and strengthen communities. We need to help people
understand that workers’ rights must be respected and protected,
or we will all see our rights disappear. We need to provide
others with the information and skills to educate in their own
communities, so that our movement will continue to grow. Your
support will enable us to do this work.
One campaign that I am very excited about is our work on Wal-Mart.
In the past 30 years we have gone from a few Wal-Marts scattered
across the country to a landscape now blanketed by the retail
giant. In this time, community after community has learned the
hard way that Wal-Mart is not a good neighbor. Low wages, no benefits,
tax exemptions, environmental destruction, sweatshop produced
products, and wiped out local business communities are the legacy
of “Always Low Prices.”
In the past 10 years more and more community based groups have
organized to keep Wal-Mart from opening stores and workers have
organized in attempts to unionize themselves. The company has
been fined repeatedly (though minimally) for violating workers’
rights, and its “Made In America” campaign is exposed
as a total sham. To that we can add reports showing high levels
of crime in Wal- Mart parking lots, as well as efforts by the
company to steer employees towards public assistance -- food stamps,
housing assistance and Medicaid — because the company pays
poverty wages. There has been the occasional victory -- a site
fight prevents Wal-Mart from entering a community. (Okay, maybe
that’s the only area that has had victories.) But people
have tried to resist the juggernaut, and they continue to do so.
After years of disparate attempts to slow Wal-Mart’s rampage
through our communities, several groups, including CLR, have formed
a coalition to rein in the giant. We are attacking Wal-Mart on
many different fronts, including workers’ rights, both in
stores and factories, environmental issues, community building
efforts, union organizing, and shareholder actions.
Thanks to your financial support we have begun to bring together
our resources, allowing us to better coordinate our actions and
strategies which enables us to reach a much wider audience. Though
we each work on different aspects, we all share the same goal:
to change the industry by changing the practices of the world’s
largest retailer.
When we force Wal-Mart to respect workers’ rights and to
pay living wages both at home and abroad, this struggle will benefit
workers and communities worldwide. It will be a long, hard struggle
(is there any other kind?) but one that must be undertaken, and
one in which CLR is enthusiastic to be involved.
Your support for CLR enables us to play a key role in the fight
to change Wal-Mart. Our efforts in support of Wal-Mart workers
will be vital to introducing words such as living wage, workers’
rights, benefits and unions into Wal-Mart’s corporate vocabulary.
But they won’t be just words. These ideals will be a reality
for the millions of workers who fall under the company’s
influence.
At CLR we are not just about reforming the system.
Forcing Wal-Mart to treat workers with respect is important, but
we still have the concept of Big Box retailing that is gobbling
up community after community. Making sure that Free Trade Agreements
have adequate labor and environmental standards is necessary work,
but even those “adequate standards” are part of a
non-democratic, failed model. Ending sweatshop conditions in one
factory is of the utmost importance for workers in that factory,
but there are still millions more in the global sweatshop. This
is why CLR attacks the root causes of poverty, oppression, and
global economic disparity.
We provide a systemic analysis and critique of the economic system
that is destructive to billions of people, devastating to our
planet and treats all life as a commodity to be bought and sold
without concern for well being. The never-ending quest for profit
which drives the economic engine will never be sated. At its most
basic level our economy is destined to consume until there is
nothing left. As Derrick Jensen writes in A Language Older
Than Words, “One of the problems with our economic
system is that money is valued over all else. That is enough to
guarantee widespread misery, degradation, and ultimately the destruction
of most, if not all, life on this planet.”
We do not need to continue on this path. We can build the bonds
of community and learn the skills needed to work cooperatively.
There are other ways for us to meet our needs and wants. We know
that we can provide food, shelter and water to every person on
this planet. We can’t do this at the level that many in
this country live, but we can do it at a level that allows everyone
to meet their basic needs in a sustainable and cooperative way.
We can ensure that no matter what our own situation, workers are
treated fairly, communities are stronger, equality is our foundation,
and life is respected.
We must act together now, and in order to act, we must
have knowledge. In order for CLR to spread that knowledge we need
your support. We need you to support us financially,
but we also need you to support us in other ways. When we come
to your community, we need you to spread the word and to be present
at the forum, presentation, or gathering that takes place. We
need you to participate in the discussions that will lead to the
solutions. We need you to take those solutions and share them
with others so that every day we get stronger and stronger.
Please help us get this started by sending in your check today.
And before you seal up the envelope, check the box below and include
your email or phone if you are interested in helping to bring
CLR to your community.
One final item I would like to mention: I am pleased to announce
that CLR has just been elected to the Board of Directors
of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM),
a tri-national organization based in San Antonio, TX. CJM works
to improve “conditions and living standards for workers
in the maquiladora industry” and seeks “quality
of life, sustainable development, social justice, human rights
and environmental stability in communities.” CLR worked
closely with CJM on the Lajat campaign, on behalf of workers sewing
jeans for Levi-Strauss.
CLR played a lead role to mobilize people to demonstrate in front
of Levi’s headquarters and to apply pressure on the company
to recognize the union and to meet worker demands. This was a
long, drawn-out campaign that eventually resulted in the union
being recognized, although the original factory was closed down.
After much struggle, workers received their severance pay, and
the union is now organizing other Lajat factories.
Our effort on behalf of those workers is in part why we were
nominated for the Board of Directors. I look forward to working
with CJM, and its member organizations to support workers in their
struggles. Another reason I am especially pleased to be working
with CJM is because of their focus on women. CJM “place[s]
special emphasis on defending the rights of women in the maquiladoras
who suffer discrimination, humiliation, and sexual harassment.”
This is crucial in our work to build stronger communities, as
women are the foundation of any community yet are the most detrimentally
affected by our economic system. Click to learn more about the
Coalition
for Justice in the Maquiladoras.
I thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I know that
CLR is only one of many necessary organizations seeking your support.
The work we do is of the utmost importance. With your support,
and our willingness and experience, we can make a difference in
this society. Please allow us to do what we do best by sending
in your donation today. Every dollar will be used to support
workers and to change the current structure of our economic system
so that it is responsive to workers and communities.
In short it will be used to create a society of which we can all
be proud.
In solidarity,
Jon Hunt
National Coordinator
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