Model Union Motion

Union Branch resolution: Sweatshop Labour

1. Child and sweatshop labour is a scandal.

2. Some of the high street's most famous names, including Nike, Gap, Adidas and Reebok, have been exposed by the newspapers, and TV programmes such as Panorama and John Pilger's The New Rulers, as sweatshop employers.

3. Children as young as 11 have been found working in scandalous conditions in factories commissioned by these companies to produce their goods.

4. A single top or pair of trainers can cost more to buy in the UK than the worker who produced them receives in a month. The average wage for a Nike worker in Vietnam is just $47 a month.

5. According to the US National Labor Committee, Phil Knight, co-founder of the Nike corporation, is worth $12.3 billion.

6. Forced overtime, sexual abuse, poor health and safety conditions and violence and harassment, especially against trade unionists, have been uncovered by reporters and trade union and Government investigators.

7. No Sweat Scotland campaigns in Scotland and the UK, with other campaigning groups and unions, to end child and sweatshop labour and for workers' rights at home and abroad.

8. Workers in sweatshops must be free to organise their own, independent trade unions. Codes of conduct mean nothing unless the workers themselves can enforce standards such as a limit to the working week, no forced overtime, decent health and safety.

This Union Resolves To:

1. Invite a No Sweat Scotland speaker to our next meeting.

2. Affiliate to No Sweat Scotland

3. Publicise the work of No Sweat Scotland