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A Conference to Promote Justice in Factories and Fields
Columbia Law School, New York City | April 27-29, 2007
Organized by SweatFree Communities & the Alliance for Fair Food
Building off the success of SweatFree Communities' past three annual conferences and the growing power of the Alliance for Fair Food, SweatFree Communities and the Alliance for Fair Food have teamed up to hold a joint conference to advance worker justice in factories and fields.
The conference will provide information and skills to support communities, groups, and individuals in creating more socially responsible economic models that ensure the human rights of workers. Through strategies such as worker organizing, selective government procurement, corporate pressure, consumer education, and solidarity relationships, it is possible to contribute toward a more just economy at local and national levels, impacting not only workers in this country but also communities and workers around the world.
The human rights crisis in Florida’s fields is the same as the crisis in garment sweatshops worldwide: grueling, dangerous work with no right to overtime pay, no health insurance, no sick leave, no paid vacation or pension, and no right to organize in order to improve these conditions.
It does not have to be this way either in the fields or in the factories.
The Alliance for Fair Food works in partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers which recently won a landmark agreement with Taco Bell, establishing the following fair labor principles: retail food giants are responsible for working with farm workers to end the farm worker poverty their purchasing practices have created; food supply chains must be transparent; and farm workers must lead the struggle for the protection of their own rights through their own organization.
Working with partners in dozens of U.S. communities, SweatFree Communities similarly links the purchasing practices of governmental institutions and large apparel brands with the welfare of sweatshop workers. Campaign partners have won sweatfree government procurement policies with strong enforcement measures, including independent investigations of human rights abuses at supplier factories and citizen oversight of policy implementation. In all, over 170 school districts, cities, counties, and states in the United States have adopted sweatfree procurement policies.
Please join us for this important event! Email conference (at) sweatfree.org or call 413-586-0974 to find out more or to register. Visit www.sweatfree.org/conference for online registration and updates.
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