[van-announce] SWEATSHOP SURVIVOR SPEAKS OUT

[megan]

----- Forwarded message from Gordon Flett <gflett1 at shaw.ca> -----

Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:15:13 -0800
From: Gordon Flett <gflett1 at shaw.ca>
Subject: SWEATSHOP SURVIVOR SPEAKS OUT
To: Gordon Flett <gflett1 at shaw.ca>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en]C-AtHome0404  (Win95; U)

SWEATSHOP SURVIVOR SPEAKS OUT

Join Carmen Julia Silva, fired for her union organizing efforts at the
Duro Bag factory in Rio Bravo, Mexico in a wide ranging conversation
about union busting, unsafe working conditions and human dignity in the
notorious "free trade" factories on the US-Mexican border.

December 7, 1:30PM
SFU Harbourside, 515 W.Hastings
Room 1800, Vancouver, BC

Sister Carmen Julia is part of a brave and tenacious group of workers
who were fired and blackballed for trying to organize a free and
independent union at Duro Bags in Rio Bravo, Mexico. ( Duro makes
high-gloss consumer bags for retailers like Banana Republic, The
Limited, J.Jill and Distinct Marketing Designs.)

Their experience, sadly, is typical of the labour and human rights
abuses that prevail in the "maquiladora" zone along the US-Mexican
border, and in many other sweatshop areas around the world, including
some right here in Vancouver. Wherever sweatshop conditions prevail,
workers face lethal workplace conditions, sexual harassment, child
labour and attempts to crush their unions.

This public meeting is part of a North American tour by fired Duro
workers, an attempt to reach out to working people across the continent
to ask for our solidarity. Their struggle for dignity and human rights
is at a critical point, and there are things that Canadians can do to
help. Attend this meeting and learn what you can do to support the Duro
workers' demands-

*  Reinstatement of fired workers
*  Restoration of their independent union that was illegally "stolen"
from them by the CROC union
*  Improved conditions in the factory

This event is sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress, the Maquiladora
Solidarity Network, the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras,
Oxfam, No Sweat SFU and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. For
more information or to arrange press interviews with Carmen Julia Silva,
please contact Tom Sandborn at 604-224-1182 after December 1, 2002.

----- End forwarded message -----

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