Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
The Internat'l Day of Action Against the Gap IS HERE!!!
Posted by Mary Bull (chalicenew@earthlink.net)
Saturday, December 1, 2001
PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
To: All media Date: 12/1/01
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
****FIGHT TERRORISM: BECOME A CONSUMER OF CONSCIENCE***
****Over 200 protests at Gap stores world-wide****
>Giant clothesline denounces Fisher logging, Gap sweatshops at SF Protest<
>Union of Concerned Santas leads drum parade & song-fest for global justice <
>December 1, 2001, 12 Noon, Powell & Geary, Union Square, SF <
With Gap Inc posting a $179 million loss this quarter, the last thing the flailing retail giant needs is an international boycott breathing down its neck, but the three-year-old campaign is stronger than ever and growing, asserts Mary Bull, Coordinator of the Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign, “When we launched the Gap Boycott on Nov 27, 1998, we had protests in 44 cities across the US--for this year’s anniversary event, people have signed up to do over 200 actions across the US, Canada, and the UK. Our network is now nearly 1500 strong, including activists in Japan, Amsterdam, France, Switzerland, and Brazil. And we’re just one of many groups determined to mobilize public pressure to stop the extremely exploitative practices of Gap Inc and the Fisher family who controls it.”
“The pressure is definitely mounting on the Fishers and the Gap to change their policies in the forest, where they are destroying the last of the redwood ecosystem on 235,000 acres, and in the factory, where they use sweatshop labor to make their clothes,” stated Mark Hilovsky, a Bay Area general contractor and anti-Gap activist, “Not only has the Gap been losing money for two years, they also just lost their motion to dismiss the class-action lawsuit filed against them and other retailers in January 1999 on behalf of sweatshop workers on Saipan. On top of that, the Fishers are currently the target of an environmental sign-on letter denouncing the phony green-label certification that they bought last fall for their redwood logging operations on 235,000 acres in Northern California.”
“The Fishers’ logging company, Mendocino Redwood, continues to violate the rulings of two judges in cases brought by environmental groups, and has filed over 60 new logging plans in 2001, representing a 150% increase in the total area of logging over the previous owner, Louisiana Pacific. When are we going to get even minimal compliance with the law from this so-called ‘green label’ logging company?” asked Mary Pjerrou, President of the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance, a public-benefit non-profit, based in Mendocino County, California.
“Given world events, we want to help shoppers connect the dots between consumerism and terrorism,” Bull said, “Our message is, For lasting security, help end the global injustice and planetary destruction that cause misery, famine, resentment, terrorism, and war by becoming Consumers of Conscience. It’s our manic and indiscriminate consumerism that fuels corporate exploitation, from sweatshops to deforestation. Don't underestimate the power of your shopping dollar to change unjust corporate policies. For redwoods and workers, boycott Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy.”
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