Workers Rights means Liberation not just for workers but for all groups! A sentiment shared by The Workers’ Rights Consortium, which states it is against all forms of discrimination; gender, race, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, political opinion, or social or ethnic origin.

Why women’s day??? well studies show that women are amongst the three most vulnerable groups in the work place along with ethnic minorities and foreign born. Not mention 90% of the workers in sweatshops are women.

And there are some outstanding abuses of women’s rights goings such as companies requiring pregnancy tests upon applying for employment, forcing workers to take contraceptives, paying women less, demoting or firing for maternity leave.

The worker rights consortium pushes this code of conduct regarding women’ rights

“Women’s Rights:

1. Women workers will receive equal remuneration, including benefits, equal treatment, equal evaluation of the quality of their work, and equal opportunity to fill all positions as male workers.

1. Pregnancy tests will not be a condition of employment, nor will they be demanded of employees.
2. Workers who take maternity leave will not face dismissal nor threat of dismissal, loss of seniority or deduction of wages, and will be able to return to their former employment at the same rate of pay and benefits.
3. Workers will not be forced or pressured to use contraception.
4. Workers will not be exposed to hazards, including glues and solvents, that may endanger their safety, including their reproductive health.
5. Licensees shall provide appropriate services and accommodation to women workers in connection with pregnancy.

The Workers Rights Consortium protects and aids women’s liberation movements. Take a look at the story of these five women who formed Bangladesh’s first non-politically-aligned, women-led, trade union and where imprisoned for it. http://www.workersrights.org/freports/Sunman.asp

Yes the Workers Rights Consortium is not perfect; it doesn’t give a direct voice to Women activists… however compared other models, which take funding from the companies causing the abuse, who don’t always act on complaints, it’s certainly a positive step. If you had been pressured into an abortion by your employer would you go an organisation you didn’t trust to be on your side? The Workers Rights Consortium Fosters close ties to independent labour organizations and its independence puts it in a position to win the trust of all groups in a community.

Birmingham People and Planet has teamed up with Women’s Rights activists on campus to fight for equal rights in the supply chain, on March the 8^th international Women’s day. We delivered our massive petition, which was symbolically written on T-shirts, to the Vice chancellor to protect women and women’s rights in our supply chain.

Only this rather bad photo unfortunately….

There is no doubt that power is held in the hands of the few rather than the many; it is also beyond doubt that this power is largely held by large corporations fuelling their wealth and power at the expense of those poorer. Yet as a lowly campaigner who wishes to seek international justice, there can either seem to be no way in which to pull these companies into ethical rein, or there can be too many. Since I seem to have stumbled across the latter, I thought I might make a little comparison between those that I can think of:

1. Fairtrade  (Bottom-Up)
2. Worker Rights Consortium (Top-Down)
3. The Forest Trust (Cleaning the System)
4. RBS and Ditch Dirty Development  (Legal & Financial Pressure)

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Getting your University signed up to the Workers’ Rights Consortium is a issue that can unite students across campus, from all backgrounds and all groups, as Deborah Bazeley a second year Political Science student, women’s rights activist and women’s association member said at the protest “I have never seen such a diverse range of people come together on one issue in a fight against discrimination”, The Workers’ Rights Consortium is not just about ending sweatshops and child labour  it protects against all forms of discrimination against workers; gender, race, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, nationality, political opinion, or social or ethnic origin and encourages and protects via solidarity, liberation movements.

For example the workers’ rights consortium recently successfully intervened on behalf of 5 women from Bangladesh ,who formed the countries first women led trade union, when they were fired for doing so.

In the weeks preceding the action people and planet members toured around all groups on campus building up momentum, there is no substitute for getting out there and talking, FB events only do so much!

Letters to Vice chancellor where written by all the liberation groups; the women’s association, disabled students association, LGBTQ association, Black and ethnic minorities association, letters were written by human rights groups like the UNA, by religious groups like the Jewish society and Islamic society and by sports groups who are the major consumers of garments on campus.

Tamour Khan who is doing engineering masters at the University of Birmingham and a committee member of Birmingham university Islamic society said “that students are increasingly focusing their efforts in campaigning for a just human rights solution to some of the most destitute and depressing circumstances”.

Getting about, talking to groups, winning them over, letting them win over their membership and then getting them to actively deal with the issue by getting them to write a letter to the university really engages them and their membership. Which transfers to base of support on campus that can is worth 1000 people on a facebook group, it’s an odd thing to have heard students you have never met talking about the protest and getting their friends to support the workers’ rights consortium, but after all  “the strength of a movement is its long tail“.

On Tuesday the 2nd of march representatives from 10 student groups went and delivered letters, as a delegation to the vice chancellor (pictures hopefully up soon), on Wednesday march 3rd a diverse group of students railed naked on campus in support of the Workers’ Rights Consortium, in the evening on march 3rd the guilds president in a meeting with the vice chancellor expressed the students unions support and urged him to sign the university up and delivered him pictures of the naked action.

Already more action is planed; to keep up momentum for campaign, women’s rights activists on campus are preparing a petition of T-shirts to hand him on international women’s day and, after all women make up 90% of sweatshop labour, other groups have more in the pipeline.

keep checkin back, I’m collecting e- copies of the letters written by the student groups to post up on buy right resource page, try and get your groups to write similar letters.

Meanwhile check out the photos of the naked army, who braved the wintery march cold for workers rights.

check out the guys on the right, behind our massive “naked” petition which was signed by students from all the different groups taking part.

Between the 1st & 7th March students from across the UK and US are taking action against sweatshops as part of the International Week of Student Action Against Sweatshops.

Students at University College London are planning to host a Global Supply Chain exhibition to lay bare the exploitation within the supply chains of two different product categories. (more…)

Last Sunday (the 31st)9pm GMT, 4pm Washington DC and 1pm in LA.  25 Students from all over North America and from the United Kingdom, came together to plan an international day of action to raise awareness and pressure more universities into signing up to the WRC.

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It’s a positive moment when you ask a school chapel full of students to raise their hand if they know what the Fairtrade organization does, and the response is a jungle of arms reaching into the air. Even more positive when you consider that the students present are the youngest in the school - if every child in years seven and eight knows about the work of Fairtrade, surely theirs will be a generation more roundly educated in the responsibilities of young people in a world which needs responsible and accountable activists. (more…)

Walking through the international development department in Oxford is a rather strange affair. It’s bizarre to think that so many of these people would eventually become some organiser or officer for a big development NGO/government/corporation. It’s even stranger when you think that so many of them come from a strong background in economics and see the world as homogenous mathematical models. I guess that’s my social anthropological bias, where everything economic is so much more complex and subjective… (more…)

Students for Fair Trade at Fordham University reconvened after a month long of virtual communication last Tuesday, January 19th at 9:30 p.m. A flurry of New Year greetings and hugs were exchanged as Kate (our professor) recounted her trip to Kenya. The real surprise came moments later when she announced that we were all invited to visit Kenya over Spring Break to meet our partners in trade. (more…)

Unfortunately I couldn’t travel to Copenhagen for the UN COP 15 climate summit. So a long with other PANDAs (the People & Planet Associated Network for Direct Action) and some climate campers who were all equally outraged by the unfolding travesty across the North Sea. I decided that I had to do something to mark my anguish. (more…)

Tags: accord, comfort, COP15, Copenhagen, environment, greed, Kiribati, Politics, small island nations, treaty, UNFCCC
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