National Mobilization Against Sweatshops (NMASS)

Description

NMASS (National Mobilization Against Sweatshops) is a workers membership organization that was founded by young working people in 1996 in New York City. We have two Workers' Centers -- one in Brooklyn and one in the Lower East Side of Manhattan -- and members and supporters all over the country. Some of us are:

• Injured workers fighting for our right to compensation and medical benefits
• Working people from Lower Manhattan suffering health and economic problems because of the government's discrimination against low-income people following the 9-11 disaster
• Mothers demanding recognition for the work we do raising kids
• Garment, restaurant, construction, office and other workers standing up to long work hours and other sweatshop conditions
• Students, white collar workers, and others feel the system is more and more limiting our choices, downsizing our dreams and channeling our lives.
• We are people born in this country and we are immigrants from many regions of the world.

Together, as working people, we are taking back the right to control our work, our health, our time and our lives. One central demand that unites is the right to a 40-hour workweek at a living wage for all. This does not mean that we are fighting for everyone to work the same hours or for there to be a cap on hours. Instead, we are demanding control over our time -- the right to say "no" to hours beyond a 40-hour workweek and the right to have the hours we put in raising the next generation of workers in our homes compensated as part of that 40-hour workweek. We recognize that working people taking back this kind of control means ending what we call "the sweatshop system."