Sample Letter to Mayors
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Dear Mayor:
On behalf of [name of your group], I urge you to join the new State and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium.
Sweatshop conditions in apparel and other industries in the United States and around the world are well documented. Most apparel workers around the world - 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 local ethical businesses to compete in the global economy.
As a significant participant in the market place, our city 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 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.
Over 30 cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Providence, and Madison, have already adopted sweatfree procurement policies. The main provisions of the 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 city.
• 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 city to receive and assess evidence of non-compliance with fair labor 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 cities have limited resources to monitor factories, investigate sweatshop violations, and create positive incentives for better working conditions. Currently no city can tell for sure whether or not vendors are in fact selling them sweatfree goods.
The solution is collaboration in sweatfree procurement among cities and other public entities.
The State and Local Government Sweatfree 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.
Our city should join this new Consortium. While the Consortium is in formation, we can join as a provisionary member and provide critical momentum towards the launch of the Consortium. In order to become a provisionary Consortium member you should sign a resolution, expressing support for the Consortium principles and designating a staff person as liaison to the Consortium. There is no cost for being a provisionary Consortium member. Annual consortium dues will be payable when the Consortium is operational.
We urge you to join in this important national initiative to end sweatshop labor. The State and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium is an opportunity to demonstrate that our city is a committed pioneer in efforts to eliminate sweatshops in the city, the state, the nation, and the world.
For a model resolution to join the Consortium and for further information, please visit: http://www.sweatfree.org/sweatfreeconsortium
Thank you for your commitment to ending sweatshop labor.
Sincerely,
