No sweat : fashion, free trade, and the rights of garment workers

Are you aware that the T-shirt or running shoes you’re wearing may have been produced by a 13-year-old children working 14-hour days for 30 cents an hour? The clothing sweatshop, as a recent string of media exposés has revealed, is back in business. Don’t be fooled by a label which says the item was made in the USA or Europe. It could have been sewed on in Haiti or Indonesia—or in a domestic workshop, where conditions rival those in the third world. The label might tell you how to treat the garment but it says nothing about how the worker who made it was treated. To find out about that you need to read this book. No Sweat will show you: How Michael Jordan earned more for endorsing Nike running shoes than the company’s 30,000 Indonesian workers get between them in a year. How Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s annual pay and stock options, worth $200 million, are paid for out of profits from the sale of Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame T-shirts made by Haitian teenagers working for less than $10 per week and force-fed contraceptive pills. How companies like the Gap and Wal-Mart (producer of the Kathie Lee Gifford line) have been forced into embarrassing concessions after successful campaigning by the New York-based National Labor Committee, the American garment workers union UNITE and the European-based Clean Clothes Campaign. How you can join the growing global campaign of consumer groups, human rights activists, and international labor organizations to close down sweatshops and guarantee basic rights for those who cut and sew our clothes. In hard-hitting words and pictures, No Sweat surveys the chasm between the glamor of the catwalk and the squalor of the sweatshop. Don’t go shopping without it! A hard-hitting expose of the fashion world you don't see on the catwalk. Are youaware that the T-shirt or the running shoes you are wearing may have been produced by children as young as 13 years old, working 14-hour days for 30 cents an hour? Don't be reassured by a label that claims the item was manufactured in the USA or Europe. It could have been sewn in Haiti or Indonesia -- or in a domestic sweatshop where conditions rival those in the Third World. The label may tell you how to treat the garment, but it says nothing of how the worker who made it was treated. To find out about that you need to read this book.

No Sweat shows you:
* How Nike's celebrity spokeman Michael Jordan earned more for endorsing Nike running shoes that then company's 200,000-strong Asian workforce get between them in a year.
* How Disney boss Michael Eisner's annual pay and stock options, worth $200 million, are partly paid for out of profits from the sale of Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame T-shirts made by Haitian teenagers who work for less than $10 per week and are force-fed contraceptive pills.
* How campaigning by the New York-based Netional Labor Committee, the American workers' union UNITE and US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has forced embarrasing climb-downs by companies like GAP and Wal-Mart caught using sweated labor.
* How the European-based Clean Clothes Campaign has linked up with charities such as Oxfam to raise the issue of codes of conduct with manufacturers and retailers in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France.
* How you can join the growing global campaign of consumer groups, human rights activists and international labororganizations to close down the sweatshops and guarantee basic rights for those who cut and sew our clothes.

In hard-hitting words and pictures, No Sweat tells the story of the chasm between the glamour of the catwalk and the squalor of the sweatshop. Don't go shopping without it.
Contributors include JoAnn Mort and Alan Howard (UNITE), Julie Su, Charlie Kernaghan and the National Labor Committee (edited by Kitty Krupat), Bud Konheim (interviewed by Sally Singer), Mike Piore, John Cavanagh, MacKenzie Wark, Angela McRobbie, Robin Givhan, Paul Smith.
Frontmatter Preface and Acknowledgments (page 1) Testimony (Lina Rodriguez Meza, page 4) Introduction (Andrew Ross, page 9) The Global Resistance to Sweatshops (John Cavanagh, page 39) From War Zone to Free Trade Zone (Kitty Krupat, page 51) Paying to Lose Our Jobs (Charles Kernaghan, page 79) An Appeal to Walt Disney (National Labor Committee, page 95) The Myth of Nimble Fingers (Elinor Spielberg, page 113) Rat‐Catching: An Interview with Bud Konheim (Sally Singer, page 123) The Economics of the Sweatshop (Michael Piore, page 135) El Monte Thai Garment Workers: Slave Sweatshops (Julie Su, page 143) Labor, History, and Sweatshops in the New Global Economy (Alan Howard, page 151) New York: Defending the Union Contract (Carl Proper, page 173) "They Want to Kill Us for a Little Money" (Jo‐Ann Mort, page 193) The Structure and Growth of the Los Angeles Garment Industry (Steve Nutter, page 199) The Labor Behind the Label: Clean Clothes Campaigns in Europe (Linda Shaw, page 215) Sweatshopping (Eyal Press, page 221) Fashion as a Culture Industry (McKenzie Wark, page 227) Tommy Hilfiger in the Age of Mass Customization (Paul Smith, page 249) The Problem with Ugly Chic (Robin Givhan, page 263) A New Kind of Rag Trade? (Angela McRobbie, page 275) After the Year of the Sweatshop: Postscript (Andrew Ross, page 291) No Sweat Fashion List, Department of Labor (page 298) Notes (page 299) Contributors (page 310) Photo credits (page 312)