Student-Worker Power Celebrated in DC

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
“It is because of you that I can say we have a contract,” New Era worker Felicia Walker told a crowd of over 150 students and labor activists at a ten-year celebration for United Students Against Sweatshops Thursday night. Walker and her co-workers began to organize last April against continued racism, wage exploitation and terrible working conditions at their factory in Mobile, Alabama. But New Era ran an intense anti-union campaign against the workers. “They fired me and other workers leading the organizing drive,” said Walker. Refusing to back down, the workers – with the help of USAS activists across the country – continued their fight and eventually won union recognition. “I remember thinking ‘these students know nothing about us but they still cared about us.’ We would not have succeeded without your hard work and dedication.” The New Era workers’ victory is just one of many USAS success stories of solidarity since its founding in 1998. USAS members across the country have won battles against major corporations, including Coca-Cola, Nike, and Taco Bell, forced dozens of school administrations to adopt Codes of Conduct for their apparel and join the Workers Rights Consortium, helped campus workers organize and win first contracts, and fought for living wages. “USAS has helped us to understand what workers face and has shown us the importance of solidarity,” said SEIU Organizing Coordinator and former Yale USAS leader Jessica Champagne. “We have won over and over and over again and we are going to keep winning.” “We need to continue USAS’s goals with the next generation,” said USAS Regional Organizer and University of Miami leader Mewelau Hall. “I hope that USAS will be here 10 years from now.” The event was hosted by the George Washington Progressive Student Union, the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work, Change to Win, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Jobs with Justice, SEIU, the Teamsters, UFCW, UNITE HERE, and the United Steelworkers. – report/photo by Andy Richards