Resources and Links

Many resources exist to aid your education and promotion efforts regarding sweatshops and Sweat-Free Ts. The following resources and links are provided as suggestions as you and your group learn and grow in faith, understanding and action. Please let us know if you come across other helpful materials.

A variety of organizations and groups provide information about sweatshops, cooperatives and global economic and environmental issues. Among them, and included in this list, are sites and links that are not controlled by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

• Presbyterian Sweat-Free T Materials
• PC(USA) Policy
• Educational Materials
• PC(USA) Programs
• Organizations
• Books
• News Articles

Presbyterian Sweat-Free T Materials

Sweat-Free T brochure (color)
PDS #7436506325 • Free

Promotional flyer for Sweat-Free Ts (color)
PDS #7436506324 • Free

• Talking with Children & Youth about Sweat-Free Ts 
• Sample Sweat-Free Resolution for your congregation, presbytery, camp or conference center
• Sweat-Free pledge 
• Ants That Moved Mountains video (tells story of women’s cooperative in Nicaragua)

PC(USA) Policy

Hope for a Global Future: Towards Just and Sustainable Human Development (1996 General Assembly)

Addresses global poverty and environmental degradation, overpopulation and overconsumption, theological and ethical foundations, and policy recommendations. Study guide included.

PDS #OGA96013 • $2.50

Restoring Creation for Ecology and Justice (1990 General Assembly)

Provides a profile of the environmental crisis, with biblical affirmations and ethical norms for response. Recommends a new churchwide initiative in environmental stewardship, and includes a study guide to help groups move into community-based reflection and action.

PDS #OGA90002 • $1.50

God's Work in Our Hands: Employment, Community, and Christian Vocation (1995 General Assembly)

A theological exposition concerning the vocation and work of every Christian. Affirming that all work, both paid and unpaid, is an integral part of the believer’s response to God’s call to vocation in God’s world. Good work should reflect the principles of justice on which the church’s witness is based and is described as full, fair, participatory, and sustaining. Twelve principles on vocation and work are presented with an action and implementation plan to challenge the whole church.

Study Paper
PDS #OGA95012 • $2.00

Video
PDS #6860096006 • $5.00

Educational Materials

Ants That Moved Mountains Compelling 15-minute video tells the story of the women’s cooperative in Nicaragua — our partner in Sweat-Free Ts.

PC(USA) Globalization and Trade Study Papers

The PC(USA) Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) offers a series of four study papers on globalization and trade issues impacting the church and the world as the new millennium dawns.

These are made available to the church for study, reflection, and feedback on issues related to globalization and international trade and the church's advocacy on trade issues in the public arena. They serve as a basis for the development of a Resolution anticipated for the 217th General Assembly (2006):

The Globalization of Economic Life: Challenge to the Church examines the impact of economic growth and challenges brought by the new political dynamic experienced in globalization. Defines economic globalization and introduces theological and ethical considerations for the proceeding three papers in this series.

PDS #6860001002 • $3.00

The Employment Effects of Free Trade and Globalization examines the connection between resources and labor and the need for the church to address the intentional exploitation of people for profit.

PDS #6860001003 • $3.00

Globalization and Culture examines the impact of globalization upon various cultures.

PDS #6860003003 • $3.00

Globalization and the Environment examines the impact of globalization on the environment.

PDS #6860003004 • $3.00

Guide to Ending Sweatshops by Co-Op America. In-depth consumer guide helps individuals use their economic power to address sweatshops. Includes Retailer Scorecard, 10 Ways to End Sweatshops, and Resources for Buying Sweatshop-Free.

Sweatfree Toolkit: How Your Community Can Help End Sweatshops. 68-page toolkit produced by Global Exchange and SweatFree Communities. Contains all you need to know to start and win a sweat-free campaign in your community to ensure that clothes, uniforms, and other garments bought by city and state governments are not made in sweatshops and to guarantee that taxpayers are not complicit in factory abuses by allowing tax dollars to underwrite worker exploitation.

Clean Clothes Campaign Organizing Guide. Local organizing guide produced by Peace through Interamerican Community Action (PICA) and the Unitarian Universalist Clean Clothes Project of Bangor, Maine.

Educational Packet on Trade from the Washington Office on Africa

PC(USA) Worship Guide on Trade and Globalization. Everything you need to raise critical issues and encourage Christian discipleship in a globalized world, including a complete order of worship, Bible readings, theological reflection, sermon ideas, children's activities, prayers and songs, stories of people affected by economic globalization and more. Colorful 16-page Worship Guide available in black and white (1.25 MB) or color (4.7 MB). Download the guide's promotional flyer.

Educational Resource List on Economic Globalization  Compiled by the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

“Clean Clothes by Category” Shopping Guide published in 2002 by the Bangor Clean Clothes Resource Center.

Global Sweatshop Curriculum Packet (4th through 12th grade). Available for $12.50 from the Campaign for Labor Rights, 1470 Irving Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010.

Child Labor is Not Cheap. A three-lesson curriculum for grades 8-12 and adults, available from Resource Center of the Americas for $14.95 from the Resource Center of the Americas (with Zoned for Slavery video for $39.95).

Getta Clue. For high school to college age, available from the Department of Labor, Washington, DC 20210, (202) 208-4843.

Children in the Global Economy. The AFL-CIO provides links to public and nonprofit Web sites addressing issues related to child labor in the United States and around the world.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Online virtual tour of the Smithsonian Exhibit on Sweatshops.

By the Sweat and Toil of Children. A 1997 report by the Child Labor Division of the Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs.

Consumers Guide to Fairly Traded Products by the Fair Trade Federation.

Garment Industry: Efforts to Address the Prevalence and Conditions of Sweatshops. 1995 report of the United States Governmental Accountability Office.

Made in China: Behind the Label. Report from the National Labor Committee

Misery by Design: The Sweatshops Behind the Private Labels of Federated Department Stores. Report from the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees

Organizations

A variety of organizations provide information about sweatshops, cooperatives and global economic and environmental issues. Among them are the following sites and their links that are not controlled by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.):

COMAMNUVI women’s cooperative/Fair Trade Zone is our partner in Sweat-Free Ts. Wholly owned and operated by its members in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua, the co-op has become the first worker-owned Free Trade Zone in the world. Worker-owners are not only the proud makers of sweat-free clothing (including Presbyterian Sweat-Free Ts), they also run to their cooperative together as a small business. A viable alternative to sweatshops, the co-op offers high quality garments at competitive prices, giving consumers the ability to purchase sweat-free clothing while helping to improve the lives of their members.

• Faith-Based Groups
• Simple Living/Responsible Consumer Groups
• Networks
• Campaigns & Programs
• Alternative Trade Organizations (ATO's)
• Advocacy Groups
• Information & Research
• Monitoring & Corporate Accountability
• Solidarity Groups

Faith-Based Groups

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility is a 30-year-old international coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors (including denominations, religious communities, pension funds, healthcare corporations, foundations and dioceses) with combined portfolios worth an estimated $100 billion. They merge social values with investment decisions, believing they must achieve more than an acceptable financial return. ICCR members utilize religious investments and other resources to change unjust or harmful corporate policies, working for peace, economic justice and stewardship of the Earth.

National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice is a network of people of faith that calls upon our religious values in order to educate, organize and mobilize the religious community in the United States on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits and working conditions for workers, especially low-wage workers.

Presbyterians for Restoring Creation (PRC) was founded in 1995 as a national, grassroots organization to support people of faith working towards "environmental wholeness with social justice." PRC helps the church to fulfill its current environmental policies, to create new policies and practices, and to energize and educate church members about eco-justice, the well-being of all human kind on a thriving earth.

Sabbath Economics Collaborative (Educating and Animating for Jubilee Justice) is a national, membership-based network that facilitates cooperation and communication among theologians, economists and activists who are exploring contemporary issues of faith and economic justice.

Simple Living/Responsible Consumer Groups

Center for a New American Dream is a membership-based nonprofit organization to help Americans consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.

Alternatives for Simple Living is a non-profit membership organization that equips people of faith to challenge consumerism, live justly and celebrate responsibly. Started in 1973 as a protest against the commercialization of Christmas, they encourage celebrations that reflect conscientious ways of living. Publishes "Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?"

Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign was the first US community-based campaign against sweatshops in the global clothing industry. Works to ensure that clothing on local shelves is made according to international standards of ethical production. Successes include two City Council actions, a Clean Clothes Resolution and an Ethical Purchasing Policy.

Organic Consumers Association (OCA) promotes food safety, organic farming and sustainable agriculture practices in the U.S. and internationally. OCA provides consumers with factual information they can use to make informed food choices. Their Clothes for a Change campaign promotes the use of organic and non-GMO (genetically modified) cloth in fair garment manufacturing.

Sustainable Cotton Project promotes fair trade organic and sustainable cotton clothes. It helps build a large network of consumer activists, designers, students, labor unions, farmers, social and economic justice groups, clothing manufactures, and environmentalists to increase consumer demand for organic and sustainable cotton apparel in our communities, companies and campuses.

Networks

SweatFree Communities was founded in 2002 by anti-sweatshop organizers in Maine, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin and elsewhere who had been working separately on local campaigns to convince school districts, cities, states, and other institutional purchasers to adopt “sweatfree” purchasing policies and stop tax dollars from subsidizing sweatshops and abusive child labor. SweatFree Communities created a structure to facilitate the sharing of resources and information and built a national sweatfree movement that has the unity and political strength to generate significant market demand for products that are made in humane conditions by workers who earn living wages.

United Students Against Sweatshops is an international student movement of campuses and individual students fighting for sweatshop free labor conditions and workers' rights. They work to ensure that their university logo is emblazoned on clothing made in decent working conditions and that their universities adopt ethically and legally strong codes of conduct, full public disclosure of company information and truly independent verification systems. Their three cornerstone campaigns are the Sweat-Free Campus Campaign, the Ethical Contracting Campaign, and the Campus Living Wage Campaign.

Fair Trade Federation is an association of fair trade wholesalers, retailers, and producers whose members are committed to providing fair wages and good employment opportunities to economically disadvantaged artisans and farmers worldwide. Search their website to find stores, products, wholesalers and producers.

Fair Trade Resource Network's goal is to raise consumer awareness about improving people's lives through Fair Trade alternatives by gathering and compiling research and data about Fair Trade, providing information about Fair Trade to the public, the media and Fair Trade advocates, and galvanizing Fair Trade organizations and individuals seeking to get involved.

Fair Trade Alliance (coordinated by Co-Op America) is a national network of workplaces, schools, faith congregations, and community groups of all sizes and shapes that have committed to promoting Fair Trade, sharing ideas with others, and growing a global economy based on justice and sustainability. Monthly newsletter provides fair trade updates and highlights creative initiatives across America.

People of Faith Network is a national network of clergy and faith-based activists who work on economic and social justice campaigns through individual congregations. Based out of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, NY.

Campaigns & Programs

Co-Op America is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1982 whose mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society. Check out their:

• Anti-sweatshop campaign provides information to help stop sweatshop labor and promote fair treatment of workers.
• Retailer Scorecard at-a-glance reference of “big box” companies to help consumers choose where to shop.
• Responsible Shopper reports on the social and environmental performance of over 150 of the largest, most popular consumer product companies in the market today.
• National Green Pages the only nationwide directory of screened, socially and environmentally responsible businesses; find practical products from food to clothing to housewares.
• Shop & Unshop Campaign provides practical and easy-to-use tips and strategies to green purchasing as well as cut down on purchasing.
• Fair Trade Program helps individuals switch purchases to support Fair Trade, empowers people and their communities to become Fair Trade advocates, and works to encourage businesses to incorporate Fair Trade products and principles into their core businesses.

Sweatshops Program of Global Exchange, an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice. Global Exchange also monitors U.S. corporations in developing countries, runs fair trade stores and "Reality Tours."

World Fair Trade Day is an annual opportunity (second Saturday of May) to promote Fair Trade as a way to improve lives, participate in the worldwide Fair Trade movement, and make positive connections to other countries.

Make Trade Fair Campaign by Oxfam calls on decision makers to make trade part of the solution to poverty. Oxfam America is a Boston-based international development and relief agency and an affiliate of Oxfam International. Working with local partners, Oxfam delivers development programs and emergency relief services, and campaigns for change in global practices and policies that keep people in poverty.

Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs)

SERRV International is a nonprofit alternative trade and development organization. SERRV's mission is to promote the social and economic progress of people in developing regions of the world by marketing their products in a just and direct manner. Historically SERRV partners with Presbyterian congregations hosting Alternative Christmas Sales through their wholesale and consignment programs. SERRV also co-hosts the Enough for Everyone Global Marketplace at PC(USA) General Assemblies, Presbyterian Women's Churchwide Gatherings and the Youth Triennium.

Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. Search their website to find locations of their 180 stores where you can purchase fair trade home décor and gifts.

Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural is an alliance of regionally and culturally diverse organizations working to build a more just and sustainable food system.

Advocacy Groups

American Apparel and Footwear Association is the national trade association representing apparel, footwear and other sewn products companies, and their suppliers.

Child Labor Coalition exists to serve as a national network for the exchange of information about child labor; provide a forum and a unified voice on protecting working minors and ending child labor exploitation; and develop informational and educational outreach to the public and private sectors to combat child labor abuses and promote progressive initiatives and legislation.

Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras is a tri-national coalition of religious, environmental, labor, Latino and women’s organizations whose efforts are grounded in supporting worker and community struggles for social, economic and environmental justice in the maquiladora industry. 

European Clean Clothes Campaign is a Netherlands-based European coalition of NGOs and trade unions with four categories of activity that seek to improve working conditions and empower workers: raising awareness & mobilizing consumers, pressuring companies to take responsibility, solidarity actions and lobbying and legal action.

Human Rights First works in the United States and abroad to create a secure and humane world—advancing justice, human dignity, and respect for the rule of law.

Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility is a 30-year-old international coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors (including denominations, religious communities, pension funds, healthcare corporations, foundations and dioceses) with combined portfolios worth an estimated $100 billion. They merge social values with investment decisions, believing they must achieve more than an acceptable financial return. ICCR members utilize religious investments and other resources to change unjust or harmful corporate policies, working for peace, economic justice and stewardship of the Earth.

International Labor Rights Fund is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. Promotes enforcement of labor rights internationally through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government and business groups.

Jubilee USA Network began as Jubilee 2000, working for international debt cancellation. Now over 60 organizations including labor, churches, religious communities and institutions, AIDS activists, trade campaigners and over 9,000 individuals are active members in this strong, diverse and growing network working for a world free of debt for billions of people. Check out their Jubilee Congregations program.

Resource Center of the Americas informs, educates and organizes to promote human rights, democratic participation, economic justice and cross-cultural understanding in the context of globalization in the Americas.

US/LEAP (US/Labor Education in the Americas Project) supports basic rights of workers in Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, especially those employed directly or indirectly by US companies. Develops and promotes campaigns focused on specific worker struggles, particularly around bananas, apparel, and coffee. Provides technical assistance, training, education and communication. Also engages directly in using worker rights provisions of US trade programs to promote worker rights.

Washington Office on Africa is a church-sponsored not-for-profit advocacy organization seeking to articulate and promote a just American policy toward Africa. Check out their Educational Packet on Trade.

Information & Research

Behind the Label is a multimedia news website covering the stories of people fighting for fundamental human and labor rights against the goliath global clothing industry.

Campaign for Labor Rights works to inform and mobilize grassroots activists in solidarity with major, international anti-sweatshop struggles. Coordinating with over 500 communities in the U.S. as well as other local, national, and international anti-sweatshop groups, CLR attacks the root causes of poverty, oppression, and global economic disparity.

Council on Economic Priorities is a public service research organization, dedicated to the accurate and impartial analysis of the social and environmental records of corporations.

Investor Responsibility Research Center provides high quality, impartial research and information on corporate governance and social responsibility.

National Labor Committee helps defend the human rights of workers in the global economy; investigates and exposes human and labor rights abuses committed by US companies producing goods in the developing world; undertakes public education, research and popular campaigns that empower US citizens to support the efforts of workers to learn and defend their rights.

Monitoring & Corporate Accountability

CorpWatch counters corporate-led globalization through education, network-building and activism. Fosters democratic control over corporations by building grassroots globalization a diverse movement for human rights and dignity, labor rights and environmental justice.

COVERCO (the Commission for the Verification of Codes of Conduct) is a Guatemalan non-profit organization providing accurate and credible information about working conditions. Coverco conducts independent monitoring and investigations of workplace compliance with labor standards in Guatemala's major export industries—including apparel, bananas, coffee, and electricity—for multinational companies and international organizations. Objectivity, transparency, non-substitution and independence are principal tenets.

Nike Watch is a program of Oxfam Australia, part of an international campaign to persuade sports brands to respect workers' rights.

Stop Sweatshops Campaign of the National Consumers League helps consumers hold US retailers and brand name manufacturers responsible for behavior at home and overseas. Helps people say "no" to sweatshops—whether the goods come from China or Honduras, Los Angeles or New York City.

Sweatshop Watch is a coalition of labor, community, civil rights, immigrant rights, women's, religious and student organizations, and individuals, committed to eliminating the exploitation that occurs in and the illegal and inhumane conditions that characterize sweatshops.

Verite – Verification in Trade and Export, an independent, non-profit social auditing and research organization, ensures that people worldwide work under safe, fair and legal working conditions. Auditors identify exploitation of workers or health and safety violations in the workplace and develop concrete steps to correct them through trainings for management and workers, education and remediation programs.

Wal-Mart Watch is a nationwide public education campaign to challenge the world’s largest retailer to become a better employer, neighbor, and corporate citizen. Connects and supports the myriad efforts already underway across the country. Serves as a catalyst for coordinated action, a fact-based presence on the truths about Wal-Mart’s business model, and the nation’s premiere online resource center for Wal-Mart educational tools.

Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) is a non-profit organization that assists in the enforcement of manufacturing Codes of Conduct adopted by colleges and universities; these Codes are designed to ensure that factories producing clothing and other goods bearing college and university names respect the basic rights of workers. There are more than 100 colleges and universities affiliated with the WRC.

Solidarity Groups

BorderLinks is a not-for-profit organization that conducts travel seminars and firsthand immersion experiences focusing on the issues of Mexican border communities. People from the north and south come together to explore global issues with all their complexities in the stark reality of the border environment. Founded by the 2004-2006 Moderator of the PC(USA).

Maquila Solidarity Network is a Canadian labour and women's rights advocacy organization promoting solidarity with grassroots groups in Mexico, Central America, and Asia working to improve conditions in maquiladora factories and export processing zones.

Books

God's Economy: Biblical Studies from Latin America. Ross Kinsler and Gloria Kinsler. Orbis Press, 2005.

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe. Tarcher/Penguin Press, 2002.

Globalization: At What Price? Economic Change and Daily Life. Pamela Brubaker. Pilgrim Press, 2001.

The Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life. Ross Kinsler and Gloria Kinsler. Orbis Press, 1999.

Behind the Swoosh: The Struggle of Indonesians Making Nike Shoes, edited by Jeff Ballinger and Claes Olsson. Global Publications Foundation.

No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers. Edited by Andrew Ross. Published by Verso Books.

The Sweatshop Quandary: Corporate Responsibility on the Global Frontier. Edited by Pamela Varley. Investor Responsibility Research Center