United Students Against Sweatshops
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a sweatshop?
For many, the word sweatshop conjures up images of dirty, cramped, turn of the century New York tenements where immigrant women worked as seamstresses. High-rise tenement sweatshops still do exist, but, today, even large, brightly-lit factories can be the sites of rampant labor abuses.
Sweatshop workers report horrible working conditions including sub-minimum wages, no benefits, non-payment of wages, forced overtime, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, corporal punishment, and illegal firings. Children can often be found working in sweatshops instead of going to school. Sweatshop operators are notorious for avoiding giving maternity leave by firing pregnant women and forcing women workers to take birth control or to abort their pregnancies.
Sweatshop operators can best control a pool of workers that are ignorant of their rights as workers. Therefore, bosses often refuse to hire unionized workers and intimidate or fire any worker suspected of speaking with union representatives or trying to organize her fellow workers.
(from http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~nosweat/sweatfaq.html)
Where can I get a list of companies that don't use sweatshops?
There is no list of brand names and stores that don't use sweatshops, because so far, there are no companies that have stepped forward to agree to abide by the principles of the anti- sweatshop movement. Those principles are: Living Wage; Right to Organize; Full Disclosure; Independent Verification
(from http://www.uniteunion.org/sweatshops/faq.html)
Why are you protesting Disney?
We do not hate Disney. We want to work with Disney and encourage it to improve the conditions of the factories where its products are produced. We do not want to stop anyone from working for Disney or buy Disney products. We are not calling for a boycott. We are demanding that: Disney promote workers' rights and require their subcontractors to enforce local labor laws and the Disney Code of Conduct. Disney should not cut and run. Disney should instead work with factories to end these horrible conditions. Disney should let workers play an active role in monitoring the factories they work in. They should not fear retaliation for speaking out.
