International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - ISWoR Actions against GAP

On June 18 a top Gap outlet in Oxford St , London was inundated with phone calls from people protesting at the conditions of workers in russia who sew for Gap at rates as low as 11 US cents/hour.

Our campaign in London was originally planned mainly as a phone blitz, as we did not want to pull people away from the City of London. However when we discoveed that due to a misunderstanding a press release had gone out widely informing people that we would be at Oxford St shop all day, we felt it necessary to organise a small-scale action at the last minute.

Small labels describing the working conditions in Russia were inserted by protesters all through the stock of clothes, causing disruption, despite the shop's security plan and police presence. Afterwards customers were leafletted with information about Gap's role as they went in. We found some of the shopworkers sympathetic and receptive to our message.

ISWoR members were proud to march alongside the thousands of protesters who descended on the City, the source (along with other financial and business centres in the west), of much of the misery of Russian workers. A banner was carried which proclaimed a simple message: 'Gap screws Russian workers!'

In San Francisco five-to-six hundred protesters marched against globalised capitalist exploitation. ISWoR plastered the Mission district with our 'Don't Fall for the Crap' posters explaining how Gap exploits Russian workers.

Gap became a major target of the SF protesters, who halted outside their flagship store to hear horrendous tales of sweatshop workers conditions while a stiltwalker pied a giant puppet of GAP Chief Executive Officer Donald Fischer. However, our focus on Russia was lost to some extent in the general protest against Gap's activities worldwide. (Gap's headquarters are in San Francisco, which is home to an active and ongoing anti-Gap campaign.) We fully solidarise and support the struggles of Gap-workers in Saipan, Latin America and the many other areas where this company has set up their slave conditions, and we are grateful to the activists from Global Exchange and other groups who worked to promote our message in San Francisco on June 18. However, we still insist that workers internationally must pay special attention to the situation of workers in Russia, because we firmly believe that the outcome of the current crisis there will have an impact on every single one of us. Russia is still the world's second nuclear nation.

International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - ISWoR
Box R,
46 Denmark Hill
London SE5 8RZ
email: antek5@aol.com