It's 9:00 on a chilly Saturday morning in Chicago. As I pull my winter coat closer to myself I hear the distant bells signaling the arrival of my train. I'm on my way downtown once again to inform the Michigan Avenue shoppers of just where and by whom their clothes are being made. Today I'm headed for Nike Town. A few of us who come out just about every Saturday from different organizations like Unite, Jobs with Justice, Students for Peace and Justice, and of course the Y.C.L. In addition there are the friends who tagged along or people who simply read our leaflets and decided to help.
As I approach the Niketown storefront today I see that there are already five people handing out leaflets and getting our petitions signed. Excitedly I pick up the pace and rush over to say "hi." Today we decided that a few of us would venture inside and hand out our leaflets. We grabbed our leaflets, got organized, and in a rush of warm air were sucked into the fancy store. From the harsh white lights to the sleek black furnishings it looked like a scene from a futuristic movie. To look at the prices it was obvious that their products were also priced way ahead of the average workers paycheck.
In contrast to how much they sell them for, Nike pays workers in Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea less than 4-cents per pair of shoes they make. Nike sells these same shoes for about 70 dollars in the United States. The teenagers who buy these shoes usually have no idea that their high tops were made by another teenager just like them. Like most of us, young buyers don't give much thought to where their clothes are made. Neither did I until I met two girls from Honduras who worked in a sweatshop making clothes for Gap. Smiling bravely at a room full of strangers, including me, these 16 and 17 year olds told their horrible story of life working in a sweatshop. They told us about the abuse, the forced overtime, and the below poverty level wages. They told us how they are denied medical attention and a chance to continue their education in night school. This was where they had come from, and this would be their reality until something was changed.
Their hope in coming to speak to us was to win to their side one part of the sweatshop system, us , the consumers. Because if we, the consumers, also refuse to put up with the abuse and raw exploitation of these women, then we can help their struggle to pressure big manufacturers like Nike. By showing our solidarity with our fellow workers we can aid their fight to get rid of sweatshop conditions. This was the hope that drove these two girls to risk so much and leave their homes to tell us their story. This is the same hope that got us up and out on this cold Saturday morning.
This hope has accomplished some gains. The Gap has of now instituted an independent monitoring system in its clothing factories to ensure the safety and fair treatment of their workers. In addition,Gap has begun to rehire the workers who were fired for union organizing. What's more, the mass media exposure of the Kathie Lee/Wal-Mart sweatshops soon led to teary promises by the talk show host to improve the working conditions of these girls and young women. So little by little the U.S. workers are showing big business that we won't allow them to destroy the lives of our fellow workers in the name of greater profits. Still, with Disney in Haiti, Levi Strauss in Honduras, and countless others with sweatshops around the world, we still have a long way to go.
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Dynamic Magazine
