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Today's
Stories
February 7/8, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine in
Transit
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non--fiction: A How--To Guide from
Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure: Our
Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen--Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley--Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon
Helweg--Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan
Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10, Morris
0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's Revelations
and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the Mafia
|
Weekend
Edition
February 7 / 8, 2004
No Sweat Shopping
Putting
the Consumer Back into the Game
By JEFF BALLINGER
The
little note on the "About Us" page of the Roots Canada website
says it all: "Our Story is Being Updated and will be back soon".
I'm guessing that the "old" story made reference to the pride
the founders had in the workers at the Toronto factory that they just
closed last month. Since the company has, in the past, marketed the
warm and fuzzy Canadian--company image, it will be interesting to see
what the "new" story says. Could the reared--in--Detroit founders,
Michael Budman and Don Green be doing a "No more Mr. Nice Guy"
transformation to break into the big leagues of "lifestyle"
brands? Perhaps there is there an IPO in the offing? Here's what Budman
told the Toronto Star about shutting the plant: "The reality is
the customer doesn't care. They want the right item at the right price."
Right out of the Phil Knight/Wal--Mart playbook.
While
many "opinion leaders" and neo--liberal columnists are hedging
a bit these days (we didn't mean you had to outsource EVERYthing!),
hard--boiled business reporters remain, it appears, true believers. When
Levi's announced the closing of its last U.S. factory (down to zero
from 63), the BBC story suggested that the company was in decline since
it "has been slow to follow the contract--manufacturing trend set
by rivals such as Nike during the 1980s and 1990s".
Well,
our little web--based apparel company NoSweatShop
has evidence that consumers DO care--we've sold our 100% union--made
'no sweat' apparel in 49 states and 32 countries. It's been just a whisper
in our ear, but encouraging enough to keep us humping and bringing new
things to the "ethical consumer" market. This spring it'll
be a Converse knock--off to give the consumers who liked that "basic"
shoe an alternative to the Chuck Taylors, since that brand was recently
snarfed up by Nike.
If
this idea sounds vaguely familiar, you might have read that Kalle Lasn,
of Adbusters fame, had a similar idea. We tried working with him, in
fact. We gave him a fabulous sample at a great price (it's on the adbuster
site right now, in fact), from a good union shop in Indonesia with fair
wages and superb benefits. One day, out of the blue, Lasn decides that
the shoe has to be made in China. This was months after our agreement
that it had to be made in a union shop. In recent interviews he's been
thumbing his nose at the ineffective "whiners" in the anti--sweat
movement, suggesting that their activism is more union--directed protectionism
than human rights advocacy. Seems a strange way to market an "alternative"
sneaker but, since he induced some backer to stump up half a million
dollars for the project, we should see something from Lasn fairly soon.
Besides
getting a some encouragement from consumers, NoSweatShop.com
is happy to report that we've received support from the AFL--CIO. This
is significant because we have never approached this as a Made--in--USA
operation. From the beginning, the idea was to challenge the big brands
on their own turf, sourcing from any union shops that might be operating
(against all odds!) in the corrupt and repressive nations that seem
to be doing all the garment work these days. Recently, Stephen Coats,
executive director of the U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project,
has been nudging us toward a couple of factories in Honduras and one
in El Salvador. (Sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep abreast
of this and other "ethical sourcing" challenges.)
the decline of consumers' influence
Budman's
callous outburst would have been unthinkable thirty years ago. In the
early Seventies, apparel workers had won some measure of justice, due
to the diligence of three generations of needletrades union activists.
I was privileged to get an inside view as the coordinator of "student
support" during the Farah Pants Boycott. What impressed me was
that the "union label" staff of the old Amalgamated Clothing
Workers had some of the union's brightest lights and a budget sufficient
to keep the industry somewhat in line. It was, I would learn much later,
the only way to protect hard--won gains.
Over
at the Ladies' Garment Workers, the same ethos seemed to apply. I'll
never forget watching Johnny Carson as a kid and, whenever unions were
mentioned, Doc Severinsen's band would strike up, "Look for The
Union Label". This wasn't some ditty that was penned by a sympathetic
do--gooder -- it was from Madison Avenue. Similarly, when Sally Field
won the Academy Award for her portrayal of the J.P. Stevens sweatshop
worker, the ACTWU hired a professional agency to get the REAL Norma
Rae (Crystal Lee Sutton) booked onto local TV talk shows across the
nation. But, as membership dwindled (I was in the Organizing Dept. of
the Textile Workers when the union was losing 4,000 members per month),
less money could be devoted to these tactics. By the time Harvard Business
Review was lauding Phil Knight's "hollow corporation" model
in the mid--80s, things had hit bottom in the U.S.
Item:
State Department of Labor and Industry figures from 2002 show Pennsylvania's
textile industry peaked in 1966, with 185,000 jobs across the state.
In 2002 there were 26,000 jobs remaining.
It
may be possible for unions to win back back some influence over the
industry, but only if consumer sentiment can again be put into play.
After four years in Indonesia, I thought I had found the "magic
bullet" -- Nike's contractors there had pushed things down below
any reasonable limit. The first strike that I read about in the Indonesian
press was over a 2 1/2 cent--a--day pay cut at a factory producing for
Nike and Reebok. This was when the minimum wage was 86 cents a day and
the government of Indonesia's own "minimum physical needs"
figure was $1.30/day for a single adult. Wouldn't consumers be outraged
to hear that their $70 sneakers had labor cost of about 90 cents and
workers were slapped around and sexually harassed to boot? Yes, consumers
were angry and, several years after my article in Harper's (an annotation
of an Indonesian worker's wage stub), some professor that analyzes web
activism counted over a million anti--Nike web pages (pages, not sites).
However,
we failed to harness that outrage to force meaningful changes--chief
among them, collective bargaining rights. It didn't help, of course,
when Clinton convened the Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP), a talk--shop
that should have followed the pattern of the panel on race relations:
a few resume--padding appointments, some medium--profile discussions
and the issuance of a bland report. The AIP, however, would not go away,
effectively neutralizing the unions that had the chance -- however slim
-- of getting consumers back in the game.
A
year after consumer outrage had subsided, the Partnership morphed into
the Fair Labor Association (FLA); the unions and the Interfaith Center
for Corporate Responsibility departed, at this point, but it mattered
little, since the sweatshop firms had changed the media frame from "abusive
contractors in repressive countries" to "look at what we are
doing with our Code of Conduct". A Patagonia representative present
at the creation of the FLA told Nike's hometown newspaper that it was
Nike's smarmy trade lobbyist in Washington, Brad Figel, that "kept
everyone at the table" when Clinton's initiative was dying from
lack of interest (of course, no other company needed the cover the way
Nike did). Anyway, all you need to know about the FLA is that Nike gave
it an extra $1.5 million last year -- when it settled the Kasky corporate--right--to--lie
case. [see Mokhiber
and Weissman on this travesty.]
Demise
of the boycott
There
are a host of reasons why the apparel industry is not intimidated by
threats of boycott anymore. Three of the most significant are the shift
to "contracting--out", the conservative court climate and
the declining importance of "main street" department stores.
While "contracting--out" initially made companies more vulnerable
-- since they had ceded direct control over wages and working conditions
-- they soon cobbled together the "Code of Conduct for suppliers"
dodge. A compliant commercial media helped this along, well illustrated
by the faux NGO founded by Nike, Mattel, the World Bank, the MacArthur
Foundation and the head of the Financial Times. The FT published several
glowing articles about the activities of the group, never interviewing
critics, of course.
Regarding
the courts, while the unions and consumer groups have the right to do
informational leafleting to pressure companies, most of these groups'
lawyers will tell you privately that they counsel against this tactic
because they fear that the retail industry is ready to challenge this
consumer--information strategy and take it all the way to the Supreme
Court. Finally, in the mid--20th Century, retailers in the rust--belt
genuinely feared pickets out in front of stores. That gave workers workers
clout. The great majority of shopping is now done at stores safely ensconced
in shopping malls (not free--speech--friendly places), from catalogs,
or on web--sites where consumers cannot even see country--of--origin
labels; consumer activists have nearly lost this important weapon.
Jeff
Ballinger is the director of Press for Change and co-founded
NoSweatShop.com.
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