Printer friendly version Send this to a friend Sign up for email list Become a member

Order the Guide to Fair Trade Guide Get our Fair Trade guide to learn the latest on the expanding universe of Fair Trade products. Get the Guide »

APRIL 2009

Organizing Your Fair Trade Workplace

In the fall of 2005, Sharon Gerson, an English teacher at Cox-Athens High School in Coxsackie, New York, traveled to a social justice conference in nearby Troy. There, she heard a presentation by Dame Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, who explained why she supports cooperative workplaces in developing countries.

“Her stories really interested me,” says Gerson, “So, I bought a couple of her books, and I also picked up a book called A Campecito Story, about the development of a coffee cooperative in the Dominican Republic.”

The books piqued Gerson’s interest in fair trading systems, so the following spring when she noticed a Fair Trade table at the New York State United Teachers (NYSTU) conference, she strolled over to say hello and see what new information she might find. It was there that she learned about the “Border Witness” travel program of the New York Labor/Religion Coalition, which facilitates travel to the manufacturing centers of northern Mexico, for Americans to witness the working conditions there. Gerson discovered that NYSUT, the teachers’ union, would sponsor teachers to go on the trip through fellowships, so she signed up for a February 2007 trip.

“I had done some reading about the poor labor conditions there,” says Gerson, “But nothing could prepare me for what I would see on the border, witnessing the struggle of the Mexican people, what they have to deal with at work, and what their living conditions are like.”

Gerson met with workers in Matamoros who shared their stories about lack of safety conditions at the factories, sham inspections, the dumping of waste into waterways, and worse. She came back from the trip determined to make a difference for workers at the beginning of the supply chain.

Her first step was to put together a Power Point presentation about her trip, which she shared with her students, first with the Foreign Language Club, and then with the World of Difference Club, a social justice club that focuses on issues of labor abuse.

Involving the students led directly to some changes in the way the school does some things. The next time the sophomore class held a fundraiser, Gerson and another teacher helped them work with Fair Trade retailer Equal Exchange to host a Fair Trade fundraiser, a model which the World of Difference club replicated.

“They sold a ton of merchandise, bringing business to Fair Trade producers,” says Gerson. “The profit is great for them, and at the same time, they’re informing people about Fair Trade and justice issues.”

Gerson says her next step will be to work with the school on purchasing Fair Trade sports balls and fairly traded uniforms for the sports teams, and she said that the co-president of her teachers’ association has begun organizing bulk orders of Fair Trade items for staff members.

What’s more, she’s planning to go on another“Border Witness” trip in 2009 to Juarez, Mexico, and this time a student may accompany her. The next goal after that is to take an opposite sort of trip, and visit Fair Trade producers at the beginning of the supply chain, to compare the experience to her travels along the conventional supply chain.

“I’ll bring that information back too, and share it with my students,” says Gerson. “One of my goals in being an educator is to be a resource in my building for students needing information about fair labor and how to build fair trading systems. I’m like a sponge, and I’ll soak up as much as I can, and pass it along.”