News Briefs: Friday, December 10, 1999

City Council supports sweatshop activists The resolution, introduced by Council member David Cohen, calls on schools to join the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent monitoring body that uses human-rights groups to monitor factory conditions in countries where apparel is produced. "It is outrageous that students, knowing that their universities are complicit in sweatshop abuses, cannot wear their university clothing with pride," Cohen said. He added that he was "proud that the Philadelphia City Council is now unanimously on record supporting students in their efforts to get colleges and universities to join the Worker Rights Consortium and thus end this moral travesty." The resolution also urges schools to reject the Fair Labor Association, which has been widely criticized for hiding sweatshop abuse. "We're elated -- we put so much work into this," said College freshman Anna Roberts, a member of Penn's chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops. "This is a real boost to the labor movement." The Philadelphia City Council is the first in the U.S. to pass a resolution in support of the efforts of USAS. -- Dana Klinek