UT has the single largest licensing program out of any university in the country, and we know that the top two contenders, the Dallas Cowboys and VF Corporation, are embroiled in scandals concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, and sweatshop abuses. Dallas Cowboys - In May 2007, the WRC issued a report about the Dada Dhaka factory, a Bangladeshi factory that produced clothes for the Cowboys. The WRC investigated the factory in light of allegations of anti-union activity. Investigations demonstrated that workers who had attended labor rights trainings were threatened with violence and subsequently fired. One woman, who was previously injured while working at the factory, underwent threats by management that they would attack her if she did not leave her position. - In 2011, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights reported on the Ocean Sky factory in El Salvador where workers sewed apparel for the Cowboys. The report reads “the 1,500 mostly women workers at Ocean Sky are locked in a Free Zone, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by guards armed with shotguns...Workers report being drenched in their own sweat, since afternoon factory temperatures reach 98 degrees Fahrenheit...Factory drinking water is filthy and contaminated with fecal coli which can cause diarrhea, intestinal illness and infections. Six workers were fired for daring to alert their colleagues that the factory water was unsafe to drink...Illegally, all overtime is mandatory...Workers earn a base wage of 72 cents an hour, and 92 cents counting the attendance bonus...Even the Salvadoran Ministry of the Economy puts the workers' wages at one-quarter of a family's basic needs." - Also in 2011, a report was released about the Apple Tree factory in El Salvador. Workers were producing Cowboys-logo infant apparel and were illegally forced to work overtime with no additional compensation for their time. Workers often became sick after drinking the factory-provided water, underwent vicious harassment and abuse from management, and were denied of a multitude of legally-ensured rights. - The same year, the Cowboys pulled orders from the PT Kizone factory in Indonesia, withholding severance owed to 2,800 workers. The company lied about its relationship with the factory, and it was only after immense pressure from labor groups like USAS that the Cowboys paid $55,000, a meager portion of the $3.3 million owed in total. - The Style Avenue factory in El Salvador also had numerous labor violations. According to a report conducted by the Worker Rights Consortium in 2011, “Style Avenue was found to have [...] forced overtime, illegal terminations, verbal abuse by management, failure to respect freedom of association, locking workers in the factory, excessive heat, and unsanitary conditions. After the publication of the report, additional violations occurred, which prompted the WRC to contact the licensees and urge remediation.” - ESPN Outside the Lines produced an expose in 2012 highlighting the Cowboy’s labor violations in the Cambodian factories Bright Sky and Suntex. Workers were routinely forced to work 60 hours a week, which is a clear violation of Cambodian labor law. VF Corporation - In December 2010, four Bangladeshi garment workers died and 100 were injured in clashes with police outside a factory owned by the Korean-based YoungOne group, a major producer of North Face and owner of the rights to North Face in Korea. At issue was failure of the YoungOne factory to implement a new minimum wage increase. - In 2010, VF was producing at That’s It Sportswear factory in Bangladesh (owned by Hameem Group), which burned, killing 29 workers and injuring more than a hundred. The factory had illegal construction, no proper fire exits, shoddy wiring, and locked exit doors. Workers were trapped on the top floors of the factory. Many jumped to their deaths. VF had repeatedly inspected the factory and yet had completely failed to address the safety hazards. - In October of 2012, another VF factory, Eurotex, which was disclosed as a producer of collegiate apparel, burned in Dhaka. This was a major fire, though it did not completely destroy the factory. No one was killed in the fire, because the factory was closed for a holiday – if the fire had occurred during the workday, many could have died. When contacted about this fire, VF claimed that their own disclosure data was wrong and they had stopped using the factory. - In August of 2013, the Worker Rights Consortium conducted a safety assessment of Optimum Fashion, a long-time VF contract factory producing collegiate apparel. After VF attempted to prevent the WRC from accessing the factory, the WRC’s inspection uncovered a number of very serious safety hazards, all of which constitute violations of university code of conduct provisions requiring licensees to maintain safe workplaces and any of which could result in injury or death to workers. These violations “included inadequate means for workers to escape the factory in the event of a fire and structural flaws that would facilitate the rapid and widespread propagation of deadly smoke throughout the factory building.” - In January of 2014, a 20 year old YoungOne worker was shot and killed by police during a strike over stolen wages despite promises by YoungOne group to change its practices after the aforementioned 2010 murders. YoungOne produces up to 40% of all of The North Face’s apparel. - On April 2, 2014, over 48,000 workers walked off the job at the Yue Yuen factory, a supplier for Timberland (a VF brand), in China’s largest strike in recent memory. The Yue Yuen workers had been robbed of years of legally owed social insurance payments and it was only after a massive strike in which several workers were beaten and kidnapped that the factory agreed to begin paying full social insurance and higher wages. - On June 20, 2014 in Bangladesh, the Medlar Apparels factory caught fire, a factory that has supplied VF apparel as fa...

Our members include some of 100's of people stuck in payday loans as high as 459%!!! Faith and Community groups want protections from this kind of interest rate but we are nervous that the bill might not get heard. Interest rates like this trap hardworking people into a terrible debt cycle, and keep local families down.

David Corn of Mother Jones published a scathing article exposing Bill O'Reilly's lies that he was involved in combat in the Falklands. In 2013, Bill O'Reilly stated: "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us." Yet in his own memoir O'Reilly doesn't describe even being anywhere near the Falkland Islands. After the Mother Jones piece was published, O'Reilly lashed out at David Corn by calling him a "despicable guttersnipe." Journalists should be held to standards. Brian Williams was suspended from NBC News for 6 months for lying about being in combat. Why should it be any different for Bill O'Reilly? Sign the petition and tell Fox News to suspend Bill O'Reilly for his Falklands combat lies.

We call on the New Hampshire state legislature to support a constitutional amendment overturning the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC). Since this flawed decision, New Hampshire has faced a deluge of outside spending. In the 2014 congressional election, outside groups spent more than 49 million dollars on three congressional races in New Hampshire- one of the highest amounts of outside spending in the nation. We believe that this is unacceptable.

The 'Fairness Doctrine' is necessary to encourage unbiased information and diversity of editorial comment and to identify editorial comment as such as opposed to news. Recent studies have shown an unacceptably large percentage of inaccurate and misleading content in news/editorial broadcasting. Though there are alternative means of getting the news and commentary, none are as powerful as television and radio which are, for all intents and purposes, the sole domain of corporate owned entities. Corporate consolidation of media is having a chilling effect on diversity of opinions represented and the selection of news stories covered. Last but not least, these airwaves belong to the people of the United States and should be the most inclusive in diversity of viewpoints and free of bias in any news coverage. The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced. It was ruled on and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1969. It was deregulated in 1987.

Elephants are one of the most incredible creatures. They, like humans, remember the deaths of their family members and are extremely traumatized by it. We must stop this atrocity from occurring each day! We must save the African Elephants from inevitable extinction! As citizens of humanity, it is our job to carry out our function on earth: to be humane. Not only this, but the money earned from selling ivory goes to support terrorist organizations. Basically, the State of California is helping terrorism by standing by and doing nothing to enforce the already existing ban on ivory. So, we must bring attention to this issue, and pressure the governor of California to enforce the law! Once California strictly prohibits the selling of ivory, then the poachers won't earn as much money for ivory because there isn't a market for it. Once this occurs, elephant deaths will hopefully decrease! Support this effort to help African elephants by signing my petition.

If Comcast merges with Time Warner cable, Comcast will gain unprecedented power over our country’s cable and Internet market -- resulting in higher prices, fewer choices, worse customer service and control over the information we read, watch, and hear. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and CA Attorney General Kamala Harris have the power to block this disastrous merger. But they must hear from concerned citizens like you RIGHT NOW to let them know that we do NOT want the corporate giant Comcast to have a monopoly over us. If we can stop the merger in California, Comcast’s national domination plan could be over. Without California’s biggest markets, the cable giant would most likely walk away from the whole deal. So let's make sure the CPUC and Attorney General hear us loud and clear! JOIN US & SIGN TODAY!

If Comcast merges with Time Warner cable, Comcast will gain unprecedented power over our country’s cable and internet market -- resulting in higher prices, fewer choices, worse customer service and control over the information we read, watch, and hear. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and CA Attorney General Kamala Harris have the power to block this disastrous merger. But they must hear from concerned citizens like you RIGHT NOW to let them know that we do NOT want the corporate giant Comcast to have a monopoly over us. If we can stop the merger in California, Comcast’s national domination plan could be over. Without California’s biggest markets, the cable giant would most likely walk away from the whole deal!

This bill would be a bad deal for New Mexico. We've seen time and time again that when public systems are bought up by private companies rates increase, staff lose jobs and transparency with the public vanishes. In the water sector, a public-private partnership is a type of arrangement wherein a local government contracts with a private entity to run all or part of a government-owned drinking water or wastewater system. Communities with aging infrastructure often think that the private sector can deliver financing or better services. The truth is just the opposite. These kind of public-private partnerships restrict transparency and keep the public out of the loop. Full proposals would NOT be subject to the state's open records laws until after the deal is signed, so the public would not be able to review a proposal or weigh in and voice their opinion. Instead, the state should facilitate public-public partnerships among public sector entities to share resources and expertise. Intermunicipal cooperation, interlocal agreements and bulk purchasing consortiums can improve public services and reduce costs while allowing communities to retain local control of their essential water and wastewater resources. Keep our public water under public control!

With all of the public knowledge about recycling, there are still people who do not recycle -- whether out of ignorance or apathy. If advertisers took the extra step in informing consumers (even in a small-text message at the bottom of their advertisements) about properly recycling their product and the importance of doing so, the United States could see a considerable change for the better in energy savings, greenhouse gas emissions, conservation of natural resources, and job creation.

Le Corbusier's famous Capitol Complex in Chandigarh is about to be ruined by the construction of 19 towers, each between 12 and 36 stories tall, on land located just to its north. This project, called 'TATA Camelot', is being developed by TATA Housing, the real estate wing of TATA Sons, one of the largest industrial houses of India. This petition to stop TATA Camelot is directed at Ratan Tata, Chairman (Emeritus) of TATA Sons, who is an architect (Cornell '62) and Pritzker Prize jurist. ARGUMENT 1. The transparent relationship between the Capitol buildings and the agro-pastoral landscape and the Himalayas to its north is an integral part of the design of the Capitol Complex. Le Corbusier documented this extensively, and carefully controlled all development in this area to ensure that it did not interfere with this relationship. He even moved the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to prevent the building of a military cantonment within the sightlines of the Capitol. (See Documentation below.) 2. Due to political exigencies (i.e. the redrawing of state boundaries in 1966), a portion of the land just to the North of the Capitol is no longer under the jurisdiction of Chandigarh Administration, but under that of the state of Punjab. The TATA Camelot project exploits this loophole to cash in on the exorbitant real-estate values of Chandigarh by proposing the construction of this high-rise residential tower complex. More than a hundred members of the Punjab legislature are shareholders in the project, raising question of due process. 3. The towers are guaranteed to destroy the integrity of the design vision of the Capitol Complex. It will be a lamentable eyesore both from the Capitol Complex and from the Lake. The small sliver of land just to the north of the Capitol Complex deserves to be protected as a common heritage of the tri-city region. There is ample developable land around Chandigarh on all other sides. 4. While TATA Housing claims that its towers are "green", a development of the size of Tata Camelot will severely disrupt the sensitive hydrology, natural habitats and rural ecologies of the area around it. It is proposed on land that is at the very first flats at the foothills of the Himalayas. It is immediately adjacent to a national reserved forest. It is sited on former riverbed, created by diverting an intermittent river. Sukhna Lake, the preeminent public space of the city and a renowned wild-life sanctuary, is located just to its east. Three villages and extensive farmlands abut it. 5. Chandigarh was a prominent part of Jawaharlal Nehru's post-colonial vision for independent India. It was designed by Le Corbusier (along with a team of other European and Indian architects and planners) and is a signature destination of global modernism and the founding of the Indian nation. J.R.D. Tata, Mr. Ratan Tata's predecessor, was an integral collaborator on this project, flying Le Corbusier on Air India regularly, and hosting him routinely in Bombay (now Mumbai). The democratic values of the Indian nation-state, and of modernism, enshrined in the Capitol Complex deserve to be protected. 6. Since two previous attempts to reach Mr. Tata and the senior management of TATA Sons have fallen on deaf ears, and while a legal argument is pending in the courts, this online petition is designed to appeal to Mr. Tata publicly. Complete visual documentation at - http://chandigarhurbanlab.org/?p=1318

As CEO of eBay and PayPal, along with about 500 other corporate advisors, you have, over the last 5 years, had unlimited access to the negotiating text of the TPP, while we, the people of the United States, have been barred from reading the classified texts. This puts you at an unfair advantage. This comes after 20 years of millions of jobs lost through NAFTA, CAFTA, the Korean Free Trade Agreement and WTO. Asking your customers to tell our reps to vote yes on fast track, a bill that, if passed, would hand Congress’ Constitutionally granted authority to make trade, (Article 1.8) to President Obama, and just ‘trust’ that he has our backs, reminds us of how we got swindled into NAFTA, by promises of good jobs and a boost to the economy. What we do know of TPP, through 2 leaked chapters, indicates it is much worse than NAFTA, and will only benefit the John Donahoe’s of the world, while the rest of us will see further outsourcing of jobs and even more depressed wages. Apparently, Donahoe’s idea of “trade modernization” and ours, where labor and environmental groups have a seat at the table are quite divergent. We have learned from over 20 years of NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, and we are insulted that eBay/PayPal CEO, John Donahoe, would think we are gullible enough to go along with his collaboration with the U.S. Trade Representative’s campaign to fast track deals that will bury the people of this country and the fragile economy and send more jobs to Viet Nam with its 56 cent minimum wage, child labor, and human rights violations.