The Canadian Labour Congress launched a "No Sweat" initiative to mobilize against the physical and psychological abuses of workers and repeated violations of basic worker rights that are committed by employers in sweatshops around the world.

The No Sweat campaign will involve internationals, local unions and members in winning procurement agreements at the national, provincial, city and plant levels that reject apparel and equipment made abroad and in Canada that does not meet workers' rights and living wage and benefit standards. The CLC is urging locals to get employers to sign these agreements for uniforms, shoes, and other employer-provided workplace equipment.

In letters to affiliates and labor councils, CLC Pres. Kenneth V. Georgetti said: "It is no longer a secret that companies such as Nike, Disney, The Gap, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Liz Claiborne, and many others have their products made in sweatshops in order to maximize their profits. In Canada every day, thousands of workers wear uniforms and clothing made either by non-unionized labor or in sweatshops."

The CLC provided examples of the struggles of workers around the world to win decent living standards from employers. According to the CLC:

• Cambodian garment workers make $40 a month sewing clothes for Gap Inc. They are requesting $60 a month to meet their families' basic human needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, and education. In contrast, Gap Chief Executive Officer Millard Drexler was paid $47.1 million in 1998, the CLC noted.

• Mexican jean makers in Tehuacan make so little that families are forced to send their children to work in garment factories.

• In China, most workers make less than $1 a day. Most Chinese toy factories do not allow independent trade unions.

• Starbucks pays their coffee growers poverty prices. In Guatemala, less than 4 percent of the coffee plantations even have schools.

• In Saipan, a U.S. territory, Asian immigrant women work under a system of independent servitude. Many of the 45,000 workers live in unsanitary barracks behind barbed wire where they sew clothes 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for retailers like The Gap, Wal-Mart, Sears, J.C. Penny, Tommy Hilfiger, and The Limited.

• In Canada, Venator (formerly Woolworth) is being sued by UNITE for violating homeworkers' rights.

• Wal-Mart, the "Sweatshop Retailer of the Year" has been caught buying and selling clothes made in Burma, a country noted for its ruthless military rulers and for its use of cheap sweatshop labor to finance repression.