Taking Action: Youth Responses to Child Labor

The School for International Training - Brattleboro VT - 9 November 2001


The conference educated students about the injustices of child labor and stimulated positive action to reduce abuse to children worldwide. The conference brought together over 250 youth from Vermont and the region to learn about the global problem of oppressive child labor and to engage in dialogue about potential youth responses.

Brattleboro Reformer article: Sweatshop Workers Describe Conditions
National Labor Committee Update: Bangladeshi Worker Tour Update

Charles Kernaghan listens as Bangleshi workers speak about conditions in their worplaces . . . . . . to over 250 students who were eager to
learn about the issues.

The panel fielded questions and comments . . . . . . from audience members who wanted to know how they can help aleviate oppression.

Featured Speaker: Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders
Keynote Presenters: Bangladeshi Garment Factory Workers and Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee - see Message Update below.

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Conference Schedule
9 November 2000

10:00 - Registration

10:30 -Speakers
· Welcome: BUHS CLEA Chapter Co-Chairs Colin Robinson and Katie Panella
· Inspirational: Congressman Bernie Sanders
· Keynote: Bangladeshi Garment Factory Workers and Charles Kernaghan
  of the National Labor Committee

12:00 - Lunch - free with registration

12:15 - Information and Action Sessions -- Presented by BUHS CLEA Members
-- On understanding child labor, becoming active, learning about current CLEA education
and action projects, and forming a local CLEA chapter in your school

1:30 - Closing Ceremony
-- Social Justice Music and Social Action

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Did you know?

Gains have been made but much remains to be done. This conference aims to educate students and to stimulate positive action to reduce abuse to children worldwide.

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Brattleboro Reformer article

Sweatshop Workers Describe Conditions

by Tom Marshall
Reformer Staff
10 November 2001

BRATTLEBORO -- "The factory is very hot and very crowded, with poor tap water and chairs with no backs," the worker said. "We suffer from vomiting and nausea." Her name was Janu Akther, and she had worked in a garment factory in hr native Bangladesh since the age of 10 -- more than half of her 22-year life.

Visiting the School for International Training on Friday to speak at the third annual Child Labor Education and Action conference, Akther described the life of a tyical sweatshop worker in the global economy. That working life runs 19 hours a day, seven days a week. "When workers reach the age of 30 or 35 they are kicked out" -- no longer os use to the owners, she said. "Without any porper income. Nothing."

Co-worker Sk. Nazma said efforts to challenge such treatment in Bangladesh have genereally been useless. "The owners are so powerful that workers can't oppose them without being fined and blacklisted," she said. "The workers can't raise their voices in Bangladesh."

That situation has only gotten worse since th Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a slowing world economy, Nazma added. "After the twin towers of Sept. 11, many garment factories have shut down and workers are on the roadside facing starvation."

CLEA, a three-year-old collaboration between Brattleboro Union High School and SIT, hopes to change that. Since 1999, the student group has been canvassing the state, persuading high school groups to challenge working conditions on the other side of the globe. The education and curriculum-writing effort is funded with grants from the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Labor, in collaboration with the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

As the Bangladeshi workers spoke Friday, around 300 teenagers from 17 schools listened intently. The South Asian accents seemed difficult for some, but the message came across clearly. "It's changing because you," Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the Natioal Labor Committee, told the students. "It's changing because other groups are following your lead."

Kernaghan's group has led the charge against U.S. corporations, which it says take advantage of lax labor laws to employ workers under conditions that are illegal in America. And if any missed the point, they needed look no further than a table full of name-brand professional sports hats -- the products of a sweatshop.

"In many instances the sneakers you are wearing come from China," said Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-VT. "These people, mostly women, make 20 cents an hur for the sneakers you buy for $50 or $75 or more." Sanders didn't sugarcoat the dilemma facing policymakers, whose American constitutents have lost the textile jobs now at issue in countires like China and Bangladesh. Constructing a new global economy in which workers on both sides of the world can prosper, he said, is the task facing the next generation. "I think it is important for you to ask, what is on the other side? Who made the product?" Sanders said. "Now you have heard their story."

Senior Colin Robinson tried to pass that message of empowerment on to his peers. "It's truly inspiring to see all of you here," he said. "It is you who are going to inspire the government."

But in the end, the most powerful message may have been the implicit one between a roomful of earnest students and a panel of Bangladeshi garment workers. "Bangladesh is a Muslim country," Kernaghan reminded the group, alluding to the war in Afghanistan. "They were afraid the American people would beat them and swear and yell. "We told them it wouldn't be like that," he added. "They never knew the people of the United States cared about them."

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National Labor Committee
Bangladeshi Worker Tour Update

CLEA/Child Labor Education and Action High School Anti-sweatshop Conference School for International Training, Brattleboro, VT, November 9, 2001

CLEA, composed of student chapters at 26 high schools and primary schools across the state of Vermont, brought together 250 students for an all-day conference.  Vermont's high school coalition is now the strongest in the country, and it is growing.

The Bangladeshi workers addressed the students for an hour and a half.  There were lively exchanges and questions.  There were tears in some students' eyes.  Congressman Bernie Sanders spoke, praising the courage of the Bangladeshi workers, committing himself to ongoing solidarity with them and thanking the high school students for their tremendous work.

Mr. Tim Kipp—a teacher at Brattleboro Union High School and local activist legend—along with School for International Training professor John Ungerleider, who is deeply committed to fostering the involvement of young people in the struggle for international labor rights, are ready—with Congressman Sanders' help—to start speaking with high school activists and their supporters in other states to build the high school anti-sweatshop movement into a national effort.  Congressman Sanders and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur have already discussed using CLEA as a model for initiating similar work in Ohio.

It was a great meeting!  And these high school students are ready to go on to universities, where they will immediately pick up with USAS.

Now we are off to Bangor, Maine, then Boston, Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, before returning to New York.

National Labor Committee, 275 7th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212/242-3002, Fax: 212/242-3821, Email: nlc@nlcnet.org, Website: www.nlcnet.org

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A Message from the National Labor Committee
 Regarding Worker and Human Rights

Bangladeshi garment factory workers . . . . . . in their work environment.

Bangladesh Campaign Update - The National Labor Committee has kicked off its fall campaign to work in solidarity with workers from Bangladesh as they try and protect their rights and end sweatshop abuses.  In the coming weeks, we'll be letting you know what you can do to support those workers.
Here's how you can get involved right now - Attend a speaking engagements of the multi-city tour of two garment workers, a workers' rights representative, and a human-rights activist from Bangladesh as well as National Labor Committee Executive Director Charles Kernaghan from October 24th  to November 15th.  View itinerary here: http://www.nlcnet.org/rtk/tour_01.htm.
Read the new October 2001 National Labor Committee report "Bangladesh Ending the Race To the Bottom": http://www.nlcnet.org/bangladesh/1001/index.htm.
Order and view the new National Labor Committee video "Bangladesh An Appeal for Solidarity." by calling the NLC office at (212) 242-3002 or e-mailing address below.  See the conditions in Bangladesh on this valuable documentary produced by Crowing Rooster Arts.

The NLC documents widespread abuses among factories producing apparel for universities, including the Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and major licensees like Nike.

National Labor Committee, 275 7th Avenue, 15th Floor New York, NY  10001
Tel: 212/242-3002 - Fax: 212/242-3821 - Email: nlc@nlcnet.org - Website: www.nlcnet.org

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