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Building SweatFree Communities

SweatFree Communities promotes the collective bargaining power of both workers in sweatshops and communities of consumers. We believe that there is power in numbers, and that when we are united we can do more than any one of us can alone.

Successful sweatfree purchasing campaigns depend on community organizing that brings people together and builds power for people on a local level to make decisions about how their taxes and consumer money should be spent.

Most clothing and footwear sold in this country are made under highly abusive conditions - in factories that can only be described as "sweatshops." Workers in these factories earn poverty wages for long hours of work while being denied the right to freely form or join unions. Apparel workers in the U.S. also face sweatshop conditions, as do workers in an increasing number of manufacturing and service industries and farm fields. In recent years, students, faith-based communities, trade unionists and others have worked to clean up these industries, often partnering with the sweatshop workers themselves. As part of this effort, anti-sweatshop groups have begun working to persuade local retailers, religious congregations, cities, counties, states and school districts to adopt sweatfree purchasing policies - an approach similar to United Students Against Sweatshops' work on college campuses.

A number of local and national anti-sweatshop organizations have established a new national network - SweatFree Communities - to promote local sweatfree purchasing campaigns and to link them with efforts against local and global sweatshops. SweatFree Communities buy sweatfree and are sweatfree.

SweatFree Communities broadens the anti-sweatshop movement. It allows local activists to control the shape and timing of their own organizing efforts, which is important for building and maintaining local anti-sweatshop activism. As a local issue, a campaign offers possibilities for greater press coverage and public education than most leafleting-at-the-mall type actions. And because most localities include multiple entities that purchase apparel goods - for example, a city, its suburbs, its county, the school district(s), the state - and may house many places where workers endure sweatshop conditions, one successful campaign can provide momentum for another.

SweatFree Communities is still in its early stages. Currently staffing is provided by Larry Weiss, Resource Center of the Americas, and Bjorn Claeson, Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign, although we expect to establish our own office early in 2003. Our primary functions are to serve as a point of communication and information among groups working on local-focused sweatfree initiatives, and to assist groups interested in starting such campaigns in their local areas. To get further information or to join the network, contact Larry Weiss [[email protected] 612-276-0788 x 19] Or contact Bjorn Claeson [[email protected] 207-947-4203].

Minneapolis School Board Goes Sweat Free! (Dec 2, 2002)