LCHR's Response To Nonprofit Watch's Report As Posted To the Listserv of United Students Against Sweatshops

Subject:
[USAS] REPLY TO ALL: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights Response to the Report of Nonprofit Watch
Date:
Thu, 6 Apr 2000 14:52:08 -0400
From:
Jobina Jones <JonesJ@LCHR.ORG>
To:
"'usas@listbot.com'" <usas@listbot.com>

U.S.A.S. - http://www.umich.edu/~sole/usas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jobina Jones
> Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 2:34 PM
> To: 'usas@listbot.com'
> Subject: Please Distribute to your listserv: Lawyers Committee for
> Human Rights Response to the Report of Nonprofit Watch
> Importance: High
>
>
>
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights Response to the Report of
Nonprofit Watch

* LCHR's Role in Addressing violations of Workers Rights
In its 22 years of operations, the Lawyers Committee has
built a reputation of independence and integrity. Consistent with a
commitment to promote labor rights as human rights, the Lawyers Committee
has criticized corporations, including several members of the FLA, for
practices that violate workers rights. We will continue to do so in the
future.

* LCHR involvement in the Fair Labor Association and Apparel Industry
Partnership
For the last three and a half years, the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights has been actively involved in creating the Fair Labor
Association (FLA), a new non-profit organization aimed at protecting the
rights of apparel and footwear workers worldwide. The FLA Charter Agreement
creates a first of a kind industry-wide code of conduct and monitoring
system to reduce the scourge of sweatshop labor both in the US and abroad.

Our continuing participation in the FLA is based on our own
commitment to hold companies accountable to internationally recognized labor
rights standards. We, along with five other NGO's, will assume a seat on
the FLA Board and continue our role as an advocate for workers' rights. We
have also played a significant role in establishing an FLA NGO Advisory
council which currently has the support of 18 human rights, labor, consumer,
religious representatives from both the US and abroad. We believe the FLA
is an innovative model for empowering workers and NGO's to work together
with labor and corporations to improve factory conditions. For more
information see: www.fairlabor.org.

* LCHR's Funding Sources
Nonprofit Watch asserts that the LCHR has experienced "a
specific increase in apparel industry companies donating to the group since
the formation of the Apparel Industry Partnership." It goes on to charge
that "This coincides with a doubling of the general corporate contributions
to LCHR, quite likely in part from the sweatshop sector."

While the Lawyers Committee receives financial support from
a few apparel companies, FLA members contribute less than 1% to the Lawyers
Committee's annual operating budget. Contrary to the assertion of a
"doubling of general corporate contributions to the LCHR", corporate
contributions have declined since 1996, both in actual amount received and
as a percentage of its annual budget.