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Sweatshop Free Action Guide ACTION GUIDE SF Action Guide final version.indd 1 8/16/2019 12:23:32 PM People & Planet are no longer running this campaign. We will continue to make this resource available for any groups who wish to undertake similar campaigns, but we are unable to offer further support at this time. WHAT IS THIS GUIDE FOR? This guide has been produced by People campaign has put millions of pounds back CONTENTS & Planet to give you the knowledge into the pockets of workers and improved and skills you need to run an effective working conditions in factories across the Sweatshop Free campaign at your globe. university. You can be part of this campaign and part 3 – WHAT IS THIS GUIDE FOR? People & Planet is the largest student of the international movement for workers 4 – ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY ABUSES activist network in the UK campaigning rights and supply chain justice. By starting on social and climate justice. Since or joining a Sweatshop Free campaign, 5 – FROM FACTORIES TO MINES 2008, students in the People & Planet you can stand in solidarity with workers in 6 – WHY RUN SWEATSHOP FREE? network have been campaigning against exploitative conditions from factories to sweatshop labour, taking more and more mines, and push your university to commit 7 – SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSPARENCY creative actions as the years have gone to stamp out sweatshops. 8 - SAMSUNG WORKERS FIGHT BACK by. During this time, the Sweatshop Free 10 – UNION BUSTING AT SAMSUNG 11 – SOLIDARITY 14 – ELECTRONICS WATCH 21 – BUILD A TEAM TO CAMPAIGN FOR WORKERS RIGHTS 22 – YOUR UNIVERSITY 23 – RAISING AWARENESS 24 – CAMPAIGN TO GET YOUR UNI TO JOIN ELECTRONICS WATCH 26 – ESCALATING YOUR CAMPAIGN 27 – CAMPAIGN VICTORY! 28 – CAMPAIGN TIMELINE 29 – JARGON BUSTER 30 - RESOURCES 31 - FUNDRAISING 2 3 SF Action Guide final version.indd 2-3 8/16/2019 12:23:32 PM ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY ABUSES FROM FACTORIES TO MINES Computers made in sweatshops end regulations. Internationally, across a Workers’ rights aren’t only ignored and of Congo have been accused of using up in our stores, schools, colleges, variety of industries, modern slavery abused in the factories that manufacture child labour and being controlled by universities, communities, workplaces generates estimated profits of $150 billion components or assemble computers. militias. Copper and gold mines in and homes. annually, directly profiting the wealthiest. Mongolia have seen substantial water The minerals that are used inside usage that could lead to water shortages Workers that made them likely spent Workers have no choice but to endure electronics – from mobile phones to to nearby communities. Striking platinum excessively long hours in dangerous exhausting working hours and workplace laptops – are sourced from large scale miners in South Africa were shot at by factories. Some are at risk of developing intimidation in order to make barely mines across the globe. Many of these their national Union and by police in 2012. cancer from toxic chemical exposure, enough to survive. Factory suicides mines cause extensive environmental which also pollutes the environment. have hit headlines across the globe but damage, as well as drive labour rights Many of these minerals end up in the Many sweatshop workers experience conditions are yet to improve to the extent abuses for miners. electronic devices we use everyday, violence and are at risk of modern slavery. needed to address this issue. and these violations of labour rights and Cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic environmental protection are common. Despite working in repressive conditions, Throughout the Global South, poverty many workers in the electronics industry and climate change is driving people have organised collectively for better from their villages to work in sweatshops. Sweatshop Free! treatment and conditions. Let’s stand with These sweatshops are found in free-trade People & Planet’s Sweatshop Free campaign is part of a global movement of people workers who are struggling for fair pay zones in cities where factory owners coming together to defend, extend and win rights for workers in the electronics and conditions! are usually exempt from protecting industry. In tackling social and environmental injustice in university supply chains, most workers’ rights, tax and safety the campaign brings together students and workers in a coalition capable of challenging the root causes of unacceptable working conditions and operating WORKER RIGHTS ABUSES IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL practices. FACTORIES ABUSES IN MINES • Excessively long working hours. • Child labour • Low pay • Forced labour • Workplace abuse and humiliation. • Environmental pollution - of air, • Working with dangerous materials water and soil in unsafe conditions. • Forced evictions of communities • Restrictions on the right to form or near mines organise Trade Unions • Control by armed gangs or militias • Highly Casualised work • Workplace violence and • Forced overtime intimidation • Exploitation of migrants • Limited access to Trades’ Unions. 4 5 SF Action Guide final version.indd 4-5 8/16/2019 12:23:33 PM WHY RUN SWEATSHOP FREE? SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSPARENCY WORKERS RIGHTS: a feminist issue: A COMPLEX SYSTEM Capitalism exploits us all, and it is up Workers, mostly young women, are Electronics supply chains are complicated industry, we need to see what’s going on to us all to fight back. By standing in paid poverty wages, too low to survive webs. Major brands such as Dell, Apple inside electronics supply chains. Only solidarity with workers in the electronics on, while the richest accumulate or HP do not directly employ most of through transparency can we then put wealth at the expense of the poorest. industry, supporting their rights to the workers who make their goods. pressure on brands that are sourcing Women face discrimination as well as unionise, and using our privileged Instead subcontracted companies, often from sweatshop factories and exploitative exploitation. They work double days, position as students to hold wealthy in the Global South, manufacture the mines, as well as powerful manufacturing earning on average 25% less than men universities accountable, we reognise components and put together the final companies like Foxconn or mining for the same work. At home, they care products that end up in our hands and on corporations like BHP Billiton. While it that all our struggles are linked. for their family and manage household our desks. Brands often claim they have would be impossible for individuals to chores. little or no responsibility for the working achieve this, our universities are large Employers both actively discriminate Climate justice: conditions in factories, where their enough to effect this kind of change. They against women who are of childbearing For the rapid decarbonisation to happen, products are made or the mines where have massive budgets for buying ICT age by forcing them to provide the minerals are sourced from, but this is equipment and spend millions of pounds our society will become increasingly urine samples as a condition of their not true. The distance between factories every single year on computers and other electrified. For a Just Transition to be employment, as well as exploiting and mines, brands and consumers makes electronics. They can use their leverage possible, one that is fair for all workers, female workers as factories consider it difficult to find out the exact situation to change the industry. conditions in tech factories need to them to be more “obedient” and less- workers face. To make changes in the drastically improve. In this way, the likely to join or form a union. Sweatshop Free campaign is an essential Women are less likely to report part of climate justice. harassment in the workplace for fear of losing their livelihood. Human rights: migrant solidarity: The most basic protections that we all Many of the workers that staff tech should share are often violated by the factories are highly casualised electronics industry. From mines to migrants. Factories have been found to factories workers are denied human withhold passports and other essential rights such as freedom from forced documents from migrants in order labour and the freedom of association. to leverage forced labour. By taking Child labour has been uncovered in the concrete steps to address these issues, electronics supply chain, and these the Sweatshop Free campaign also injustices demand urgent action. stands in solidarity with migrants and against borders. 6 7 SF Action Guide final version.indd 6-7 8/16/2019 12:23:34 PM SAMSUNG WORKERS FIGHT BACK RESISTANCE “I CAN'T TELL YOU WHO I AM, In October 2015, workers in South Korea began a sit-in at Samsung’s exhibition centre in Seoul after the company walked out of negotiations with workers who WHERE I LIVE, OR WHAT I LOOK became ill after working in dangerous conditions. The group are organised under SHARPS – Supporters for Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry, and were involved in a long running campaign for justice for workers. LIKE. IF SAMSUNG FOUND OUT, I Many of the workers have contracted cancer as a result of their exposure to toxic chemicals in their work. COULD LOSE MY JOB. Reports show that up to 76 workers have lost their lives. Samsung are notorious for their failure to adequately compensate victims. In 2016, Al Jazeera reported that the company has actively sought to cover up information that would help workers and their families get the justice they deserve. The sit-in lasted almost three years THE FUTURE OF MY FAMILY – THE and only ended in July 2018, after SHARPS finally won an agreement for negotiation from Samsung. This is a huge victory for workers and shows the value of collective LIVELIHOOD OF MY WIFE, SON, action! AND DAUGHTER – WOULD BE AT RISK. BUT HERE'S WHAT I CAN SAY: I'M A SECRET TRADE UNION ORGANIZER.” ANONYMOUS SAMSUNG WORKER 8 9 SF Action Guide final version.indd 8-9 8/16/2019 12:23:34 PM SAMSUNG WORKERS FIGHT BACK SOLIDARITY UNION BUSTING AT SAMSUNG WHAT IS SOLIDARITY? Freedom of association, or more can support workers who could face Solidarity cannot exist only in theory, it image of the brands involved, without fear specifically, the right of workers to join reprisals.
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