Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
"We'd Rather Wear Nothing Than Wear Gap!" PRESS RELEASE
Posted by Mary Bull (chalicenew@earthlink.net)
Monday, October 11, 1999
PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
From: Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign
Contact persons:
Mary Bull - National Coordinator
(415) 731-7924 - chalicenew@earthlink.net
Mary Pjerrou - Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance - (707) 877-3405 -
pirohuck@mcn.org
For further information: www.elksoft.com/gwa
To: All media Date: 10/11/99
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ACTIVISTS TO STRIP FOR THE REDWOODS
AND WORKERS' RIGHTS
"We'd Rather Wear Nothing Than Wear Gap"
Kick-off for Zap-the-Gap Week
o Anti-logging & anti-sweatshop protest Oct. 16, 12:00, San Francisco -
the Gap at Powell & Market (parade at 11:30 starting at Geary & Powell,
Union Square)
o Rally 1:00 Union Square: "Land of the Blind" tribal trance (also Oct. 16)
o Sweatshop Fashion Show by Global Exchange-opening of Old Navy store, Oct.
20 (4th & Market)
As the rape of the north coast redwood forest continues to profit the
billionaire Fisher family of Gap, Inc., and as the Gap persists in its use
of sweatshop labor in the Mariana Islands, activists with a sense of humor
will strip their clothing off in front of the Gap flagship store in San
Francisco (at Powell and Market) at 12 noon on Saturday, October 16, and
will continue the entertainment at the Fishers' Banana Republic store
(Sutter & Grant), to demonstrate to one and all that "We'd Rather Wear
Nothing Than Wear Gap."
Festivities at this kickoff of Zap-the-Gap week will include a
parody of the latest Gap ad, "Can't get enough, can't get enough, can't get
enough of you," with new lyrics, "Can't get enough, can't get enough, can't
get enough...money!" Ten cubes will dance to the music with nothing on but
their...cubes--while others face the cool October breeze with...well...come
and see for yourself.
"We've tried everything to get the Fishers to stop clearcutting old
growth, to stop using herbicides and to stop their other disgusting forest
practices," said Mary Bull, head of the Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
campaign. "Now we're going to show how strongly we feel about boycotting
the Gap!"
In solidarity with the Save the Redwoods campaign, Global Exchange,
a San Francisco-based human rights organization, will be voicing their
concern for sweatshop abuses in Gap factories.
"As Gap executives make up to $24,000 an hour, workers sewing
clothes for Gap in Saipan make only $3.03 per hour," said Leila Salazar,
Corporate Accountability Organizer of Global Exchange. "They work up to 12
hours a day, 7 days a week. They are denied the most basic human rights
and live in overcrowded, unsanitary housing, surrounded by barbed wire. We
are pressuring Gap Inc. to pay their workers a living wage and treat them
with dignity!"
Global Exchange has filed lawsuits with current and former garment workers,
Sweatshop Watch, Asian Law Caucus and UNITE. The Gap is part of a list of
companies that have refused to improve conditions for the thousands of
people who are living as indentured slaves sewing Gap clothes in Saipan.
The companies that have agreed to improve worker conditions are Ralph
Lauren, Phillips-Van Heusen, Brylane L.P., Donna Karan International and
The Dress Barn Inc., along with earlier settlers Nordstrom Inc., J. Crew
Group >Inc., Cutter & Buck Inc. and Gymboree Corp.
"Gap Inc. should follow the lead of these retailers and settle the
lawsuit. We will continue to pressure Gap Inc. until it respects worker's
rights, " said Salazar.
In addition to reaping the profits of sweatshop labor, the Fishers
are also enriching themselves by logging the very last old growth trees,
clearcutting redwoods and harming endangered species in Mendocino and
Sonoma Counties, on 235,000 acres of cutover Louisiana Pacific (L-P) forest
lands that they purchased last year.
"The Fishers' logging company, Mendocino Redwood, is completing the
Louisiana Pacific liquidation logging program," stated Mary Pjerrou of the
Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance, who will be speaking at the October 16
protest.
"L-P was the most notorious forest liquidator in northern
California-until now. This year the Fishers will log one third more
acreage than L-P-according to California Department of Forestry documents.
The coho salmon is on the verge of extinction and still they keep
clearcutting."
The Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance is prosecuting four public
interest lawsuits against Fisher logging plans, and recently won a stay of
logging on a huge Fisher clearcut upstream from the only documented coho
salmon in a 150 square mile region.
Pjerrou believes the Fishers' motive is real estate speculation.
"You can't tell me that these savvy billionaires purchased Louisiana
Pacific's raked over forests to start a sustainable logging company,"
Pjerrou said. Pjerrou cited a recently announced plan by another logging
company, Coastal Forest Lands, to convert 10,000 acres of cutover redwood
forests into vineyards. "This is the trend in Mendocino County," Pjerrou
stated. "The Fishers' timber inventory is not much better than CFL's."
The Zap-the-Gap parade starts at 11:30 at the corner of Powell and
Geary, Union Square, with a drum march to the Gap at Powell and Market,
where activists will strip for the redwoods and workers' right, with a
further protest action at the Fishers' Banana Republic store on Sutter and
Grant, then back to Union Square for the tribal trance music of Land of the
Blind, songs by Sam Johnston and rousing speeches.
Zap-the-Gap week will include a protest demonstration by Global
Exchange at the opening of the Fishers' flagship Old Navy store at 4th and
Market Streets, on Wednesday, October 20, featuring a sweatshop fashion
show, neighborhood leafletting on Saturday, October 23, and an all week
campaign to get Gap customers to cut the labels from their Gap clothes and
send them to the Fisher family to protest the Fishers redwood logging and
Gap sweatshops.
- 30 --
For questions and comments please e-mail us!
Return to the GWA main page
All pages designed and coded by ElkSoft Web Design
Copyright 1999 Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap.
