006. Group or mass petitions

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) was founded in 1967 by Baldemar Velasquez as a labor group that would allow farm workers to stand up for their rights. The FLOC fought to improve the working conditions for farmworkers who were having their rights ignored while being mistreated and underpaid in the fields. In addition to being paid at a very low level, leaving many farmworkers living below the national poverty level, farmworkers’ health conditions were very poor.

In February of 1999, members of the Progressive Activist Network (PAN) at Penn joined with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) chapters at other Ivy League universities in an anti-sweatshop campaign by sending a joint letter to their university presidents. The letter requested a response by March 8, 1999, from University President Judith Rodin and seven other Ivy League university presidents, (excluding Dartmouth’s,) to four demands regarding the possible use of sweatshops in school-insignia apparel production.

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States gained momentum in the 1960’s with campaigns and demonstrations taking place throughout the country. Following the success of the 1963 campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, and the strong leadership of that struggle by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), ministers and other activists in Danville, Virginia, decided to start their own campaign. They formed the Danville Christian Progressive Association (DCPA).

In November 1963, African American parents in the small city of Chester, PA organized and demanded better conditions at their local elementary school, Franklin School.  They picketed the school and blocked its doors, successfully shutting it down for several days.  The protesters also staged sit-ins in the City Hall, municipal building, and the Board of Education's offices.  After several weeks of protest, the campaign grew to encompass desegregation efforts of 10 of Chester's public elementary and middle schools.

In the 1950s, St. Louis, Missouri was a thriving city. However, African-Americans residents were forced to take low-skill jobs, sit in segregated theaters, and were refused service at downtown restaurants, cafeterias, and lunch counters. In 1947, The St. Louis chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a national group that aimed to practice the tactics of nonviolence against the oppressive forces of segregation, was formed.

In 2000, students around the country protested sweatshop-manufactured college apparel. Students at Syracuse University (SU) protested using a variety of different tactics, including a naked bicycle ride through campus. In their yearlong campaign, Syracuse students wished to convince SU’s Chancellor, Kenneth A. Shaw, to join the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). Their ultimate goal, along with students nationwide, was better wages and better working conditions for workers who manufactured college apparel.

Since 1996, a small number of State University of New York (SUNY) students had been urging the university administration to reject contracts with companies that had unfair labor policies.  However, by 1999, students had made very little progress and campus stores still sold questionable sweatshop products. 

In the winter of 2004, the Charest Government of Quebec cut $103 million in grants for low-income students at Quebec universities and CEGEP (junior colleges). The Quebec people disliked the Charest government to begin with, and in early December, students threatened to go on strike.

The Basotho Congress Party came into power in the democratic elections of 1993. Lesotho, a kingdom, possessed a system of government that was characterized by the presence of both a monarch and elected officials. The monarch at the time of the elections, King Letsie III, made an attempt to persuade the newly elected BCP government to reinstate his father, King Moshoeshoe II, as king. King Moshoeshoe had previously been exiled for trying to amend the constitution to allocate more power to the throne.

Since the late 1960’s, companies have been cutting down trees in the virgin forests of Malaysia, most notably in the state of Sarawak.  Environmentalists all over the world were concerned about the effects of deforestation on the native Penan people and the effects of logging on the rich biodiversity of the rainforests.  In particular, environmentalists in neighboring Australia wished to raise awareness about the issue and provide aid to the Penan people.  These environmentalists formed the Rainforest Action Groups (RAG), one in each of three Australian cities, Sydney, Melbou

In December 1936, autoworkers at General Motors' (GM) plants across Michigan staged multiple sit-down strikes, the longest of which lasted 44 days.  The workers originally demanded that GM recognize their union, the United Autoworkers of America (UAW) as the sole bargaining agent for all GM employees.  The autoworkers also demanded that GM end all discriminatory practices against its workers and relax efforts to speed up production.

At the turn of the century, student groups on college campuses across the country began campaigns to push university administrations to hold their apparel suppliers accountable to fair labor practices. Many students had realized that many of the licenses that their schools had with large clothing companies included those that relied on sweatshop labor for production.

The Republic of Seychelles is a small island nation in the Indian Ocean, east of Tanzania. The Seychelles People’s Progressive Front (SPPF) has held power in the Republic of Seychelles since their coup d’etat in 1977.  Despite laws that nominally provide freedom of speech to the people, SPPF has carefully controlled the media through the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) and with steep licensing fees for independent television and radio stations.   Additionally, the law allowed for civil lawsuits to punish journalists for “libel.”

Under the leadership of President Alexandr Lukashenko, Belarusians who do not practice Russian Orthodox Catholicism have had to deal with varying degrees of religious repression.

University of North Carolina (UNC) Sierra Student Coalition members and students created the Coal-Free UNC movement in an effort to end the University’s use of coal and close the on-campus coal plant.  Its goal is to eliminate coal on campus by 2015.  Coal-Free UNC also wanted the University to adhere to its green initiative EXPLAIN.  The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal national campaign to end dependence on coal and its use on campus, while encouraging the use of renewable sources of energy inspired UNC’s campaign.  

Shortly after World War II, the United States began nuclear testing, mainly in Nevada. In September 1957, the United States announced its plan to conduct atomic testing in the Marshall Islands, starting April 5, 1958. In response to the adverse effects of the Nevada nuclear tests, the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) launched a protest to stop the United States from nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, first by petitioning and then sailing to the test site in protest.

In 1991, the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority (TLLRWDA) began searching for a disposal site for dangerous toxic waste in the Hudspeth County area. According to the 1983 La Paz agreement, Hudspeth County falls in a no-contamination zone surrounding the Mexican border. Regardless, the TLLRWDA selected Sierra Blanca, a small low-income town in an environmentally fragile region. 

Liechtenstein is a small country between Switzerland and Austria with a population of approximately 35,000.  After World War II, Liechtenstein’s economy was in shambles.  The government, a constitutional monarchy currently under the rule of Prince Hans-Adam II, implemented low corporate taxes in order to draw companies into the country.  As a result, Liechtenstein currently has the second highest gross domestic product per capita in the world and has more registered companies than citizens.  However, the international community has identified Liechtenstein as a tax haven

Swaziland borders South Africa and has a population of about one million.  At the time of the campaign Swaziland had the world’s highest HIV infection rate and was both one of the poorest nations in the world and the home of Africa’s last absolute monarchy.   While King Mswati III was a largely popular figure in Swaziland, he angered Swazis with his lavish lifestyle and high number of wives.  Between 2000 and 2010, activists worked to promote a democratic government.

On Thursday, October 9, Montenegro announced its official recognition of the independent country of Kosovo, a breakaway province of Serbia.  Four separate opposition political parties worked in conjunction and called for a protest in response to the recognition. They declared that the government's decision to recognize Kosovo was illegal. Reports say that on Monday, October 13, approximately 10,000 protestersappeared at the rally.

Over a period of two months in 2009, Saint Lucia prison officers organized a petition and a sick-in to protest the return of a former Director of Prisons. Hillary Herman had voluntarily left his position as Director of Prisons in 2008 (after a 7-year stay in the position). Most of the prison officers at Bordelais corrections facility in St. Lucia did not want Herman to come back. They found his strict methods to be inefficient and unfair.

Benin gained its independence from France in 1960 and was then named Dahomey.  Colonel Mathieu Kérékou took power of the country in a coup in 1972 and later renamed the country the People’s Republic of Benin, organized the economy under a Marxist-Leninist ideology, and outlawed all political parties except his People’s Revolutionary Party of Benin.  By the 1980s, Kérékou remained as the president of Benin, but the economy was failing.  The government had to lower government aid to students and the salaries for civil servants and in 1988 the state owned banks crashed.  Fa

Turks and Caicos is a British Territory of 8 islands in the Caribbean with a formal population of approximately 15,000, mostly descendants of African slaves. England appoints a Governor to the island for a minimum of three years, but the islands also have their own local government, a legislative council of 13 ministers. Because of their geographic location, the islands are a convenient stop in drug smuggling to the United States. The drug trade through the Islands climaxed in 1985, when U.S. authorities caught a native official bringing drugs to the United States.

For approximately two years, beginning in June 2008 and ending in 2010, churchgoers in the Cook Islands protested airplane flights taking place on Sundays. The protesters viewed Sunday as the day of rest but many local businesses retorted, saying that Sunday flights were crucial for the economy. The protesters’ ultimate goal was to ban all flights from taking off and landing (specifically on the island of Aitutaki) on Sundays.

Beginning in the late 1970s, women in Chuuk, one of the
states of the Federated States of Micronesia, stepped forward to protest the
abuse of alcohol.  The women’s
campaign challenged traditional restrictions on women’s autonomy. 

The women acted after a drunken brawl occurred in early 1977
between young men from Weno, an island municipality of Chuuk, and Wonei
Island.  In response, the district
administrator called an emergency meeting and women from Fin Anisi, a religious
group attended.