Summarizing of History and acheveiment of Sweatshop Watch - Essay Example

The discovery of the infamous El Monte sweatshops in 1995 where 72 Thai immigrant workers were forced to sew clothes behind razor wires and armed guards gave birth to Sweatshop Watch. Together with community organizations, Sweatshop Watch worked to release the workers from INS detention and get them housing, food and medical care and for the recovery of unpaid wages, overtime compensation and damages for civil rights violations. The group's Retailer Accountability Campaign pressured retailers who sold clothes sewn by the El Monte workers through public demonstrations and letter-writing campaigns that were critical in winning $4 million from retailers and manufacturers for back wages and redress.

Today, many of the El Monte workers continue to work in the garment industry, although they are now aware of their rights and are actively educating other workers as well as policy makers and the public. Over the following years, from 1996 to 2000, Sweatshop Watch held many campaigns, in alliance with other groups, in the state of California, nationwide as well overseas to further the protection of workers' rights' through legislation, media work and public education. codes of conduct and monitoring. . purchase of goods made under sweatshop conditions.

Began to expand its work nationally and internationally by engaging in debate on codes of conduct and monitoring. It issued a issued a critique of the White House Apparel Industry Partnership (now the Fair Labor Association) and partnered with Working Assets to generate 32,000 letters and calls to the Partnership's Co-Chair Liz Claiborne, demanding that the Partnership include a living wage in its Code of Conduct.1998:Produced the 1998 Garment Workers Calendar, an inspiring collection of black and white photographs of garment workers at work and on the picket line and with historical dates in the garment industry.

Hosted the Living Wage Working Summit which brought together over 50 participants from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The summit developed a draft formula for a living wage and popularized the demand for a living wage in the anti-sweatshop movement. Co-convened a coalition of students, faculty, staff and community members to strengthen the University of California's Code of Conduct for Trademark Licensees, and began supporting the growing student movement against sweatshops.

Participated in the founding of the Workers Rights Consortium.1999: Won the passage of a sweatshop reform bill for California's 120,000 garment workers, Assembly Bill 633 (Steinberg, Hayden). Filing of three separate lawsuits against top U.S. clothing companies to clean up the rampant sweatshop abuses in Saipan, a U.S. territory in the South Pacific. 2000: Helped won justice for eight Los Angeles garment workers who sewed university gear under sweatshop conditions. Achievements: The recent achievements of Sweatshop Watch