"Getting back to a new normal"

I am writing in response to Professor David Boje's efforts on the NMSU

campus to set up an NMSU chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops in

order to increase awareness of the treatment of workers in sweatshops in

foreign countries.  Like Professor Boje, I conduct research in Mexico.  My

research is with women weavers in Chiapas who work at home on back-strap

looms. Their realities are very different from women factory workers at the

Kudong apparel factory in Atlixo, Mexico where Prof. Boje has visited.  But

like the women at Kudong, the weavers in Chiapas want dignified work that

enables them to earn a living wage.  Women in both places want to be free

from verbal, emotional and physical abuse in the workplace.  Women in both

places have met strong resistance from their government and foreign

corporations to their basic human rights. 

Shopping and spending have become such basic rights in the U.S. that most

of us don't think much about the human being behind the T-shirt, dress or

shoes we buy.  I am guilty of this at times.  But seeing poor women workers

in Mexico as trying to survive with dignity just like myself, has made me

concerned about how our buying practices at home affect workers abroad.  In

his Roundup editorial, Dr. Boje pointed out the advantages to poor women

workers of NMSU joining the Workers Rights Consortium. This organization

dispatches faculty and student delegations to work with non-governmental

and religious organizations to monitor factories and interview workers.  To

date NMSU has been a member of the Fair Labor Association whose

representatives are not distinguishable from the corporate owners.   It is

doubtful that women workers who are afraid to lose their jobs or of

reprisals will speak about abuses to men they think may be working for

sweatshop owners.   NMSU could take an important step toward justice by

joining the WRC.

I suggest that taking a stand for justice here at home might be a path back

to a new "normal" life in the wake of the tragic events of September 11th.

Like most Americans I know, I am struggling to get back to "normal" in

response to our president's urging. But in the process I have been

wondering exactly what "normal" is.  Contemplating the question has made me

even more critical than I was in the past about "normal" being equated with

spending more time in the malls buying things that some ad has convinced me

that I need to have, or flying away to a far off place on an exotic

vacation.   I still believe that Americans deserve their hard-earned

vacations.  But I believe that one path back to normal might be to take a

more critical look at these activities in the context of what is normal

about women being abused in the workplace and of millions of children in

the world going hungry or without clothes because their parents don't make

a living wage.  Perhaps one way back to normal might be to imagine a "new

normal" life for all people everywhere based on a living wage and dignity

in the workplace.  If you are interested in creating a "new normal" that we

can all be proud of, help make NMSU the 201st university to adopt strict

codes of conduct for purchasing and licensing apparel. Please contact Prof.

Boje at dboje@nmsu.edu for more information about how you can be involved.