DICE- Diversity, Inclusion, Community, & Equity
DICE– Diversity, Inclusion, Community, & Equity
We envision a community where human difference is affirmed and integrated into
the intellectual, personal, and professional development of all students.
My name is Jaylun Hutchison and I am a sophomore studying political science and communication studies. Last month, I had the opportunity to present at the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) 21st National Conference at Rutgers University. USAS was founded in 1997 and is the nation’s largest youth labor rights campaign organization. At Gonzaga, USAS functions as a club that meets weekly. There are over 150 USAS clubs nationwide. Using our unique leverage as students who attend colleges and universities with multimillion-dollar apparel programs, USAS seeks to hold international companies accountable that exploit workers on university campuses, in our communities, and in overseas factories where collegiate apparel is produced. The Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) is an independent labor monitoring organization founded in 2001 by student activists in USAS, with the intent of protecting factory workers around the world. USAS approaches social justice with two of the main pillars being collective liberation and solidarity. We are working towards collective liberation by educating students about the intersectionality of identity and social justice issues within the labor movement.
On the first day of the conference, I was surprised by how many people were in attendance. The sea of engaged White, Black, Brown, Latinx, and Asian faces was inspiring. The amount of time we spent working on future campaigns and hearing stories was proportional to the time we spent discussing the complexities of social identities. We discussed how our skin color, sexual orientation, religion, and gender identity impact our perspective, and by extension, our organizing. This attention to perspective and identity was reinforced by the caucuses held in the evening. These identity-based caucuses provided a space for release, freedom, and affirmation.
We had the opportunity to hear from five former garment workers, two from Los Angeles, California and three from the Dominican Republic. The workers who traveled from the Dominican Republic work at a factory called Alta-Gracia, which means “much high grace” in Spanish. Apparel corporations and college administrators insisted it was impossible to produce the school apparel in union factories that pay living wages; however, Alta-Gracia proved this wasn’t true. As the direct result of worker and student organizing for over a decade with USAS and fedotrazonas (the free trade zone union federation in the Dominican Republic), Alta Gracia is a groundbreaking factory that is monitored by the WRC. Maria and Blanca Gonzalez were garment workers for American Eagle in Los Angeles, California. They were not being paid a living wage and began organizing their peers. They left American Eagle and their organizing has taken them all over the country, speaking about the importance of student protestactivism to support workers’ rights.
Solidarity and collective liberation aligns with my personal values, the purpose of the Unity Multicultural Education Center (UMEC), and the mission of Gonzaga University. Students and garment workers are fighting side by side for the common good. Collective liberation recognizes that all of our struggles are intimately interconnected and that we must work together to create a socially just world. Solidarity is not the same as charity or pity. Charity does not challenge power relations, whereas a solidarity framework unites allies to fight systemic oppression towards a common goal. Following in the footsteps of labor rights activists that came before us, we strive to protect workers’ rights and human dignity.
On Tuesday, May 1, 2018, UMEC will host Gonzaga’s first Workers Appreciation Day, a breakfast event to honor the staff who feed our community members, clean our buildings, and maintain our beautiful grounds. Many of these employees work behind the scenes and outside the traditional class/office hours to make the campus ready for us each day. They provide an indelible service that often goes unrecognized. We would like to express our gratitude for the important role they play in our community.