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On September 10, 2007 the world lost one of the most progressive businesswomen of our time and the United Steelworkers lost a friend with the passing of Dame Anita Roddick. 

 
Anita with Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee after being brought into workers slums in Dhaka, Bangladesh by small workers rights groups.

Anita is best known as the founder of the environmentally friendly Body Shop in the mid 1970’s.  However, we know her for her dogged determination to forward the cause of human rights all across the globe.  One of the most telling attributes of Anita was her financial devotion to the National Labor Committee (NLC) and Charles Kernaghan (www.nlcnet.org).

Anita was a tireless soldier in the battle to bring justice to workers in the global economy.  Her financial support for the NLC, coupled with that of USW Locals across the country, has helped workers around the world by exposing the corporations they work for and the sweatshops they work in.    

Anita walking into a garment factory in Bangladesh and finding child workers.  Anita commented that these were some of the hardest-working women she had ever met anywhere in the world, and yet they were also the poorest.

Anita visiting a worker slum in Bangladesh, where many of the young women and children sewed clothing for Wal-Mart

She was certainly the “Mother Jones” of the 21^st century global economy.

Anita personally traveled the globe with Charles Kernaghan and the media as part of her struggle to expose sweatshop conditions in places like Bangladesh and Central America.  Every time it seemed the public focus was shifting away from exploited workers, Anita was there to highlight the atrocities and bring some level of justice to the millions of young women and children workers around the world. 

Anita was an icon; a modern day heroine to be sure.  With her vast wealth, she could have turned her back on the poorest, weakest and most exploited and no one would have noticed.  Instead, she chose to do the opposite.  She used her money like she lived her life – doing what she thought was right, regardless of what all the skeptics had to say.

 Anita meeting with a poor worker in her one room hut.

Anita is survived by her husband Gordon and their two children. 

We will miss her and we pay tribute to our friendship with her and to what she stood for.