After years of supporting Levi Strauss & Co. with their labor, 1,150 seamstresses in San Antonio were laid off when the corporation left in 1990 for Costa Rica, where wages are lower and labor laws less stringent. In response, the garment workers--the majority of whom are Latina women--formed the group Fuerza Unida (United Force) to lead a boycott against the world's largest garment producer.
The closing of Levi's Zarzamorga San Antonio plant, which produced the "Dockers" line of clothing, left the seamstresses--many of whom had worked at the plant for their entire adult lives--without incomes, insurance, or employment options, and sent a ripple of hardship throughout the community. Families lost their homes and cars, had their utilities cut off, and experienced other domestic stresses related to unemployment, including divorce and depression. Levi Strauss & Co., on the other hand, posted a record $272.3 million in profits the year before the closing, much of it based on the success of the "Dockers" the women produced.
In addition to the boycott of Levi's products being led by the women of Fuerza Unida, they continue their struggle for fair compensation, retraining, corporate responsibility, and their pensions that disappeared with the Levi's plant. This past spring they organized a community tribunal and direct action at the Levi's headquarters in San Francisco. They have also opened a workers' assistance center in San Antonio to train other workers to recognize the early warning signs that a corporation is preparing to leave or shut down. "Our goal is to make an example of Levi's so that no other corporation will do what they did," said a Fuerza Unida spokesperson.
Thinking globally and acting locally, Fuerza Unida has become a leader in the grassroots opposition to the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Irene Reyna, one of the three coordinators of Fuerza Unida, has called the former-Levi's employees "the early victims of NAFTA." "NAFTA will only serve to transfer jobs overseas," she said.
Now, three years after the plant closure, Fuerza Unida's meetings still draw 50 to 100 people each week. While working to spread word of the Levi's boycott, Fuerza Unida maintains a food bank and a small seamstresses' cooperative to support the laid-off garment workers. The group is also organizing ESL (English-as-a-second-language) and GED (graduate equivalency diploma) courses to help their members better defend themselves and fight for the rights of all workers.
Timor: The Long Arm of Activism
The former Portuguese colony of East Timor seems a long way from the lives of many people in the United States. Yet for some, it has become an issue of critical importance that has been neglected for too long by socially conscious people of faith.
Invaded by Indonesia on the eve of its independence from Portugal in 1975, at least one third of East Timor's population--700,000 people--have been killed under Indonesian occupation since then. In November 1991, the tragedy in East Timor surfaced again after Indonesian soldiers shot and killed more than 100 Timorese participating in a funeral procession.
That massacre awoke many activists in the United States to the gravity of the situation in East Timor, and some began to search for ways to respond to the tragedy. One response was the formation of the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) by several Southeast Asian activists soon after the massacre. Charles Scheiner, Richard Koch, David Targan, John Miller, and others initially connected by posting notices about East Timor on computer bulletin boards.
Along with help from Maggie Helwig of the East Timor Alert Network in Canada, this core group of activists saw that people in the United States had to start taking action right away to bring about change in East Timor. "It was criminal that nobody was doing grassroots work around East Timor in the U.S.--it could be key to the solution," said Scheiner.
Since 1991, the East Timor Action Network has grown to more than 1,000 members and has active chapters throughout the United States. Though the organization functions entirely on donated labor and doesn't even have a permanent office, ETAN has been successful in helping convince Congress to terminate U.S. military aid to Indonesia and getting the Clinton administration to sign a U.N. resolution critical of Indonesia's human rights record in the region.
ETAN has also organized a U.S. speaking tour of Timorese activists in exile, produced a nationally broadcast half-hour TV program on the massacre in East Timor, and developed a worldwide system of computer conferencing that distributes current news and action ideas related to the island. In July, ETAN, along with ETAN/Canada, held the first Continental ETAN Congress on East Timor, which was attended by activists from around the country.
Aaron Gallegos was editorial assistant of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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