A few years back I read about sweatshops and felt sick to my stomach. It's really horrible...beyond what you might imagine. Activists trying to organize unions go "missing", workers dying on the job, workers forced to urinate at the work table, the list goes on. These are the extremes, but they happen often enough because greed and power are the number one causes of all our problems. The other things that happen are people getting fired, workers getting paid significantly below the poverty wage, and so forth. (You can read about it on your own at GlobalExchange.org.) The answer to that 'so what?' in your head is: "Poverty is the worst form of violence." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Poverty wages sets off a chain of events which touch everyone on earth. It not only is violent, it breeds violence, bad health, bad dental care, poor nutrition, and the list goes on. Can you see how that effects all of us?

I am a member of Co-op America and Sweatshop Watch as well as a CafePress shopkeeper. In my store I only offer the third party verified fair labor American Apparel clothing products -- there are no exceptions. Thankfully, Cafepress offers several options. This allows me to follow my heart and I'm grateful.

It is my goal, and I hope yours too, to effectively persuade Cafepress to offer black and dark color shirts, as well as more organic styles made by American Apparel. American Apparel is a company who is in California (where CP is located), who is able to meet the demand, but most importantly, it's a company who pays well, has benefits, produces excellent apparel, and is open anyone who wants to inspect their facilities and interview their employees. It's not union run, but, as one Global Exchange employee said to me, "It is an exemplary company." American Apparel also makes their clothing in the USA (not in some place in Saipan where the garment is labeled USA but is made in sweatshop conditions).

So please, please, sign this petition and send it to everyone!

Read more here:

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/1262.html

http://www.business-humanrights.org/Categories/Individualcompanies/S/SaraLee
http://www.she-net.com/nosweat/hanessweatshops.htm

"Be the change you wish to see reflected in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King, Jr.