CLR Year in Review

December 20, 2002

Dear Friend,

An end of the year review becomes truly inspirational for us at Campaign for Labor Rights when we can say that this year we won important victories for workers rights in the midst of a political landscape hostile to people's rights and an economic environment that taxes the resources of even the leanest of organizations.

So I invite you to celebrate our hard-fought victories! We all - frontline workers; CLR supporters, activists and partners - worked across international borders to win victories that included:

• In Thailand, the Samsonite/Lighthouse struggle that saw fired workers reinstated and union organizing ascendant;
• In El Salvador, Tainan/Gap/Footlocker was forced to return after cutting and running to avoid a newly unionized factory.
• In the US, several cities in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio passed purchasing resolutions that required sweatfree products.

Campaign for Labor Rights played a significant role in these battles - a role acknowledged and much appreciated in letters to us by the workers in the frontlines. Their words inspire us. But it is your activism and financial help that has made the difference and enabled CLR to mount dynamic solidarity campaigns.

Your commitment and financial help is so vital especially when the corporations we target put millions of dollars into PR and use every backdoor ploy imaginable to line their pockets at the expense of workers.

Looking Back.

As many of you know, CLR's founder and leader, Trim Bissell, passed away this year. CLR was deeply affected by his loss which tested our organizational capacity to endure as a major grassroots mobilizing force in the anti-sweatshop movement.

I'm pleased to say that we've put ourselves on solid footing organizationally - formed our first board of directors, incorporated as a non-profit organization, moved to new quarters and, in brief, gone through the process of formalizing CLR as an institution.

That we were able during this past year to engage in a multitude of campaigns, develop general education and popular mobilizing tools, present worker education seminars AND tend to our internal organization building indicates that we can do it.

As the corporate juggernauts consolidate their global power, aided and abetted by the Bush administration, and precisely just as we face the largest gap in economic inequality in eight decades.

Perhaps the most dynamic and rapidly successful campaign in 2002 was in support of the Samsonite/Lighthouse struggle. In the face of a powerful, unified international coalition led by frontline workers who were fired for union organizing, the company was forced to reinstate them.

CLR mobilized letter writing campaigns directed at Samsonite, engaged in direct dialogue with that corporation, and in general waged an effective pressure campaign. It forced Samsonite to retreat from their "not our problem" stance and pressure its Thai subcontractor, Lighthouse, to yield to the workers' demands. My last letter to you shared their words of thanks to CLR.

Another important struggle — of great significance within the maquila industry in El Salvador this year— involved the Tainan (GAP/Footlocker) workers. After workers won a difficult battle to unionize the factory, Tainan cut and ran to a lower wage country and blacklisted worker activists throughout the entire export-processing zone. A follow-up massive international campaign forced Tainan to return and reopen its factory this fall.

We mobilized well over 20 leafleting actions at Footlocker stores that, together with other partners' efforts, finally forced GAP and Footlocker to weigh in with its subcontractor. Last month, the Salvadorian union STIT (Textile Industry Workers Union), acknowledged and thanked CLR, UNITE, United Students against Sweatshops, the Solidarity Center and other partners for their role in this struggle. In addition, a leading Salvadorian organization, Centro de Estudios y Apoyo Laboral (CEAL) wrote that CLR was an important force and specifically noted, "CLR played a fundamental part in the day to day organizing leading up to the international day of action."

The Duro bag/Hallmark struggle, which CLR heavily mobilized around, is a bittersweet story of how empowered workers refuse to accept defeat, turning a setback into a new form of struggle. Duro maquila workers in Mexico had fought for an independent union to replace a corrupt one. After 10 months of nonstop demonstrations, elections were held. Workers voted in front of company management and armed security guards. They lost this fraudulent and undemocratic election.

But the empowered workers who remain fired refused to give up. They've now formed a DUROO Workers' Center to set up a workers cooperative and a worker education project. Carmen Julia, one of hundreds fired, is currently speaking in the US about their new struggle. Of her experience, she had this to say:

"I learned from the struggle…to fight for what I believe in and for justice….I learned from the struggle to value myself as a person and above all as a woman ... our struggle continues."

Our Taco Bell campaign represented a political and innovative breakthrough that is being used as a model for other organizations. Working with frontline workers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, we linked their struggles against "sweatshops in the field" to trade agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The "Boot the Bell" drive is similarly innovative.It's successfully forcing the removal or blocking the entry of Taco Bell in many large private and state universities. CLR is playing a major role in both.

Another breakthrough is our coordination and outreach work for the Sweatfree Communities, a network of over 40 communities. We hope work on local purchasing resolutions will generate much needed continuity for sweatshop issues in between specific the workplace campaigns that usually have finite timeframes.

Finally, we're also increasing our capacity to undertake general worker and popular education. During the past five months, I've made 6 different presentations, including PowerPoint presentations, three of them at the George Meany Labor Center here in Washington, D.C.

Yvette Herrera, Assistant to the Executive Vice President and former Education Director, Communication Workers of America wrote me the following after a recent presentation:

"I commend CLR for its excellent training program on the global economy and workers rights. You took a highly complicated issue and opened our eyes to global struggles—inspiring us to build worker unity across borders. This should be a mandatory worker education course!"

But this year we also saw a number of setbacks.

We lost our battle against fast track legislation which means that we are shut out of democratic debate on trade bills that are inimical to workers' rights.

The conditions in Noboa banana plantations in Ecuador are still appalling. CLR had mobilized a pressure campaign for Noboa to negotiate with the unions— without significant success. At the international counter-conference held during the Free Trade Area of the Americas trade ministerial in Ecuador last November, a panel on the banana industry and Noboa was presented to highlight this industry wide problem. This campaign continues as I describe below.

Columbia continues to be where the war on workers is deadliest. Coca-Cola union workers in Sinalatrainal, have lost leaders and members to torture, murder and abductions. Last month, we issued a call for international support for these workers, some of whom the AFL-CIO has brought to this country for a safe haven.

In general terms, the largest challenge we faced and continue to face is the political and economic environment — the rapid consolidation of corporate rule, the widening global war on workers and the globalization of poverty.

The year to come—fighting for worker rights in a dangerous world.

As we move into a permanent war against terrorism and the threat of immediate war against Iraq, I fear that all forms of activism and dissent will become more difficult. Progressive organizing to redress the structural causes of the global sweatshop economy and to support specific worker campaigns will likely face greater hurdles.

In the US as well, the government finds ways to empower corporations against workers: Taft-Hartley was invoked for the first time in 20 years and airline bankruptcies erode the gains of workers, forcing them to take pay cuts while preserving unconscionable profits for investors. The Homeland Security Act is another looming threat to the rights of government workers.

But it is precisely in these dangerous times that we must intensify our organizing and face down attempts to crush voices of dissent through the cynical manipulations of the public's security concerns. So, this coming year, we plan to enlarge our activist base to work on more campaigns, develop more educational and popular mobilizing tools, and undertake more worker speaking tours.

Enlarging our activist base includes working with the peace movement to be a voice of international worker solidarity. We hope to provide the peace movement with information that shows how the violation of workers rights generates poverty and heightens global instability.

Some worker solidarity campaigns from 2002 will carry over into 2003. These include:

• ALCOA — Alcoa workers have recently won some concessions but still can't gain recognition for their independent union. CLR will continue organizing worker speaking tours and pressure campaigns.
• NOBOA — Workers have launched a campaign to enlist the newly elected President , Lucio Gutierrez, a well-known progressive, to their struggle. CLR will support them in both the political and anti-corporate arenas.
• TACO BELL — CLR will work to support the hunger strike this February at Taco Bell headquarters and the Boot the Bell drive. We will continue to educate around how trade agreements like the FTAA fuel "sweatshops in the field."
• COCA COLA— CLR will continue to support the trade union's call in Columbia and Guatemala for international support for their struggles and against the routine assault of workers in Coca-Cola factories.
• FTAA—CLR will continue to coordinate the anti-corporate campaigns that show how trade agreements such as this encourage a race to the bottom and corporate violations of the rights of workers.

Finally, we hope to shape our website into a dynamic organizing tool. We have begun work on it so please log on for news on new campaigns, rapidly changing developments on current campaigns, and updates on past campaigns: www.campaignforlaborrights.org .

In 2003, there will be no shortage of urgent worker solidarity campaigns. Through contacts around the world, CLR will be able to monitor these and be poised to act whenever frontline workers call for international support.

Once again, many many thanks for your personal commitment to workers rights and struggles this past year. It is only with your activist and financial support that we can continue to build the movement to end sweatshop abuses.

Happy holidays.

In solidarity

Severina Rivera

Director