It was late last week when Manuel and Julio, union leaders at a textile factory in the Dominican Republic, rushed into their factory office and shouted triumphantly, “We got our visas!” Days later, the two men boarded a plane to the United States to speak at universities along the East Coast about the poor working conditions—verbal abuse, low wages, unpaid overtime and discrimination—they experience as laborers in Dominican sweatshops.
This story was recounted by Jheanelle Brown (SFS ‘10), one of fifteen students who were able to meet these and other laborers as they traveled to the Dominican Republic over spring break. The purpose of the trip was for the students who are all taking the student-run class “Sweatshops at Home and Abroad”—to meet and interact with the factory laborers they have spent this past semester studying.
“We met in the offices of factory workers and were able to build relationships with them,” Ashwini Jaisingh (COL ‘08) said. Students spent much of their time getting to know union workers at the TOS Dominicana factory, which is owned by Hanes and produces clothing that is sold in Georgetown’s bookstore. Although largely restricted to observing the factories from the outside, students saw one closed-down factory that, in the face of a strong union campaign, transferred its business to Bangladesh, leaving over 2,000 unemployed.
“People were struggling over there, but they have so much pride that they don’t talk about their struggles in a concrete way,” Brown said. “They’ll talk about what they face in the workplace, but also what they’re doing about it.”
A student initiative, the trip stemmed from “Sweatshops at Home and Abroad,” the first class in Georgetown’s history to be entirely organized and run by students. A brainchild of Jaisingh, Chessa Gross (COL ‘10), Jack Mahoney (SFS ‘08) and Sara Wallace-Keeshen (SFS ‘08), the four-credit class gained support from the Anthropology Department in 2007.
The class’s faculty sponsor, Professor Denise Brennan, does not attend the weekly lectures, leaving the students in charge of leading discussions, peer-reviewing essays and scheduling midterms.
After handling all of the fundraising necessary to get them to the Dominican Republic, including a successful dance party during GU Solidarity Week, the students joined forces with the larger organization, United Students Against Sweatshops to make their trip a reality.
Due to the efforts of USAS, Manuel and Julio are coming to Georgetown to speak tonight in the Leavey Center.
“This shows how students have been able to use their own leverage to help create pressure for change,” Jaisingh said. “With this course, we were just looking for a way to bring our activist and classroom experiences together.”
