Over the next eight months (through the holidays), we will have the opportunity to unite all the current campaigns pressing for greater corporate accountability for human rights. On Saturday, October 4, 1997, a Day of Conscience to End Sweatshop Abuses will be co-sponsored by the National Labor Committee, the People of Faith Network, the United Methodist Church Women's Division, and the Union of Needle Trade Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE). There will be vigils, actions, street theater, and community education to call attention to the plight of sweatshop workers in the United States and abroad. The Day of Conscience to End Sweatshop Abuses is part of a larger campaign to push the newly-created Presidential Task Force on Sweatshops toward developing an accord requiring companies to: (1) pay their workers a living wage; and (2) allow independent monitoring of their working conditions. With the Presidential Task Force in place, a coalition of interfaith and diverse grassroots and union groups can exert an influence which can actually help to improve the lives of poor working people. During the crucial holiday season, concerned consumers can support the companies which have signed the accord and withhold support from those which have not.

The 1997 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association calls on Unitarian Universalists in congregations and in coalitions with other denominations, grassroots community, and workers' advocacy organizations to:

1. Urge the Presidential Task Force on Sweatshops to develop an accord whereby companies commit to a living wage for their workers and to independent monitoring of working conditions;
2. Participate in the Day of Conscience to End Sweatshop Abuses on October 4, 1997; and
3. Participate in the Holiday Season of Conscience by using our economic power to support companies willing to pay and treat workers fairly and to withdraw our support from those companies which are not willing to do so.