Candidate for
Director; Proposed San Francisco-Brisbane Municipal Utility District; Ward 4

Medea Benjamin is the Founding Director of the San Francisco-based human rights organization Global Exchange (http://globalexchange.org), a non-profit advocacy group working on environmental and social justice issues. In 2000 Medea ran for U.S. Senate from California as part of the Green Party ticket (http://medeaforsenate.org). She used the campaign as a way to promote key issues such as public power, living wage, universal health care, schools not jails, the need to cut the defense budget, and trade policies that protect workers and the environment. It was an extremely successful campaign, generating over 325,000 votes and raising critical issues.

In response to California's energy crisis, Medea fought the market manipulation by the big energy companies and rate hikes that cause hardship for low-income ratepayers and small businesses. Medea has been a tireless advocate for consumers before the California Public Utilities Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the state legislature and at PG&E bankruptcy hearings. She also heads the Power to the People Campaign, an influential coalition of consumer, environmental, union and business leaders working for clean and affordable power under public control (http://powertothepeople.org).

Medea is recognized internationally for her work to improve the labor and environmental practices of US multinational corporations, and the policies of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. During the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in December 1999, Medea's organization, Global Exchange, helped galvanize world attention on the need to place labor and environmental concerns over corporate profits.

Medea has become a key figure in the anti-sweatshop campaigns to change the garment and shoe industry. When the Clinton Administration formed the Apparel Industry Partnership to come up with standards to eliminate sweatshops, Ms. Benjamin interceded by urging the Partnership to address the right of garment workers to earn wages that cover their basic needs. She has since become a leading national figure in the effort to pressure US companies to include a living wage provision in their corporate Codes of Conduct. These efforts prompted the Washington Post to credit Global Exchange as the group that has "put labor rights on the human rights agenda."

Medea spearheaded Global Exchange's campaign against the giant sports shoe company Nike. The campaign put the national spotlight on factory conditions overseas, exposing the long hours, low pay, unhealthy environment, and physical abuse that young women workers endure in Indonesia, China and Vietnam. She was instrumental in mobilizing US Congresspeople, college students, women's groups, environmentalists, civil rights organizations and athletes to pressure Nike to agree to independent monitoring of their overseas factories and to increase the pay of the factory workers. The campaign achieved its first major victory in May 1998, when Nike agreed to independent factory monitoring by non-governmental organizations and raised health and safety standards in the factories. Medea continues to pressure the garment and shoe industry to pay workers a living wage and allow them the right to freedom of association.

In 1999 Medea helped expose the problem of indentured servitude of garment workers in the US territory of Saipan (the Marianas Islands). In January Global Exchange, along with several other groups, filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against 17 US retailers profiting from the workers' plight. She also launched a campaign focusing on the giant retailer Gap, exposing their abuses in Saipan and elsewhere around the world. Medea has also been a key advisor to the student anti-sweatshop movement, helping to shape a model university Code of Conduct and monitoring guidelines for the University of California system.

After several fact-finding visits to China, Medea co-sponsored with the International Labor Rights Fund an initiative to improve the labor and environmental practices of US mulitnationals in China. The ensuring Human Rights Principles for US Businesses in China have been endorsed by major companies such as Intel, Cosco, 3Com, Reebok, Levi Strauss and Mattel.

While critical of unfair global trade policies, Medea has been instrumental in designing "fair trade" alternatives that are beneficial to both producer and consumer. In 1988 Medea helped form a national network for advocates of fair trade, which is today the Fair Trade Federation, an organization of hundreds of retail and wholesale businesses. She has acted as a consultant to numerous businesses on labor and environmental issues, and business associations such as Business for Social Responsibility and Social Venture Network.

For over twenty years, Medea has supported human rights and social justice struggles around the world. She was instrumental in building US. support for the movement to overthrow General Suharto in Indonesia and for the right of self-determination for the people of East Timor. She has been involved in supporting the Peace Process between the Zapatista rebels and the Mexican government, has fought to lift the embargoes against Cuba and Iraq, and was active in cutting US military aid to repressive regimes in Central America. She has been an election observer in Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, Namibia, and Indonesia, and led fact-finding delegations to East Timor, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Guatemala, and China.

Her books The Peace Corps and More: 175 Ways to Work, Study and Travel in the Third World and Bridging the Global Gap: A Handbook to Linking Citizens of the First and Third Worlds examine the myriad ways North Americans can get involved in sustainable development, including working overseas, ethical tourism and alternative trade, sister cities and material aid, human rights activism, and changing US. corporate and government policies. Medea edited and translated the award-winning book Don't Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, the moving story of a campesina leader. She also helped produce the public TV documentaries The Fight for Land and Liberty, Indonesia: One Struggle, One Change, and the anti-sweatshop video Sweating for a T-Shirt. Her books on Cuba include Cuba: Talking about Revolution, The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's National Experiment in Sustainable Agriculture, and No Free Lunch: Food and Revolution in Cuba Today. Her most recent book, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman's Story of Politics and Love, is the life story of Brazil's first poor, black woman senator.

In 1999, San Francisco Magazine named Medea to their "Power List" as one of the "60 Players Who Rule the Bay Area." She serves on the board or advisory council of numerous organizations, including the United National Development Program, the Interhemispheric Resource Center, the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness and Green Empowerment.

Medea received a Masters degree in Public Health from Columbia University and a Masters degree in Economics from the New School for Social Research. She lives in San Francisco with her husband Kevin Danaher, who also works at Global Exchange, and her two daughters Arlen, age 20, and Maya, age 11.