In the winter semester of 2003, geography students tracking the source of Mount Allison logo clothing as a course assignment uncovered evidence that some of it may have been produced in Mexican sweatshops, unbeknownst to the local supplier. This exercise, and a subsequent class interview with Dr. Robert Ross, Professor of Labour Sociology at Clark University, inspired a group of students to learn more about sweatshops - specifically Mount Allison's purchasing policy.

The MTA No Sweat Coalition was formed. Our mission is to promote an ethical purchasing policy within Mount Allison University as well as raising public awareness about the social injustice involved in producing most consumer and commodity goods. Social injustice in these terms includes but is not limited to forced overtime, gendered work, anti-unionism, harassment, unsafe working environment, poverty wages, etc.

Our plan of action began with educating ourselves, the MTA campus, and the Sackville community at large on international labour issues. In January of 2004, we hosted a teach-in which attracted over 100 students from MTA and other Atlantic universities as well as town residents. Panelled discussions were entitled "On Taking Action: The University within the Community" (which included business owners and Town Council members), "Exploited Labour: Social Evil or Economic Necessity?" (featuring students, economists, geographers, and labour organizers), and finally a workshop and plenary session on co-ordinating a No-Sweat Campaign as coordinated by Bertrand Begin (CLC No-Sweat Campaign Co-ordinator). Besides beginning to educate ourselves on the topics, this teach-in both created community solidarity for the no sweat movement and made us sensitive to the complexity of the issues at hand (ie. in choosing one factory over another, are we putting workers out of work?).

Since then we've broadened our scope to look at the international dimensions of textiles and trade. In November of 2004 one member of our group, Frances Ross, travelled to Guatemala for ten days with STITCH, an American women's labour organizing NGO that supports labour organizing in the textile and banana industries in Latin America. There she met with women organizing labour unions, in community labour support groups, and met workers recently fired from their factories when their labour-organizing efforts were uncovered. This experience both reaffirmed the actions we were taking in approaching the exploited labour issue from the production ('buycott' not boycott) side, and provided excellent access on the international level to the labour-organizing network (ie. we have direct contacts to the American labour movement, and Guatemalan STECSA union leaders > the Guatemala City Coca Cola bottling factory that took over their factory in the late 70s/early 80s, behind whom an international solidarity-slam Cok e campaign ensued).

In looking forward, we are now beginning the process of re-writing/ammending our MTA purchasing policy to bring in fair-labour/fair-trade standards. In deciding how to approach making changes to the policies, we are looking at other universities ethical purchasing policies for ideas. Contact us with yours!