PSLM Stages Street Show

Members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) added a new method to their repertoire of protest techniques yesterday. During prime time outside the Science Center--at high noon and again at 1 p.m.--they staged a street theater performance to protest the University's sweatshop policy.

"People get tired of doing just protests," said Daniel M. Hennefeld '99, a PSLM member who played an administrator in the production.

And while organizers said the event was intended to educate students, they promised a good time as well, billing the performance as "five minutes of guaranteed social justice hilarity and heartache."

The skit--which recounted students' protests against the University and lampooned the administration for denying students a seat at the "table of power"--attracted small crowds of about 20 students.

Although PSLM members said the event has been in the works for several weeks, it came on the heels of the University's decision to join a group of universities employing a monitoring firm to oversee apparel factories making products with their trademark.

One of those universities, the University of Notre Dame, already employs the firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers--a company that PSLM members have said has a conflict of interest since apparel manufacturers also employ it. PSLM used yesterday's event to express their displeasure with the impending agreement.

"We didn't know that they were going to announce it on that particular day but we had known before that that was what they were going to do, and that's what we were protesting," PSLM member Aron R. Fischer '99 said.

During the skit, a student portraying a PriceWaterhouseCoopers analyst telephoned an apparel manufacturer and asked if there are abuses in the factories.

"Of course they lie through their teeth," said Benjamin L. McKean '02.

Later in the skit, the analyst was shown going home and "sleeping" with the apparel industry on a mattress PSLM members placed outside the Science Center.

The skit then depicted the administration denying students access to negotiations, causing the students to break into a song based on a tune from "Guys and Dolls."

"You need some oversight to get the process right. We need students and faculty to participate," protesters sang in the song, to the tune of "Fugue for Tin Horns," with lyrics by Elizabeth C. Vladeck '99 and Jascha S. Hoffman '00.

PSLM members used the skit to mock students as well as administrators. The actors playing students chanted "Party! Party!" in their re-creation of the Rally for Justice, which occurred during a full Faculty meeting in March.

"If we're going to make fun of other people I figure we have to make fun of ourselves," McKean said.

McKean said the performance went well enough that PSLM might consider organizing similar events in the future.

In the meantime, he said PSLM members are using e-mails and phone calls to President Neil L. Rudenstine to continue putting pressure on the administration.