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Labor, Student Campaign Takes on New Era: Student Group Announces Fall Action Plan; AFL-CIO Sets Nat

Chicago – Students and anti-sweatshop activists are joining the Communications Workers of America in the fight to stop sweatshop conditions and save good jobs for the workers at New Era Cap Co.

New Era is America's leading manufacturer of logo caps for Major League Baseball, hundreds of athletic teams at colleges and universities, and other professional sports.

Members of CWA Local 14177 in Derby, N.Y., just outside Buffalo, have been on strike since July 16, after New Era unilaterally slashed wages and refused to continue bargaining for a fair contract. The AFL-CIO, meeting in Chicago this week, endorsed a national boycott of New Era caps.

United Students Against Sweatshops, which opens its national meeting today at Loyola University's Lakeshore campus, is announcing plans to take the New Era protest and campaign for fairness to college campuses and university administrators this fall.

Bill Boarman, president of the CWA Printing, Publishing and Media Workers Sector, thanked USAS for its support and for its efforts to "shine a spotlight on a company that unfortunately proves that you don't need to go to repressive countries like China, or struggling third-world nations, to find sweatshop conditions."

At a news conference on Loyola University's Lakeshore campus, Trina Tocco, midwestern regional coordinator for United Students Against Sweatshops; Jason Kozlowski, a striking New Era worker and member of CWA Local 14177; and representatives of the National Labor Committee, outlined the campaign against New Era.

New Era's tactics "show a company determined to turn its back on American workers, on fair and decent standards and on the right to a safe workplace," CWA said, noting that New Era is destroying quality jobs and the lives of 300 workers at its Derby location who have helped make the company a success.

"Slashing wages and jobs in upstate New York, New Era has opened low-wage facilities in Alabama, where workers earn about $6 an hour, and shifted work overseas to Asia and South America. Yet the company is still seeking to portray an all-American image as the cap producer for America's national pastime, major league baseball," CWA pointed out.

New Era also has ignored health and safety problems that have caused serious injuries to scores of workers, including debilitating injuries caused by poor ergonomic working conditions and exposure to toxic substances. These hazards now are being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the union said.

Trina Tocco of USAS outlined the group's investigation of New Era's Derby plant last March and actions the student group already has taken to press New Era to operate under decent working conditions.

The USAS report concluded that "it is clear to us that a sweatshop employer is one that has abused its workers, left them with irreparable injuries, refused to justly compensate them, threatened their union and their livelihood and in the end, is executing that threat. Every one of the named conditions is common among the sweatshops in the maquiladoras of Mexico and every one is present with these workers here in western New York."

The National Labor Committee, which presses corporations to recognize and adhere to labor and human rights standards, has called on New Era to reverse its policies and begin to treat the Derby workers with the decency and respect they deserve.

The NLC works with human rights organizations, labor and religious groups and non-government organizations to put a human face on the global economy, to defend the rights of workers worldwide and to have companies held accountable for their labor and human rights practices. It has been very successful in spotlighting sweatshop conditions, particularly in high profile campaigns targeting the Gap, Walt Disney Co., Liz Claiborne and Wal-Mart.

Also on-going is an investigation by the Workers' Rights Consortium, an independent monitoring organization that works to ensure that apparel bearing school logos is manufactured under the code of conduct adopted by the member colleges and universities. Seventy-nine colleges and universities are affiliated with the WRC, many of them New Era customers.

CWA has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board over New Era's failure to bargain in good faith. New Era declared a sham impasse in negotiations in order to tear up the existing contract, slash wages and make widespread unilateral changes. Management took away the workers' cost-of-living adjustment, cut their sick leave, cut the existing bonus program, then slashed the base wage by $3 an hour and tied compensation to an unrealistic production standard. Average wages would be cut by about 38 percent, to $9.10 an hour, with some workers hit with even greater pay cuts.

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