No Sweat week of action, 11-18 February
11-18 February 2008 will be the third No Sweat week of action, with an anti-sweatshop speaker tour and meetings, actions and events in towns, universities and colleges across the country. Whether you want to organise a mass meeting or a mini-picket, a film showing, fashion show or anything else, please get active in or around the week of action!
Supersize My Pay - No Sweat speaker tour with activists from New Zealand and France
In New Zealand, since 2005, thousands of mainly young fast food workers have waged an innovative campaign called Supersize My Pay. As part of the campaign, low-paid Starbucks workers organised in the Unite union ( http://www.unite.org.nz) walked off the job and formed a picket line. They were joined by workers from other low-paying fastfood restaurants including KFC and Pizza Hut. And they won!
During the week of action, Michael Treen, Super-size My Pay activist with Unite, will tour the UK to talk about how they did it. (Details of meetings soon.) Mike will be joined for some meetings by Axel Persson, a young fast food worker and CGT union activist from Paris. Mike is pretty much booked up now, but Axel should be free to do some extra meetings between Saturday 16 and Wednesday February. If you would like him to speak at your university, college, workplace etc, get in touch.
What else you can do
We will be targeting Starbucks and other companies during the week of action. More information about protests and direct actions soon.
Even if you can't get Mike or Axel to speak, there are lots of other things you can do:
- Organise a meeting with a No Sweat speaker and film. We have a variety of DVDs and are happy to send speakers.
- Organise a local picket of a Starbucks or other anti-union shop or company. We can send you model leaflets, stickers etc.
- Organise a fundraising event like a benefit or anti-sweatshop fashion show.
For more ideas, to find out what's happening in your area, or to let us know what you're doing - get in touch: admin@nosweat.org.uk / 07811 347 486 / http://www.nosweat.org.uk