July 01, 2008
Tax Dollars Fund Sweatshops, New Study Says
State and local governments pledge to end practice as momentum builds for 'sweatfree' purchasing
U.S. states, cities, and counties are inadvertently using millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase goods from companies engaged in serious human rights and labor violations, according to a first-of-its-kind report released today by SweatFree Communities. The study, Subsidizing Sweatshops: How Our Tax Dollars Fund the Race to the Bottom, and What Cities and States Can Do, includes in-depth case studies of 12 factories in nine countries that produce public employee uniforms for nine major uniform brands.
Elected officials, religious leaders, human rights groups, students and labor unions today participated in at least eight rallies, press conferences or other events around the country. "We are calling on public entities to join the Sweatfree Consortium, a collaborative effort of states, local governments, labor rights experts, and human rights advocates to end tax dollar support for sweatshops," said Bjorn Claeson, Executive Director of SweatFree Communities and an author of the report. "We can use our collective purchasing power to improve working conditions instead of furthering the race to the bottom."
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Posted by cat at 06:09 PM
June 30, 2008
Shetland Sheep & SPAM
Hello from Scotland. This was taken in the last days on Shetland Island, sheep are everywhere! I'm now writing from Fair Isle Bird Observatory visiting for my research on the isle's infamous knitting technique. (More on this soon.) I'm also posting because I got an email from someone on my mailinglist who got SPAMed by a hack of my MAILINGLIST. If anyone else had this problem please mail me @ the query address. Another disturbing tech related issue was I got a google alert for my other site Stitch for Senate that mentioned Russell Feingold which led to a virus. Luckily it was stopped in time.
Posted by cat at 01:38 PM
