Haiti: AFL-CIO and the Batay Ouvriye (tags)
For many activists, academics, and labor historians in the 1980’s the AFL-CIO became referred to as the AFL-CIA. Founded in 1961 the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) was the AFL-CIO’s foreign organizing wing for Latin America and the Caribbean. Along with its counterparts in Africa, Asia, and Europe, AIFLD was used to undermine leftist trade movements, support dictators such as the Duvalier’s and back military coups in Chile and Brazil.
Report on the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation's (SCALE) USC Action (tags)
Twelve USC students occupied the university President's office for over five hours this afternoon, demanding that USC end its ties to sweatshops. After a lengthy negotiation, the students, who were willing to face arrest, emerged with an a major concession from the adminstration: The university, which heretofore had stonewalled the student-body on the issue of sweatshops, would make a decision by May 9th on the demonstrators primary demand -- whether USC would join the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), which is widely recognized as "the only effective labor monitoring organization that fights sweatshop conditions globally."
USC Students Occupy President's Office: Demand End to Sweatshop Labor (tags)
Twelve USC students occupied the office of University President Dr. Steven Sample for over five hours today, demanding that the school join the Workers Rights Consortium to insure that the school apparel is not produced by sweatshop labor.