Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.

Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week.

Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue

Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits.

Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?



(Courtesy of Student & Labor Action Movement) Ad Policy

On Tuesday, September 17, members of NYU’s Student & Labor Action Movement (SLAM) led a group of fifteen students in delivering a letter to the NYU administration demanding that the university cut ties with all apparel organizations that fail to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

The accord is a binding legal document that would force brands to ensure acceptable levels of safety in the Bangladeshi factories that manufacture their goods, and would also give workers more power over conditions in their factories. It was after last April’s Rana Plaza collapse, in which over 1,000 Bangladeshi workers were killed after being forced to work in a building known by both management and workers to be unsafe.

“We know that a real solution to these kinds of deadly working conditions has to start with worker power,” said Lucy Parks, a member of SLAM’s coordinating committee, “that’s why it’s so important for students to stand with Bangladeshi workers to demand that these companies sign on to this accord.”

Students tried to deliver the letter to President John Sexton’s office in Bobst Library. President Sexton was unavailable, but Senior Vice President for University Relations Lynne Brown spoke with students and received the letter.

SLAM is demanding that NYU revise its University Code of Conduct to stipulate that NYU will not sign apparel contracts with corporations that refuse to sign the Accord. Like many American universities, NYU currently has contracts with several apparel manufacturers with operations in Bangladesh, including the VF Corporation, which has not yet signed the Accord.

Attention College Students: Get six months of The Nation's digital edition absolutely free!

By pressuring universities to cut their contracts, students can put meaningful pressure on international corporations to respond to the demands of workers. “At SLAM we recognize that the struggles that students face, like debt and unemployment, have a deep relationship to the problems that workers across the world are dealing with,” said SLAM member Robert Ascherman. “We’re both losing out if the economy keeps moving in the direction it’s going now, and we can only get what we need if we work in solidarity with each other.”