[newera_usas] 6/6 New Era call notes

New Era Conference Call Notes, Thursday June 6th.

On the call: 

michelle (iww, pittsburgh), trina (wmu), tom (cmu), ed (afl-cio), dan (u of buffalo), caitlin (lsu), maria (coalition for economic justice, buffalo), nicole (u of chicago), jason (cwa), jackie (university of michigan)

Negotiation update:
-a tentative agreement has been reached between the local and new era, with the agreement to be distributed to cwa local 14177 and up for a ratification vote on june 21st
-Major changes that have taken place in the negotiations:  1) conflicts between management and union prior was insistence on new productivity standards, which were based on an engineering study at the alabama plant (not at derby plant), company insisted that this be accepted, a month ago company backed off its position, w/ 
an independent study mutually agreed upon, and appropriate standard would be established.  leadership feels this will have a big impact on how wages will be.
2) movements from company position on base wage rate, contributing more to health care coverage.
3)concessionary measures prior, but backed off (ie. vacation)
-bargaining committee thought tremendous victory and turnaround, recommended unamiously

maria-good:  will go down in labor history as one of best possible campaigns of showing what different connections can do to bring about real tangeble improvements.  also good that tie was made to bangladesh.  efforts to be improved upon are overall timeline.  suggested at usas conference that all schools that did a campaign on their campus do an evaluation form, a “lessons” learned

On CWA and the conference:
-CWA couldn’t come out alongside w/ usas on a press release, and had to go w/ union and new era; usas has released a press release
-cwa intended to let usas ‘s role be known at the cwa convention (17-19th, printing sector on thursday and friday also)
-good place to boost usas’s image
-suggestion of a usas delegation to the convention; consensus--yes
-in las vegas, people would be flying; can talk to cwa to see how many people they will pay for (dan will do so); plane tickets would be expensive
-if people are interested, email dan (xharryx@juno.com)

CWA party:
-local party in derby to be held if ratification occurs 21st (friday), would be following weekend, working on location, probably outdoor on a saturday, gonna be BIG, will be media

New Era Campaign History, USAS Perspective:
(trina)-started last april, slap called usas and said cwa workers are having problems, union busting, people are making collegiate apparel
-sent a delegation of 7 students, published report "Money Made, Workers Forgotten"
-was a slow start, had a press conference at last year's national conference in chicago, but wasn’t main focus
-strike started last july
-in fall, people started dropping contracts, what the workers asked us to do (10-12 total)
-wrc investigation took place in november
(dan) had decided halfway through the campaign to make the bangladesh connection; what do we do now?  is it clear that they use bangladesh?  (ed) they are still using production in china.  (michelle)  investigated caps in pirates stadium and found bangladesh hats, it do; (jason), do still have pro sports limited contact, different kinds such as kids styles; are in airport stores, sports stores; (ed) was a concerted effort to expand to other major buyers, such as major league baseball, footocker, titlist (owned by fortune brands); had an intensive pressure campaign at fla and board of directors, which made it possible for them to accept into their monitoring program; (caitlin) found caps in a sears, made in the dominican republic, was a super bowl cap, university had complaint to clc, new era claimed the stock caps were made in dominican republic 3 years ago; (ed) afl did orders of 2001; caitlin will send hats to wrc for investigation

Go-around of Postive Aspects of the Campaign:
(tom)-relationships established and continued w/ workers at cwa local 14177, and the move from boycott into temporarily suspending contracts
(trina)-were able to squirm fla a lot
(ed)-working closely w/ usas on this
(caitlin)-persistance, less sexy of an issue, was a lot harder to educate about
(dan)-working w/ usas and local and other allies, such as the afl-cio, and community members
(jason)-move to push suspended contracts which the local understood; was an effective move to target the fla; strengthening of student labor ties, overseas dynamic and w/ what’s going  on w/ labor today

Aspects of the Campaign to be Improved Upon:
(tom)-a usas concentration on more media specificly coming from our organization
(caitlin)-1) students could have targeted major league baseball earlier, 2) could have established a speaking tour
(ed)-conference calls can be very useful, in building on the pace of activity, but are expensive
(trina)-cwa international was mainly using don’t buy new era tactic, so was a lot of stickers and other stuff; cwa had never worked w/ student

(jason)-1) important internally is people dedicated to do different things, too many people needing to do too many different things, 2) difficulties in finding people for the speaking tour, $, a lot had been laid off in feb.2001 and they couldn’t be available
(dan)-wasn’t enough structure on the national campaign, turned out to be three or four people off and on; was easy for one of us to back off at times, and would lead to slow downs

Where to go From Here:
-contracts being renewed (trina), is going to be a call w/ maria and scott, from what administrators are saying
-giving them workers from the local space in the agenda at the summer conference, possible speaking tour (tom will look into)
-will at least be one workshop (trina), will be having panels, be good to have workers on the panels; good to have a cwa table
(ed) take our movement on campuses, and into off campuses so they can have some accountability of their use of sweatshop products; could be coordination w/ usas and labor to create sweat-free communities, to take on a sort of workplace code and to take account recommendations from the wrc; possibility with the major league baseball campaign; they let us know that they have no standards for their licensees
(jackie) workers and student solidarity, example of showing corporate responsibility, good to use as a case study
(trina) good to have every org. giving their take, for campaigns to reach a number of constitutencies
(dan) at least do something about the bangladesh issue, if drop it we would just be dropping the issue, have to say why we are/aren’t doing it
(caitlin) has anyone approached nlc?
(trina) could do a follow up, some staff members are gone
(jackie) can still make a point of disclosure
(dan) can brainstorm about it at the conference; that usas and cwa can continue their relationship
(jason) believe that cwa has a decent amount to learn from usas; ie. continuation of corporate campaign; not wanting ties to go away, need to forge together