We Can Fight, We Can Win (Page 2)

Consumer Power

One consumer strategy has been to reward corporations employing "good" business practices by allowing such firms to identify their products with a label. The Rugmark campaign, for example, awards a special label to firms that insure that their employees are adults paid at least the local minimum wage. Manufacturers that join Rugmark consent to surprise visits by Rugmark inspectors and local human rights and child advocacy groups. Rugmark also works with US and European importers to provide funding for the education of former child workers in the rug industry. In the United States the campaign is coordinated by the Rugmark Foundation, housed at the International Labor Rights Fund.

Student Power

On more than seventy-five campuses, students have been negotiating with their schools to ban the purchase of products bearing the school logo from factories that violate labor rights. At a number of these universities, students have built support for such a ban by staging fashion shows featuring clothes made in sweatshops. As the models parade down the runway, an announcer describes the conditions under which the clothes were made. The first school to adopt such a code was Duke University, which now forbids suppliers from using child labor and requires them to maintain a safe workplace, pay at least minimum wage, recognize the right to form a union and allow independent plant monitoring. Duke students are continuing to press for an expansion of the code to require suppliers to pay a living wage.

People Power

In 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of the World Bank and IMF, citizens' groups from all over the world organized a "Fifty Years Is Enough" Campaign. In the United States, it has involved more than 200 environmental, development, faith-based, labor and policy organizations. Congress responded to their demands by restricting funding for the agencies until they improved disclosure, environment and resettlement policies, and by requiring that the United States use its voting power in the World Bank to promote internationally recognized workers' rights.

Another mass movement is Jubilee 2000, a coalition of religious and secular groups that has demanded cancellation of much of the debt owed by the poorest countries. Jubilee draws its inspiration from the biblical book of Leviticus, which describes a Year of Jubilee every fifty years in which social inequalities are rectified, slaves are freed, land is returned to original owners and debts are canceled. Jubilee 2000 coalitions exist in dozens of countries.

Artist Power

In Mexico, a superhero named "Superbarrio" fights against injustice on behalf of the poor. Wearing red tights, gold wrestling trunks and a flowing gold cape, Superbarrio is a frequent star of political demonstrations. Under NAFTA, Superbarrio's heroics have taken him on many crusades across the border. Once he swept into Los Angeles to take water samples for toxic testing in Mexican labs (the local environmental group did not trust the results they were getting from the US government). Cartoonists have lent their artistic skills to support educational efforts. A booklet by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras illustrates common workplace scenarios to help Mexican workers learn about their labor rights so they can more effectively defend themselves against abuses by the primarily US-owned corporations operating on the border.

Political theater has also proved an effective way of educating and mobilizing people around globalization issues. For example, Nepali villagers gather around boomboxes in tea shops to listen to an audiocassette of a play about hydroelectric power, featuring one of Nepal's most famous comedians.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.