ON THE LINE
Hoffmann, Marcelo & Keller, Adam & Foley, Dylan & Ervin, Mike
On the line Sweatshop Haiti Port-au-Prince, Haiti Chancerelles. Inc.. a U.S.-owned garment factory, is surrounded hv barbed-wire fences. Armed guards protect the complex, which from a distance...
...The National Campaign for Freedom of Expression has accused the city council of discriminating against gays and lesbians and of appeasing "the objections of a vocal minority of bigots...
...were among the participants at the conference...
...In October, the city proudly announced that it had turned a $600,000 profit from the Democratic National Convention...
...But Franklin believes her service is gone for good because she can't come up with $308 in back pay...
...On a tour of the plant, Chevallier warns mc not to mention unions...
...It notes that, since the restoration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government in October 1994, the United States has allocated at least $8 million to fund business conferences and tours to Haiti in an attempt to attract U.S...
...Though she walks well, she doesn't have the stamina to keep up with details such as shopping and doing laundry...
...We want to bring them some happiness...
...On September 1, three days after the Democratic National Convention, the Mayor's Office for People With Disabilities announced that it was reducing the maximum amount of home care from ten to six hours per person, per week...
...Vanunu is a real prophet who sticks to his vision at all costs, stiff-necked as a proper prophet should be...
...But the meeting made no immediate headway on freeing Vanunu or ameliorating his prison conditions...
...an executive at BVF Apparel, a Haitian lingerie manufacturer...
...The vote came after Republican city legislators objected to the Bellingham city-hall display, "Family, Friends, and Neighbors"—a photo exhibit featuring gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals...
...Mike Ervin FIRST AMENDMENT UNDER FIRE The Bellingham, Washington, city council recently voted to ban from city buildings displays of art with "potentially divisive" subject matter...
...Some firms pay workers as little as eleven cents per hour, while making huge profits...
...Fortunately we're in Haiti," says Alain M. Villard...
...Shoppers" can choose between an "Authentic Sweat Shirt," made with "premium grade sweat" and an "Empowered Garment Worker [not for sale...
...firms there...
...Vanunu is serving his eighteen-year sentence in a cell that measures six feet by nine feet...
...said Ellsberg...
...Peril comes from other children as well as from adults...
...the president of Israel, met with Rotblat on the last day of the conference and firmly rejected any possibility of presidential clemency...
...Only the worst workers go to unions," thunders Charles Chevallier, who screens applicants for National Sewing Contractors...
...WI 53711...
...The conference succeeded in penetrating the Israeli media's usual curtain of indifference to Vanunu...
...This is his punishment for telling the world that his country, Israel, possesses nuclear bombs...
...Tam Truong, a former prostitute and an AIDS educator for the Thao Dan Street Children Project, heard about the girl's situation...
...Companies profit enormously from Haiti's nonunionized labor and the country's proximity to the United States...
...Ruth Franklin is one of those who has had her home care cut off...
...The catalogue order form provides addresses and organizing tools for those who want to skip the sweat and join the Salvadoran work-ers'-rights campaign...
...They also say that phone calls in support of the "Family, Friends, and Neighbors" display were not recorded, while those in opposition were...
...The city council has promised to reconsider the policy...
...We would never put anyone's service in jeopardy because of that...
...Last winter, the Thao Dan Street Children Project held a convention of street children to train them to educate other kids to avoid HIV and AIDS...
...The $40 per month she owes adds up to about one-tenth of her income...
...Others run away from abusive home situations...
...Four years ago, Hu Nguyen founded the Thao Dan Street Children Project to help kids protect themselves against economic and sexual exploitation...
...Armed guards protect the complex, which from a distance looks abandoned...
...The letter also warned that future copayments must arrive by the fifteenth of each month, or the city would again suspend service...
...The National Labor Committee estimates that more than half of the fifty assembly firms operating in the country violate the minimum-wage law...
...Adam Kllli:r Activists Fight Cuts in Home Care Chicago Chicago citizens living with disabilities recently took a hard blow...
...Wal-Mart, J.C...
...Meanwhile, Daley is able to find money for greenery, downtown parks, and a dome to keep the Bears warm...
...Many children come to Ho Chi Minh City to escape the desperate poverty of the countryside...
...Chancerelles workers interviewed by the U.S.-based National Labor Committee receive between $1.16 and $1.89 each day, well below the country's minimum wage of $2.52 per eight-hour workday...
...The prophetic tradition is not dead in Israel...
...Yet Vanunu continues to speak out against the danger of nuclear war...
...The conference in Tel Aviv drew a few dozen Israeli activists who had not previously been involved in nuclear issues...
...The National Labor Committee report spotlights the extent to which U. S, policies promote abuse...
...At Thao Dan, we also hold recreational activities and large cultural festivals for the children," says Hong Nguyen...
...This is a matter of people taking some responsibility for the services they receive...
...Back in his office, plant manager Charles Franck assures me that Chancerelles complies with the labor code...
...Recently, a seventeen-year-old female hustler attempted to sell a thirteen-year-old girl to a pimp...
...We treat our workers like brothers and sisters," he says...
...Larry Gorski is a paraplegic who heads the Mayor's Office for People With Disabilities...
...Vil Mirzeyanov, the Russian scientist imprisoned for telling the world about his country's chemical-weapons research...
...To protest the policy, contact Bruce Ayers, president, Bellingham city council, 210 Lottie, Bellingham, WA 98225, (360) 676-6.970...
...Many Haitian assembly managers loathe unions...
...If we didn't have the cheap labor, I don't think we'd be in business...
...For instance, Wal-Mart's profits exceeded $2 billion in 1994, partly because the company fails to pay the minimum wage in countries like Haiti, according to the National Labor Committee report entitled...
...Organizer Myra Glassman says the union estimates that adding $2 million to the budget for the Mayor's Office for People With Disabilities could restore the hours of home care that the city has cut and at the same time eliminate copayments...
...For more information, contact Hong Nguyen, Thao Dan Street Children Project, c/o Van Thanh Van, Project Officer, Save the Children, 41-3 Pham Ngoc Thach, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam...
...In response, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador is distributing a new "Sweat Gear" catalogue...
...For more information, contact Sam Day at the Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, 221)6 Fox Avenue...
...She notes that a family working in a small village may earn $150 a year, while a family in Ho Chi Minh City may earn $900 a year...
...There is no sign on the outside...
...608) 257-4764...
...For more information, contact the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, 1402 3rd Avenue, Suite 421, Seattle, WA 98101, (206) 340-9301...
...At the conference, the kids participated in a role-playing game to practice protecting themselves from sexual abuse from both adult Vietnamese and foreigners...
...For more information, contact the National Labor Committee Education Fund in Support of Worker and Human Rights in Central America, 15 Union Square New York, NY 10003, (212) 242-0700 — Marcelo Hoffmann SKIP THE SWEAT In hundreds of factories, young Salvadoran women work fourteen-hour days, earning less than 1 percent of the U.S...
...and Dr...
...Some make their living as sex workers and petty thieves...
...I think it's outrageous that they're doing this when the city is spending $24 million to make Meigs Field into a park...
...The children earn money by shining shoes or selling lottery tickets, newspapers, postcards, and gum to foreigners...
...Jean-Claude [Duvalier] was a great man compared to these...
...A former nuclear technician...
...Mordechai Vanunu was kidnapped in 1986 and convicted in a secret trial for telling the London Sunday Times about Israel's nuclear-weapons program...
...Anti-nuclear activists hope more people will begin to attend the vigils outside Vanunu's prison, that more participants will join public discussions of nuclear issues, and that these events will lessen the likelihood of nuclear war in the Mideast...
...The ten boys who live there play a variety of games after they finish work...
...in Haiti: How to get Rich on Eleven Cents an Hour...
...For more information, contact Local 880, Service Employees International Union, (312) 939-7490...
...Recently, when the boy had a car-washing job, he was grossly underpaid, but had a safe place to sleep...
...Franklin says she hasn't made the copayment because she can't afford it...
...It's gotten her nowhere...
...To describe these employers as conservative is an understatement...
...Women toil on outdated machines while male supervisors prod them to assemble items at an ever-faster pace...
...Dylan Foley Sad Anniversary for Mordechai Vanunu Tel Aviv Mordechai Vanunu has spent ten years in an isolation cell...
...She's given up calling the mayor's office, she says...
...Their lives are so hard...
...corporations—Kmart...
...Many of the articles on the conference published in the mainstream Israeli press were sympathetic to Vanunu and his ideas...
...Penney, and Sears— carry products assembled in Haiti for less than the minimum wage...
...Nguyen plans to develop a twenty-four-hour drop-in center, where children can shower, eat, and possibly even have access to basic health care...
...The Thao Dan Street Children Project holds Vietnamese literacy classes and English lessons on street corners and in public parks...
...He keeps out "troublemakers" and dismisses workers suspected of union involvement...
...The US...
...Two weeks later, about 160 people with disabilities received letters informing them that they were behind on a $1-per-hour home care copayment, which the city had instituted January 1. If the recipients did not pay up immediately, the letter added, the city would suspend their in-home care...
...Local 880 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents Chicago's in-home caregivers, is leading the fight against the cuts...
...His administration was good compared to what's happening now...
...Members of area gay-rights groups claim that they were denied access to public records of letters sent to the city council regarding the issue...
...The small apartment that makes up Safe House is spartan, but the mood is lively...
...The city continues to serve people who truly can't afford copayments, he says...
...Madison...
...Gorski claims that his office contacted as many as it could of those who were cut off and negotiated payment plans with the ones who could afford it...
...A secretary proudly displays the final product: a bra priced at $4.99...
...When I ask a nine-year-old what he wants to be when he grows up, he says, "I want to wash cars...
...It's a sensitive issue," he says...
...Organizations like the Women's Union and the Youth Union work with street children...
...Daniel Ellsberg, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Joseph Rotblat...
...Recalling the days when the Tonton Macoutes, Duvalierist paramilitary squads, savagely repressed workers, Chevallier says...
...Educators taught them the "ten golden rules" to avoiding abuse—these include screaming to attract help and running away...
...I'm getting by, but just barely," she says...
...Children Protecting Themselves Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam About 30,000 children live on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City...
...Chancerelles assembles bras and underpants for Elsie Undergarments of Florida...
...She has myasthenia gravis...
...Inside the poorly ventilated factory, boxes and trimmings clutter the aisles...
...For more information, contact the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, Box 1801, New York, NY 10(59, (212) 229-1296...
...The Committee's report claims that well-known U.S...
...retail price for the T-shirts and jeans they sew...
...The city instituted the copayment to encourage independence, he says...
...A subsidiary of Fine Form, a Brooklyn-based company...
...But it is necessary to get to the root of the problem—the poverty that brings the children from the villages," says a Vietnamese-American aid worker...
...Ezer Weizman...
...That would pay for an awful lot of home care...
...It also manages two small houses, Safe House and Brother House, for homeless boys...
...On October 17, the day Mayor Richard Daley gave his budget address, a crowd gathered outside the city-council chambers to protest the city's brutal budget priorities...
...She sought her out, gained her confidence, and helped her return to her grandmother...
...On October 14-15, anti-nuclear activists from around the globe marked the anniversary of Vanunu's imprisonment with a two-day conference here...
...A staff of twelve, and thirty to forty volunteer outreach workers run the Project, which receives shoestring funding of $11,000 per year from Save the Children, UK...
...My daughter is helping me, but my daughter has five kids and I feel like I'm inconveniencing her...
...Company representatives say their stores have not knowingly violated Haitian law...
...Amnesty International has called his treatment "cruel and degrading...
Vol. 60 • December 1996 • No. 12
