[Imc] Call for Action

[Nick Berveiler]

Everyone,

I hope there are people available for organizing. As some of you may 
already know, I am heavily involved in United Students Against Sweatshops 
at Illinois State University (ISU) and we are having a large mobilization 
campaign this month to improve working conditions in Bangladesh. This is a 
national anti-sweatshop campaign being led by the National Labor Committee 
(NLC). The NLC has ties with labor unions in Bangladesh factories that are 
ready to act when we release our campaign at the end of October. Some of 
the information released by the NLC is a clear violation of labor laws and 
should cause immediate action in Bangladesh. The NLC is hoping to publicize 
that and other information of abusive situations and poverty wages in 
Bangladesh and ride on that wave for massive improvements of workers rights 
in Bangladesh. The NLC campaign officially begins on October 24th in 
Wisconsin where the NLC will release all information and will start touring 
the US with labor and students against sweatshops to protest multinational 
corporations and demand that universities take action to improve working 
conditions. This is going to be a huge campaign and here at ISU, we need 
your help in Urbana. We have the NLC coming to ISU and Bloomington Normal 
on Friday, October 26th. The NLC tour is very full and this is the only day 
we have available. Unfortunately, ISU is having Homecoming that weekend and 
there will be a lot of homecoming activities beginning on Friday that we 
will have to compete with. It is because of the homecoming activities that 
it is critical that ISU students against sweatshops get support from all 
available resources. This is a very significant campaign because of our 
opportunity to improve working conditions immediately in Bangladesh.

I am interested in putting together a radio show via the urbana indymedia 
center after the NLC tour gets under way and I have audio from the tour. 
The tour will consist of the NLC and Charles Kernaghan as well as two women 
from Bangladesh who have worked in sweatshop conditions and can provide 
strong arguments to the American public.

Here in Bloomington Normal, the current plans are to have a demonstration - 
rally on the quad at aprox. 3 or 4 PM and then there will be an evening 
event where the NLC and Bangladesh women will speak at a labor hall in West 
Bloomington. This is on a friday afternoon - evening which, along with 
Homecoming, hinders us and makes our campaign difficult. We have considered 
holding a protest at a shopping center however discussion so far has led us 
to believe we would be much more effective with publicity if we simply 
campaign at ISU and release all our relevant information there. The more 
people present on the quad at ISU, the more publicity we will get and the 
more effective our campaign will be.

The NLC has information relevant to Urbana as well as Bloomington Normal. 
This is an opportunity to combine forces and improve working conditions 
overseas. I will be in Urbana on Sundays at the Independent Media Center 
and I ask that anyone interested in learning more about this campaign and 
getting involved meet at 6 PM at the Independent Media Center. I would like 
to hold weekly meetings at 6PM up until the event if that is all right. I 
am hoping to reach out to local labor and students in Urbana Champaign as 
well as media activists and to do that I definitely need your help.

for more information about the NLC, current press releases and previous 
campaigns visit their website at www.nlcnet.org
Please forward this message to anyone you think would be interested in 
helping to make this event a success.

Thank you,
Nick Berveiler
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