Archdiocese of Newark follows up on Sweatshop Campaign In its continuing battle against the injustice of sweatshops and child labor, officials from the Archdiocese of Newark met with a group of vendors who supply uniforms for the Archdiocesan Schools on Tuesday, February 8, 2000. Archdiocesan representatives Rev. Msgr. John Gilchrist, labor liaison for the Archdiocese, Sr. Dominica Roccio, S.C., Superintendent of Schools and Kay Furlani, Director of Human Concerns, met with 12 vendors who supply uniforms for the Archdiocese. "Since the implementation of the Sweatshop Initiative in the Archdiocese of Newark, we have met yearly with the uniform vendors in an effort to assure that Catholic school uniforms are not made in sweatshops or by child labor," said Furlani. Uniform vendors were informed the of the program's growth. Other dioceses in the country are now starting their own sweatshop campaigns, and have begun discussing with their Catholic schools' uniform vendors to assure that they too are in compliance with efforts to provide non-sweatshop clothing for the schools. The vendors at the meeting have all been approved to sell uniforms for the 2000-2001 school year, and have been placed on the list of approved vendors. A certificate of compliance will be issued from the Archdiocese of Newark stating that the vendor who holds the certificate does not use sweatshop labor. The Sweatshop Initiative began in the Archdiocese of Newark in1996, when an increased knowledge of sweatshops in the city of Newark, and its surrounding region, exposed their illegal activities. Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Newark, and Msgr. Gilchrist decided it was necessary to bring local attention to sweatshops in the Archdiocese and create a public opposition of the injustice in their town. At a press conference in October 1997, Archbishop McCarrick, joined by United States Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, UNITE (a garment workers' union) Executive Vice President Bruce Raynor, and Fred Lopez, Deputy Commissioner of the NJ State Department of Labor, launched the Sweatshop Initiative, beginning a twofold campaign. The two components of the initiative were a consumer action program and a learning module supplied to the Archdiocesan schools to teach students in grades seven through 12 about labor issues and the injustice of sweatshops. As a direct result of the initiative, students have developed an awareness of sweatshops and the abuse of child labor, and the affects of it their lives. Students say they now ask a store employee how their products were made, and will not by that brand if it manufactures its product in a sweatshop or by child labor.
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