Sample Letter to Governors
[cut & paste this letter to write to your Governor]
Dear Governor,
On behalf of [name of your group], I urge you to join the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium.
Sweatshop conditions in apparel and other industries in the United States and around the world are well documented. Most apparel workers - including children - work long hours in inhumane conditions for wages that are insufficient to pay for their families' basic needs. Sweatshop exploitation undermines global economic security and political stability, and undercuts efforts by ethical businesses in our state to compete in the global economy.
As a significant consumer in the market place, our state can help level the playing field for ethical businesses and create significant demand for better working conditions in apparel and other global industries. By adopting a sweatfree procurement policy that requires state vendors and contractors to abide by fair labor standards in exchange for public contracts we can ensure that our tax dollars do not subsidize sweatshops.
Seven states (California, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont) have already adopted sweatfree procurement policies. The main provisions of those policies include:
• Bidder and vendor certification of fair labor standards - including core International Labor Organization standards and non-poverty wages - for the manufacturing of apparel and other products procured by the state.
• Requirement that bidders disclose the locations where manufacturing is to take place, including any sub-contractor locations.
• A sweatfree advisory board and process for the state to receive and assess evidence of non-compliance with sweatfree standards by bidders, contractors, or vendors.
• Requirement that vendors and contractors cooperate with independent monitoring of supplier factories and take corrective action when allegations of non-compliance are substantiated.
• Sanctions of violators, including termination of contracts and barring vendors from subsequent apparel contracts.
These sweatfree procurement policies have helped to create incentive for ethical businesses and contributed to greater transparency in the global apparel industry. However, acting on their own states have limited resource to monitor factories, investigate sweatshop violations, and create positive incentive for better working conditions. Currently no state can tell for sure whether or not vendors are in fact selling them sweatfree goods.
The solution is collaboration in sweatfree procurement among states and other public entities.
The Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium is a new collaborative effort of U.S. states, local governments, school districts, and human rights advocates to ensure that we do not spend tax dollars on uniforms and other products made in sweatshops. The Consortium will pool resources for investigations and monitoring of supplier factories and coordinate the implementation and enforcement of sweatfree standards to ensure compliance with codes of conduct established by states and localities. The Consortium will begin working in the apparel sector, and consider expanding its scope to other industries where sweatshops are of concern.
We urge you to join in this important national initiative to end sweatshop labor. The Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium is an opportunity to demonstrate that our state is a committed pioneer in efforts to eliminate sweatshops in the state, the nation, and the world.
For more information and the membership form, please visit: www.buysweatfree.org.
Thank you for your commitment to ending sweatshop labor.
Sincerely,
