Report Back from USAS National Conference in Ohio
At the beginning of February, some of our membership was able to attend the National Conference for United Students Against Sweatshops, with several hundred other representatives from universities all around the country. This was a weekend of political action, collective learning and the opportunity to meet and hear stories of struggle from Honduran, Virginian, North Carolinian, and even Domincan Workers (from the Alta Gracia Factory!!!!!)
The conference Kicked off with an amazing action aimed at the University of Ohio’s foodservice provider, Sodexo. They are a multi-billion dollar international company with human rights abuses all around the world, who are currently keeping Ohio foodservice workers in poverty. The Ohio administration has refused to cooperate with workers or student allies, so we took to the library and streets to make our voices heard about the importance of workers’ rights.
Following this, we attended a variety of workshops ranging from basic education about organizing (how to organize a campaign for policy change, how to host a meeting, how to write a press release, etc.) to more in depth workshops about the history of exploited labor and sweatshops, and the current trends in national campaigns.
We got to meet Maritza and Jenny from the Alta Gracia factory in the Dominican republic, who were strong, wonderful, warm human beings (on top of being amazing organizers, let’s see if we can bring them to Houston…), and got to learn from their struggles and work.
The conference wrapped up with a concert by Rebel Diaz (an awesome political hip-hop collective from Chicago) and a local performer. Check out more on the conference at: http://kickoutsodexo.usas.org/2011/02/21/hundreds-march-ohio-state-flash-mob/, and you can see the video from the action below (one of our members was on the boombox team)
