Campaigns & Actions
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
-Gandhi
RLNA is currently involved in numerous campaigns. Contact Carla at 512-527-4455 or at Carla@ReligionAndLaborNetwork.org for more information about the following:
Target Stores
Target Stores prides itself on maintaining high employment standards and enjoys a reputation as being the ethical alternative to Wal-Mart, which has a long history of injustice against workers. However, in numerous cases it has been discovered that Target contracts with custodial and security companies for workers to clean their stores and guard their national headquarters, but requires the workers to perform over-time work without compensating them. When their hours and pay are averaged, it leaves hundreds of workers earning less than a minimum wage.
Additionally, Target wrote into its contract with at least one of these companies that, should they ever be sued by the workers, they could withhold payment from the company. In the Spring of 2006, Target learned a little over 100 workers in Houston and 29 workers in Austin and San Antonio were planning to sue for the pay they were owed. As a result, Target withheld approximately a HALF-MILLION DOLLARS from the custodial company, which immediately went bankrupt and could not afford to pay the workers who had cleaned Target’s stores.
The court cases continue, but in the mean time RLNA is taking part in a local and national campaign to call Target to live up to its own ethical employment standards and pay the workers money withheld from them which they deserve for work they have already performed.
Click here to send an e-fax to Target, calling them to treat all workers in their stores fairly!
Click here to e-mail Carla for more information about the Target campaign and to get involved.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1091
City transit workers are currently working without a contract as ATU works to negotiate a fair contract with Cap Metro, the city’s transit authority. However, ATU is facing numerous “roadblocks” from Cap Metro in this process and RLNA is following these events closely so that we may be prepared to support ATU by mobilizing the local faith community to stand with the workers should they be forced to strike. Click here to read RLNA Executive Director, Carla Cheatham’s comments before the Cap Metro Board in November of 2007.
Wage Claims
Workers Defense Project (PDL) has on-going cases in which employers have stolen wages from day laborers and have refused to pay them, even when Texas Workforce Commission rules in favor of the workers and orders the employer to pay. RLNA attends meetings with workers to hear their story. Then, with the workers’ permission, RLNA faith leaders/clergy attempt to contact the employer to hear their side of the story and work to bring about a positive and peaceful resolution to the wage claim. If letters and phone calls are denied, clergy will attempt to visit the employer in person.
If all efforts fail to receive a positive response, RLNA mobilizes the local faith community and labor groups to attend a candlelight prayer vigil at the employer’s home or worksite. We meet to discuss the case and pray, and then we caravan to the vigil site where we hold candles, read from sacred scripture of various faiths, sing songs of justice and solidarity, and pray for both the workers and the employer.
Our goal is to transform, not demonize, employers. We understand that business is not easy and sometimes personal or professional difficulties can lead an employer to be unable to pay their workers. However, we often find employers fail to uphold their responsibility, even when a generous payment plan is offered in order to make payment of wages easier on them. We call employers to live up to a higher moral standard in addition to their legal responsibility to pay workers what they are rightfully owed for honest work performed to provide for housing and food for their families.
Sweat Free
The U.S. Department of Labor defines “Sweat Shops” as those factories which break 2 or more labor laws such as working young children, failing to provide a minimum wage, committing physical and sexual assault and or threatening such assaults, locking workers in factories, requiring overtime without pay, etc. In the 1980’s college students began wondering where the apparel they wore bearing their university’s logo was made. After learning about sweat shops, students began lobbying their universities and colleges to refuse to purchase these garments from companies that subcontract with sweatshops. The Sweat Free movement is not a nation-wide campaign to convince local and state municipalities and other groups to become Sweat Free, as well.
RLNA plays a leading role in the local Austin Sweat Free Coalition’s campaigns. In June of 2007, Austin’s City Council voted unanimously to pass the first “Sweat Free” policy in the state of Texas after months of meetings with council members and the support of faith leaders and persons of faith in the Austin area. As a result, some $2.7 million of Austin’s tax dollars will *not* go to purchase garments for city employees from business who contract with sweatshops in the U.S. or abroad. Council members publicly cited the importance of the faith community’s voice in convincing them to pass this ordinance.
Similarly, we led the faith community to join the Travis County Sweat Free campaign and, in January of this year, the Commissioner’s Court voted unanimously to become Sweat Free. Click here and click on “View captioned video”) to see the video of RLNA Executive Director, Carla Cheatham, speaking before the Travis County Commissioners’ Court just prior to the vote.
Now, we are working with the local Sweat Free Coalition to ensure the city and county successfully enact Sweat Free policies, we’re supporting a student group pursuing making the University of Texas Sweat Free, and we are planning to pursue Sweat Free policies at local schools and hospitals in the coming months.
Click here to go to the National Sweat Free Communities’ website to learn more about the Sweat Free effort around the country.
Click here to go to the Texas Fair Trade Coalition website and learn more about Sweat Free Campaigns in Texas.
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