UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
Five Gateway Center
Pittsburgh PA 15222

May 14, 2000

To: All Steelworkers
From: George Becker
Subject: A Message From Pittsburgh

Rapid Response Overall Letter writing results. It’s been an incredible performance and I want to thank all of you who have contributed so much to making it such a success. As of this date reports indicate that our Local Union Rapid Response Teams have generated over 252,000 letters to Congress opposing permanent normal trade relations with China.

Nike retaliates. Student groups, seeking to counter sweatshop conditions in other countries, created the Worker Rights Coalition (WRC) to monitor conditions in factories where clothing sold with university logos is manufactured. As a result of sit-ins and other actions this spring, 47 colleges and universities have agreed to join the WRC. Now Nike has decided to retaliate. It has cancelled multi-million dollar grants and contracts with the University of Oregon, Brown University and the University of Michigan. To their credit, those institutions have refused to buckle under the pressure.

PNTR for China – One Last Week To Turn Up the Heat Before the Vote. You may have noticed that media attention has picked up. Two Steelworker events have gotten particular attention. One involves Rubbermaid bathmats that were signed in petition fashion by the members of Ohio Local 302L and delivered to the offices of Republican Congressman Ralph Regula and Democrat Tom Sawyer. The message: bathmat production is being moved to foreign locations. The other event is a 24 hour a day campout which begins today in front of the offices of Alabama Democratic Congressman Bud Cramer. The campout will be the project of Steelworkers and other labor people, environmentalists, students and religious groups.

There are a lot of other Rapid Response teams throughout the country implementing activities – like the Goodyear local delivering springs to a Congressional office to underline the job loss, the family photos being mailed into Illinois Republican Congressman Weller’s office stressing the human side of this issue, a mock wedding ceremony marrying the government of China with the corporate power structure in front of Indiana Democratic Congressman Roemer’s office, students doing a scavenger hunt at Wallmart to find goods made in China, fliers being passed out at churches with requests that the congregations call their representative, faxes from children to their Congressperson stressing the child labor issue. Families are passing out fliers and demonstrating, petitions are being delivered and calls are being made from cell phones in plants.