[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 39 (Thursday, April 7, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E580-E581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              VERMONT STUDENTS WORK TO END SWEATSHOP LABOR

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, April 6, 2005

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to celebrate the remarkable work 
done by the young Vermonters who participate in the Child Labor 
Education and Action group at Brattleboro Union High School. CLEA is a 
student-run group dedicated to community education around issues of 
sweatshop labor in the developing world. It examines the dark and 
inhumane side of globalization, doing extensive research and traveling 
to amass the real story on what globalization means for low-income 
workers who toil in third-world sweatshops. The students then take what 
they learn and share it with their community in a variety of ways. They 
have also organized student groups throughout Vermont to address the 
problems with global sweatshops.
  Four years ago, over 20 CLEA members traveled to Guatemala to build a 
school. Last year, 13 CLEA members went to Nicaragua to learn about the 
effect of international trace policies on labor conditions in that 
country. Let me cite a brief report from one of those travelers, Sarah 
Maceda-Maciel:

       When our plane touched down in Managua, our bags might have 
     been stuffed with light cotton shirts and water bottles, but 
     our heads were filled with numbers like 90,000--the number of 
     Nicaraguan children who are not in school. Or 70 percent, the 
     amount of Nicaraguans who live on less than two dollars a 
     day. Or 6 billion dollars, the sum that Nicaragua has 
     accumulated in foreign debt.
       We found the harsh realities of life in the third world. 
     There is something profoundly different between knowing that 
     children are hungry and learning that eight year old children 
     sniff glue to dull the knife of starvation. There is 
     something profoundly different between knowing that maternity 
     leave is not offered in sweatshops and learning that pregnant 
     women are forced to work so hard that they end up having 
     miscarriages in factory bathrooms.

  The students returned from their trip determined to make a difference 
in how Americans view the harsh realities occasioned by free trade. In 
the words of Katherine Nopper, another CLEA member, ``Within our school 
we hope to engage and inform our classmates on the issues of child 
labor, free trade, fair trade, and what it means to be part of a sweat-
free campaign. And we will continue to present our message to other 
area schools.''
  This past year CLEA students have helped with the publication of a 
remarkable book, Challenging Child Labor: Education and Youth Action to 
Stop the Exploitation of Children. Several of the contributors are 
present and former CLEA members; other contributors include Senator Tom 
Harkin, Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee, Kailash 
Satyarthi of the Global March Against Child Labor, and Upala Devi 
Banerjee of the U.N. Development Fund for Women.
  I admire the work CLEA does, and am continually impressed, year in 
and year out, by the dedication of these young people to making the 
world a better place. They see the whole world as their province; they 
also realize that speaking to their peers in school, speaking to the 
larger community in southern Vermont, is part of the struggle to create 
a world in which justice has a higher value than profit. These students 
represent what is best about American youth, just as their advisor, Tim 
Kipp, represents what is best about American teachers.
  Combining learning with service, the international with the local, 
passion for justice with the willingness to work hard to achieve 
justice, the members of CLEA serve as a model, a

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shining beacon, for what high school students can accomplish.

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