Guess? Jeans is starting to sweat
By G. Dunkel
Demonstrations, protests and other actions
against sweatshops have built a movement with teeth that has
begun to bite-hard.
A coalition of labor-including the AFL-CIO, Union of
Needletrade Industrial and Textile Employees, Farm Workers and
others-plus student, community, religious and progressive
groups has even begun to expose big clothing companies that try
to hide their exploitation of sweatshop labor by hiring
subcontractors and blaming them.
This movement, calling itself the Coalition of Conscience,
held many activities during the holiday season. Participants
informed shoppers about which clothing brands are sewn in
sweatshops-in the United States and in other countries, where
U.S.-based companies pay workers even less.
Guess? freaks out
The U.S. Labor Department, trying to head off a mass
movement that could have real impact, has set up a
"Trendsetters" list. This gives the nod to garment-industry
manufacturers and retailers that supposedly ensure their
subcontractors obey labor laws.
Of course, setting up such a list is far easier than
enforcing the laws. There is no real inspection mechanism.
Guess? is the biggest clothing manufacturer in Southern
California and among the biggest in the country. The company
wanted to be on the list.
Unfortunately, Guess? emits a bad odor. It fired workers
trying to organize a union, shut down their Los Angeles-area
plant and moved production to Latin America.
Guess? already had a long record of outrageous violations of
health-and-safety, wage-and-hour, labor and other laws in this
country. Conditions for the mostly Latina and Asian women
workers at Guess? sweatshops are notorious.
But during the holiday season, being branded as cruel to the
children who labor in sweatshops and targeted for exploiting
low-wage workers in this country, Mexico and Southern Asia
could really hurt sales and profits.
So Guess? lied.
First it ran a half-age ad in major newspapers on Dec. 7. In
the ad Guess? proclaimed itself "Guaranteed 100% FREE of
Sweatshop Labor" and said it supported Labor Secretary Alexis
Herman's "No Sweat Campaign." It even started sewing a
"sweatshop-free" label into Guess? jeans.
The UNITE union staged protests in New York and Los Angeles,
where on Dec. 13 guitarist Tom Morello of the rock group Rage
Against the Machine and 32 others were arrested. The union
helped to organize a nationwide leaflet campaign.
Prodded by UNITE, the Labor Department sharply criticized
Guess? for pretending it is on the "Trendsetters" list when in
fact it had been suspended for over a year.
Guess? was so taken aback by all this that its marketing
executives appear to have flipped out. The jeans company ran
another big ad, on Dec. 21. This one was a frontal attack on
UNITE.
The ad is addressed to UNITE President Jay Mazur. Its
bizarre copy seeks to blame the union itself for
sweatshops.
The ad suggests both that poor conditions still exist in
some shops where the workers are in the union-and, at the same
time, that because it has not yet organized all 155,000
Southern California garment workers, UNITE is itself
responsible for sweatshops.
As if this would fool someone, the ad is written as though
by anti-sweatshop crusaders. Its last line, urging people to
call UNITE President Mazur, is, "Join thousands of Americans
demanding an end to sweatshops."
In tiny letters at the bottom right corner is the punch
line: "Paid for by GUESS? Inc."
What is important about this ad is not the lies it contains,
but the fact that Guess? executives feel they have to attack
UNITE in order to fend off the criticisms leveled against it.
The anti-sweatshop campaign is obviously hitting its
target.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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