I'm happy for Chancellor James Moeser that he looks back at his time at Carolina and sees an improvement in Town-Gown relations, as WCHL reported recently. I'll admit that the Chancellor seems to have stopped lobbing bombs at the town, which seemed to be his M.O. when he first arrived almost 8 years ago. He also seems to have developed a trusting friendship with the Mayor of Chapel Hill.
The sit-in at South Building (offices for the UNC administration) which began last Thursday has now entered its tenth day and second weekend. Seven students are currently locked-in for the weekend, under constant police guard, demanding that Chancellor Moeser join the 42 universities nationwide which have adopted the Designated Suppliers Program. The DSP is an improvement on the anti-sweatshop policies which UNC adopted in 1990 after another sit-in, and would guarantee that factories producing UNC logo apparel paid their workers a living wage, and that workers at those factories had some sort of collective organization.
Students are keeping their own blog about the sit-in at http://dsp4unc.wordpress.com, with daily video updates.
The DSP has been endorsed by 18 campus organizations, both the Chatham and Orange County democratic parties, UNC's Progressive Faculty Network, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, Black Workers for Justice, North Carolina's UE-150, and the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, among other groups.
My roommate and a few other folks I know are among the several UNC students on the second day of their protest against UNC's use of sweatshop labor, having occupied South Building since yesterday and with no intent of leaving until the Chancellor quits brushing them off. Check out the video below, and attend a rally in their support today at 4:30 PM just outside on the south quad. If UNC decides to use their police force to remove this peaceful protest, local friend and prominent civil rights attorney Al McSurely has agreed to serve as their legal representative.
Join us for a lively discussion about the future of North Carolina! Among our panelists are Orange County Commissioner Moses Carey and Orange native Hampton Dellinger. Come ask our panel a question about what you feel are the most pressing issues facing your town, Orange County, or the state.
Issues Facing North
Carolina in the Coming Decade will explore the most pressing
issues facing our State in the near future. Students, faculty, and community
members will participate in a dialogue with a panel of experts on issues
ranging from immigration, to the environment, civil rights, education,
healthcare, poverty, and the economy. The panel includes:
Jennifer Rudinger,
Executive Director for the NC ACLU
Irene Godinez,
Advocacy Director for El Pueblo, Inc
Hampton Dellinger,
candidate for NC Lt. Governor and former NC Assistant Attorney General
Margaret Hartzell
from Environment NC
Moses Carey,
candidate for NC Senate and current Orange County Commissioner
Sponsored by Campus-Y’s Table Talk, in partnership with Advocates for Human Rights, Black Student Movement, Carolina Hispanic Association, Health Focus, Hunger and Homelessness Outreach Project, Panhellenic Council, The Roosevelt Institute, Student Action with Workers, Young Democrats, and Youth for Elderly Service.
The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about... factoring rising fuel costs into the equation.
It's mindnumbing that an area that prides itself on sustainability would even be considering a program to export it's own waste. The very definition of sustainability is something that can be maintained into the indefinite future. Is paying to haul waste out of county sustainable in any sense of the word? Is increasing transportation miles at the end of a product's long transportation chain to get to the consumer even sane?
What percentage of trash in the current landfill comes from UNC? What percentage comes from Chapel Hill and Carrboro? What percentage comes from elsewhere in the county? Maybe each district should be required to sustainably deal with it's own waste.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro have sustainable community as their vision. Carolina North has as it's stated vision: "This and other progressive measures will help make Carolina North a model of sustainability — a campus that is socially, environmentally, and economically sound."
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