Date of publication: September 12, 2007
Source: The Portland Mercury
Author: Scott Moore
Last Wednesday's (August 29) city council hearing on a proposed sweat-free resolution, which would prevent the city and its contractors from doing business with sweatshops, was filled with joy and celebration. Anti-sweatshop activists got more than they expected from Commissioner Sam Adams.
But one looming dark cloud was quickly swept under the rug; during the hearing, Valerie Orth—the chair of San Francisco's Sweat-Free Ordinance Advisory Committee—revealed that not a single contractor has been able to comply with that city's two-year-old law. Indeed, several large contractors (equaling $7.2 million in contracts, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian) have been given exemptions to the ordinance that will last years. In other words, San Francisco's anti-sweatshop law—the strictest in the nation—isn't being enforced...