From: Steel City IWW IU Four Fifty (pgh_iww_iu450@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 20 2001 - 10:45:28 EST
Commentary on the NLC Bangladesh Report - WOW!
This is a great report! For the purposes of cutting an pasting blurbs for fliers, yea the web site will work fine, but passing it around and taking the time to read the whole thing is well worth your time. People who read the whole thing and look at the pictures will be moved by the issue. We got several copies and will be sending the NLC a donation after we pass the hat.
The NLCs presentation of the issue and the workers themselves looks rock solid. I don't have any critical commentary on the method - except, wow is that great! It is clear that the NLC really listened to workers and then were not shy about telling us what they heard. If anyone on the ISC or someone else experienced in visiting sweatshop workers has commentary on the method - please share it with the list. I've heard some pretty harsh critisisms of the NLCs method before that I did not understand. I still don't. Folks that are going to visit sweatshop workers next semester would be well advised to check out how the NLC works through the issues you will soon face.
As someone who is working to develope demands for campaigns on a new target, in this case Major League Baseball, I was disappointed with what the report did not say about the state of our movement. What the NLC brought back was a list of 4 Demands from Bangladeshi Workers - great demands. The gist of the NLC organizational statement is this, "Imagine if university students on college campuses across the country stood up in solidarity with these workers and launched a national campaign to keep their universities' production in Bangladesh." He goes on to talk about an expanding coalition of labor and human rights activists.
My question is, so where is the beef? Who is capable of launching new campaigns - and changing organizational strategy and targets appropriatly on an ongoing basis? It is not like the lists are not built or that there is not enough staff committment. It is not like there are not enough conferences. More people should speak to these expectations. I hope other people step up and speak out about what they think we should do to run a tighter ship and launch new campaigns more aggressively. Imagining won't cut the mustard.
People should order these reports and send the NLC a few bucks. We all need this quality of material for our educational work and the NLC does a better job of getting it than anyone else.
---------------------------------
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctionsfor all of your holiday gifts!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Oct 28 2002 - 02:52:31 EST