Sign up to the Workers rights consortium say: anti racism activists on campus

Dear Vice Chancellor,

I’m writing on Behalf of the universities Anti Racism and Anti Fascism association and as Anti Racism and Anti Fascism officer, to encourage you to sign up to the workers rights consortium.

186 universities worldwide have signed up to a code of practice and monitoring organisation that guarantee the workers in its supply the chain are free from racist abuse and discrimination.

Racist abuse of poor disempowered groups is easy and systematic. Nike for example recently had to pay out 7.6 million dollars because its managers used racial slurs against its black employees and shoppers, segregated jobs so that the higher paid jobs went to white workers, and routinely told security to monitor not just black customers but also black employees because of their race, Quietflex Manufacturing Company, L.P. had to pay out $2.8 million to 78 current and former workers for employee discrimination and Benenson Rehabilitation Pavilion had to pay out for the racial harassment of 29 employees, with a settlement of $900,000.

These unfortunately are just the cases where groups desperately in need of justice where successful and they where results of long struggles, it took four long years for the Nike workers in Chicago. Today many find themselves without a hope of ending the discrimination against them and many find themselves in impossible battles to end it, for example the current ongoing case against Fiber and Fabrics International is proving a hard struggle where Fiber and Fabrics international requested successfully a arrest warrant, without bail, for the activists campaigning against it.

Students on campus want to know that clothes at the university have not been produced by a worker who has had suffer racist abuse and discrimination, so please do everything in your power to sign the University of Birmingham up to the workers rights consortium

Sincerely

Anna Lawton guild of students anti racism and anti fascism officer guild of students
and The University of Birmingham ARAF association