Join SweatFree Communities and the International Labor Rights Forum for the 2008 Wal-Mart Sweatshop Workers Speaking Tour

From April 6-18, 2008, workers from Costa Rica and Cambodia
will visit ten cities in Michigan and Ohio, sharing their stories of
what it's like to work in the fields and factories that fill the
shelves of Wal-Mart. With your help we will educate our communities
about the high cost behind Wal-Mart's much publicized low prices, and
we will inspire action to improve working conditions at home and
abroad.

It should be noted that most Colombian workers and their unions are against the proposed U.S.-Colombia trade agreement; unlike American investors, workers in Colombia have little to gain by further U.S. investment without real accountability for violence against unions and for other human rights abuses.

But how can students begin to relate to people half way
across the world, to have an inkling of what it is like to work on a cocoa
farm, at a t-shirt factory, a banana plantation?

ANNOUNCING TRANSFAIR’S K-12 CURRICULUM: FOCUS ON FAIR TRADE

The Focus
on Fair Trade Curriculum offers an accessible way to introduce
students of all ages to the concept of global interdependence through an
exploration of familiar foods produced outside the USA: chocolate, bananas and
coffee; and an introduction to Fair Trade.

Here is a snippet that was written yesterday by Reuters entitled Wal-Mart pushing Chinese suppliers to go green:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will meet with its thousands of Chinese suppliers
this fall as part of a big push to reduce waste and emissions at
factories that make its products, Chief Executive Lee Scott said on
Thursday.

The company's top priorities in China will be to address the
appropriate disposal of waste as well as to make reductions in both
waste and greenhouse gas emissions. It will also work on reducing
packaging and boosting energy efficiency, much as it has in its U.S.
business, Scott said.