Date of publication: September 28, 2006
Source: Bangor Daily News
Author: Bjorn Skorpen Claeson
We must not encourage companies that use sweatshops by doing business with them," said Penn-sylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell as he signed onto Gov. John Baldacci's proposed coalition of states against sweatshops on Sept. 16. "If companies know they will lose money by continuing to employ this industrial-age practice, they will stop. Businesses can still make money by treating their employees fairly."
Gov. Rendell's announcement at an anti-sweatshop event sponsored by the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists follows New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's recent notice that he too will join Gov. Baldacci's path-breaking initiative to end sweatshop exploitation in apparel and other industries. First proposed by Gov. Baldacci on Feb. 28, the Governor's Coalition for Sweatfree Procurement and Workers' Rights will use state government procurement as a catalyst to end abusive working conditions around the world while leveling the playing field for businesses that treat employees fairly.
By acting together, states and other public entities can increase resources for investigating sweatshop conditions and coordinate enforcement of sweatfree purchasing efforts. Eventually, cities and states can create a $400 billion market for products made in humane conditions, transforming hundreds of thousands of sweatshop jobs into good jobs.
The coalition of elected leaders reflects a more significant coalition on the ground that seeks an end to taxpayer subsidies of sweatshop abuses. Maine became the first state in the nation to enact a sweatfree procurement law in 2001 when a broad coalition of unions and small businesses, people of faith and students, laid-off workers, community groups, high school students, and many others spoke eloquently and movingly at public hearings, wrote letters, met with legislators, and helped create a national precedent.
"Finally, there was something tangible to do about such a large, large problem that so many people cared about," said one of the movement leaders at the time. "We knew we were part of a greater movement - that if we won in Maine, other states could join in. Really doable and really monumental - what a combination."
Pennsylvania is a similar story. Garment workers urged Gov. Rendell to join the coalition. "As of now we're having a very hard time getting us supplied with work," said a veteran of 30 years in the industry. "Many of my fellow employees are losing their benefits. We need help. Thank you." But so did hotel workers with nothing immediately to gain from the coalition. "I have been working as an airport bartender for the past 20 years," said one. "And I am writing to support my fellow union workers in the garment and laundry industries."
As in Maine, a diverse coalition consisting of unions, civil rights organizations, student groups, and an association of apparel contractors came together to urge the governor to join a coalition they believed would become "a significant force for good jobs in Pennsylvania and a more humane global economy, benefiting workers everywhere."
"This is about exporting Pennsylvania's high standards for workers' rights throughout the global economy," said a member of the Black Political Empowerment Project and the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance. "This is an extension of the historic role of Pennsylvania's Abolitionist and Labor Union movements." In short, when workers are abused anywhere, it matters to people everywhere.
These sweat-free movements demonstrate that we are more than passive bystanders in the global economy, and that globalization is not quite the inexorable force that it is often made out to be, sweeping across the world like some sort of natural phenomenon - or disaster perhaps - nobody can control. There is nothing natural or pre-ordained about boarded-up factories and laid-off workers, or about inhumane working conditions which is the norm for workers in the global apparel industry, the United States included.
Instead, today's globalization is the deliberate result of very detailed rules, authored by select people, for the movement of goods and capital, the terms of foreign investments, the protection of copyrights and patents, and much more. The rules are very weak on labor standards and weaker yet on enforcement of those standards.
Rules of course are made to be questioned, rewritten and improved, which is what the sweat-free movements in Maine, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere are doing. A global economy based on the rules of sweat-free procurement that people have put into place in cities and states across the country and that leaders like Gov. John Baldacci have affirmed would indeed be a more humane global economy. And when we come together as cities and states, as Gov. Baldacci proposes, we have the power to create this new global economy. Consider that the $400 billion total that cities and states spend each year is more than total U.S. imports from China in 2005.
When we glimpse alternatives even people supposedly with no hope dare to hope. I met recently with a group of 16 workers from five garment factories still standing in eastern Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley to talk about the state coalition against sweatshops. Between them they had nearly five centuries of experience in apparel factories. About an hour into the conversation one asked, "Is the garment industry worth trying to save?"
After a brief silence, heads nod and more and more people offer "yes," some tentative, some quite firm. Another speaks up: "We've got to try. We can't give up. People may feel this is real. Think about the money, how your tax dollars are spent. It's a possibility for our people."
We hope it is a possibility for working people everywhere.
Bjorn Skorpen Claeson, of Bangor, is executive director of SweatFree Communities.