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While
we are on the subject of evil... HISTORICAL
EVIL:
"The Triangle Fire," by Leon Stein with a new introduction
by William Greider. (Cornell University Press, 2001.)
EVIL
IN THE RAG TRADE:
"NO SWEAT: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment
Workers," edited by Andrew Ross. (Verso Press 1997.)
BORDERLINE
EVIL:
"Border Witness," by Maureen Casey and Brian Casey. (The New
York State Labor-Religion Coalition, 2002).
COSMIC
EVIL:
"Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy,"
by Susan Neiman. (Princeton U. Press, 2002.)
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> NO SWEAT NEWS > NEWS ARCHIVE
Hot Air Jordans
Not without reason, we think of Fortune Magazine as extolling the
privileges of America's rich rather than documenting the plight
of the world's poor. Nevertheless, a recent issue of that magazine
brought to light an aspect of global impoverishment that seems to
have escaped more liberal journals. Nicholas Stein's "LABOR TRADE
No Way Out,"
Fortune Magazine, 1/8/03,
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/careers/articles/0,15114,406059,00.html
uncovers what Fortune editors call "a new form of indentured servitude"
engendered by the garment trade and high-tech industry.
The story of Mary, a Philippine worker, illustrates how the new
servitude works. Mary, who would be lucky to earn $90 a month in
the Philippines, jumps at the chance to work in Taiwan for more
than five times the amount, even though it means paying a Philippine
labor broker $2,400 for the privilege. She doesn't have that kind
of money, so goes into debt, at steep interest, to secure it. But
that's just the Philippine side of the story. Once in Taiwan, she
finds that she most fork out another $3,900 to a local middleman
in order to actually land a job. In short, what Mary hopes will
be a way out of sweatshop poverty condemns her to long-term debt
bondage.
Although Motorola, Ericsson, and the Gap are among the firms benefiting
from the indentured servitude of Mary and countless Asian workers
like her, Nike should be singled out for special attention. Nike
responded to the anti-sweatshop campaigns of the 1990s by putting
together a large, well-paid corporate responsibility staff that,
it boasted, had succeeded in rooting out labor abuses. Yet, for
all its supposed sensitivity to labor conditions, Nike officials
claim to know nothing about the new servitude, though it's not exactly
a secret in affected countries, such as Thailand, where newspapers
have carried numerous exposes of the practice. The implication of
Stein's story is that Nike's much-advertised policy of self-monitoring
has had much more success as a marketing ploy than as a way of protecting
garment workers.
Thanks to Fortune for this piece: It's good to have the truth, however
bracing, and no matter how unexpected the source.
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