Stop Selling VF Apparel at CU

Currently our producers are not held legally accountable for their factory's safety in Bangladesh. What’s worse is we are personally and directly enabling them; our Boulder Bookstore is supplying the fruits of borderline slave labor.

Do we want to take a stand to change that? I sincerely believe and hope that the answer is yes. 
If you agree please SIGN THE PETITION so that we can show our solidarity to Boulder's Administration.

Let’s React: Enforce Building Safety for our Factories

Leading up to, and specifically the day before the Rana Plaza catastrophe, there were unmistakable markers (such as severe cracking) on the illegally constructed factory that it was on the verge of collapse. Concerned as well as and unsuspecting workers were ordered to return to work the next day. Lacking the power and voice to resist, while facing the threat of losing their jobs and causing their families to starve, these men and women returned on April 24th 2013 to be subjected to the deadliest “accidental” structural failure. Ever. 

1,129 people were killed, 2,515 were left with horrendous injuries. I can’t even comprehend the PTSD these people are enduring. I think of the times a loved one of mine has passed before their time, and how many people were heartbroken, and how we all came together to support their family. Even with hundreds of people doing everything in their power to help, there’s no consolation for losing your child, your best friend, your sibling, your love.

The families of the garment workers who died in that factory don’t have this support. They were left with a broken community without any aid or compensation for over 6 months. But as we’ve seen with natural disasters here in the US, and the with the government’s (PEMA) response, sometimes aid for disasters is ill-prepared, belayed, and poorly proportioned. That’s the nature of the system. We’re reactionary. But if it is a reactionary society we live in, then please, let us react. Let’s prevent breaking this record and let’s exert the influence that we are blessed with. 

Sadly, we cannot rewrite the past. But these people who work producing the products that we utilize and purchase on a daily basis don’t have the power to catalyze a change. Their lives are in danger; yet they lack the tools or the voice to demand a safe building to work in. They go to work every day for 12hr shifts and pathetic pay, knowing that they may not come home. Knowing that they may be crippled or killed, leaving their families to starve. But what other choice do they have, go on strike and be promptly replaced? Well that is also signing their family’s death certificate.

There are 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh today that are victims of this unsolvable and desperate quandary. And what destroys me is that I am their employer. I will never forgive the companies that let me unknowingly and ignorantly send these 1,129 people to their deaths. But if we allow ourselves to remain in the bliss of the blind eye, we are not only tolerating, but actually causing the next inevitable factory catastrophe. 

5 months prior to the Rana Plaza collapse, a factory (producing Wal-Mart’s goods) went up in flames leaving 112 dead. If this was the escalation in 5 months, I am petrified with fear of what is to come. My point is: That only we—we the people blessed enough to have Microsoft Word, the Internet, Facebook—have the ability to save these lives.

Our producers are testing us, seeing how much atrocity we are capable of ignoring/tolerating. Like a child testing their baby sitter. The more we will let slide, the more irresponsible they can -and will- be. 

These blatant human rights violations will, one day, inevitably hit a breaking point where we will not be able to ignore them any longer. It will start effecting people we know personally. And we will be forced to pressure our producers to completely change their business model. Either we will fail and the world will regress into times of straight up slavery, an extreme social hierarchy, classism, and racism… or the corporations will be forced to abide by our demands, which will most likely cause them to go bankrupt, and in turn our economy will take a nose dive.

If we're going to have to stand up for this cause at one point or another, please, let's not procrastinate. Cause we're not losing a percent on our grade with time passing, we're losing people’s lives and our respectability. It's easy to compartmentalize and depersonalize horrors that are so unfathomable and far away. Don't let yourself take that easy way out. 

We must remind ourselves that we as human kind are all 99.9% identical to one another. We have a responsibility to our human family. Let's make things better and easier for our future selves, and take action now. Let’s define our nation's character in the global eye by utilizing the power and weight out voices carry. 

When I travel abroad, I want to be able to be proud of the USA. When I rock my American flag shorts, I want a passerby's compliment to come from a place of respect for our Great Nation's dignity, not just a place of fashion sense. 

The victims of this atrocity, our employees, whose lives are in danger at this very moment, implore you, to please take the honorable route. Make the choice we can be proud of, define our Country's character so our kids can wear our flag with honor and know that Red White and Blue stand for integrity. Information and education are heaped upon us, but it is up to us to use our resources.

We are requesting:

1. That CU-Boulder cut ties with VF Corporation, one of the worst abusers of workers’ rights in Bangladesh until they agree to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Find online at: http://www.bangladeshaccord.org/
2. That CU-Boulder join peer institutions with bookstores run by Barnes and Noble by sourcing a large percentage of the store from Alta Gracia, a living-wage union-made apparel option.

Read the appeal we will present to CU’s President at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3iIz7LPGtKKYThHT2pLb0lPNHM/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you so much if you actually took the time to read all this (Mom)

I’ll leave you with some wise words from Mr. Mandela

For to be Free is not merely to cast off one's chains,

But to live in a way that respects and enhances the Freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela.

Natalie Johnston. Concerned CU Boulder student.