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7 Jan 2001, Report on action in London - No Sweat
January sales,
Niketown takes on more child labour in 2001!
Dear friends,
please find below a report on an action from "sweatshop madness"
London
from: "sweatshop madness" <just_stop_them@hotmail.com>
The Nike board of directors had barely finished toasting last year's
megaprofits ($579 million!) and wishing each other more of the same
in 2001 when the headache kicked in, and it wasn't the dodgy champagne.
Niketown, London had received another nasty new years reception
by No Sweat.
25 of us popped up outside Niketown on the 7th to get the New Year
protest
off to a flying start. The NO SWEATSHOPS banner went up between
2
lampposts, while people wearing sign-boards walked up and down shouting
"get
yer child labour here, 4 kids for a quid", in front of a table
with a sign
overhead "CHILD LABOUR SALE low low prices."
Then a row of child workers were marched up to the store in chains,
hurried
along by a No Sweat auctioneer and his nasty henchmen - "C’mon
you lot,
Niketown aint got all day!".The auctioneer emphasised how fit
they were and
what hard workers, picking up their legs and examining their teeth
to show
these wage-slaves were healthy, selling them off one by one. Each
child
held up a contract with one clause such as "I agree to work
for 70 hours a
week", "I agree to be
locked up in a dormitory at night" "I agree not to have
a baby". Prices
started at an unbelievably low 25p!
Still, even that was too high. The Nike security bid for the first
child
(at least we were sure that we saw them give us the sign) but then
they
refused to have any of it. The auction was opened up to pedestrians
and
customers but, while enjoying the offer, they refused to sink to
Nike’s
depth. It looked like the sale was a flop!
Then to our amazement a Nike child-labour buyer* came out of the
store,
pushing his way through the security, and started off the bidding!
25 p was
evidently way too much, Nike paid much less for child labourers
in China and
Cambodia – we’d have to do better. Then another fatcat
turned up from Gap*,
saying he heard there was a child labour sale going on and the bidding
got
truly intense as buyers shouted each other down to get their bid
in. It
even began to turn into a tussle - scandalous how those capitalists
behave
when they sniff a bit of cheap labour!
After a half an hour of wheeling and dealing, one of the slaves
had enough,
and she began to unionise the workers. "They need us, we don't
need them!"
and a strike was kicked off. "There’s only one solution…"
"REVOLUTION!"
Everyone ripped through their (paper) chains, seized the auctioneers
hammer
and piled on the oppressors, ultimately chasing them off around
the corner.
A revolution in action!
Groups of customers clustered in front of the pillars of Niketown's
entrance, watching the auction, and hundreds more stopped and signed
a
petition demanding that Nike accept independent inspections of its
factories
and allow unions.
Management got and finally sent someone out saying they'd like
to meet up and discuss the campaign, asking people what their addresses
are…yikes, the Niketown men-in-black come knocking on your
door late at nite...
** An anti-marketing tip for people who want to do an action: managers
really hate it if you have someone walking around in front of Niketown
with a megaphone saying in a very calm, deadpan, big brother type
voice "buy nike…buy sweatshop labour…buy nike, buy
child labour…" over and over again, it drives them bananas.
Now they're the ones starting to sweat because they know we're
for real,
we're not going to go away. They've got that one right, we have
loads of
campaigning ideas, and we're building support on the campuses and
now in the
trade unions for No Sweat and a code of conduct. And the No Sweat
campaign
is spreading far and wide, from Coventry to Cardiff and further
afield –
alas Niketown is only a London phenomenon, so Gap has had to bear
the brunt
of our ire. So be it, we’re going to make sure they don’t
feel left out in
London too. And now the Socialist Alliance in Cardiff and in East
London
are supporting the campaign.
We got both actions on video, and RevolutionTV is putting together
a short
vid to complement the Panorama video that was shown on BBC, and
tie
sweatshops into larger issues, like the third world debt, imperialism
and
the domination of the third world, etc. Meantime download some petitions
with the code of conduct, posters and leaflets from the destroyimf
website,
and invite a no sweat speaker to your school, uni, workplace, union
and
we’ll show the videos.
*ye olde No Sweat disclaimer: obviously these were no sweat members
in disguise, not REAL buyers from nike or gap, before all the corporate
lawyers out there start drooling over their briefcases.
** a joke, we in no way mean to imply that Nike uses deathsquads
here or anywhere else in the world. No, in places like China they
rely on the "legitimate" force of the army, secret police,
and repressive and undemocratic laws to do the job for them and
break strikes and unions.
More antisweatshop stuff on www.destroyimf.org
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