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Today's Top News
San Francisco No Longer Sweat-Free
Antisweatshop advocates are stunned by progressive San Francisco's granting to garment contractors five-year exemptions from the city's historic "sweat-free" procurement ordinance. When Mayor Gavin Newsom signed the measure two years ago, he declared that San Francisco would lead the way to new standards in the global sweatshop economy.
How could the highly regarded liberal mayor, widely expected to rise as a state and national political figure, grant such lengthy exemptions to taxpayer-subsidized contractors who admittedly fail to comply with the sweat-free law? According to the city's own sweat-free staff, San Francisco police trousers are assembled by Flying-Cross Fechheimer, a city contractor, in Colombia, where assassins routinely gun down labor leaders.
City officials have worked hard to implement the ordinance, but they assert that the sweat-free standards are beyond what contractors are willing to accept. The toughest part of the ordinance, they say, is the requirement that contractors are liable to pay penalties for violations. But while that sticking point is a serious one, many of the contractors receiving exemptions refuse even to disclose their factory locations, a key barrier to any monitoring.
The basic point made by city officials is that there are "no compliant bidders," and police, firefighters and municipal workers simply cannot go without new uniforms. But this claim is refuted by three facts:
- A San Francisco city controller has stated that the procurement agency can avoid a supply crisis by issuing purchasing orders as needed, rather than five-year exemptions.
- Los Angeles officials say that San Francisco can attach itself to the existing LA sweat-free contract to obtain uniforms.
- While the shortage of responsible bidders is a serious problem, San Francisco officials may not have searched seriously beyond the culture of traditional contractors. For example, the Los Angeles-based American Apparel expresses willingness to enter the uniform market as a bidder, but a San Francisco official dismissed the company for "only making tee shirts."
On two occasions, the appointed San Francisco citizens' advisory committee urged officials not to issue five-year exemptions. Instead, they worked with officials on a compromise proposal that would limit exemptions to one year with the possibility of renewal; require that contractors receiving exemptions file plans for progress toward compliance with the ordinance; write criteria for awarding contracts to "most compliant" bidders; and continue to require remedial action where an exempted contractor is found in violation of the basic standards of the ordinance.
In late July, without fanfare, the talks were overtaken by the quiet issuing of the exemptions. According to the controllers' office, the exemptions will cover 77 percent of the city's garment contracts.
The city's contract with an independent monitor, the Workers Rights Consortium, was not completed until after the exemptions were decided, leaving the WRC with little if anything to monitor if factory locations are not disclosed.
As a result, the amendments proposing a more flexible rating system for awarding contracts are rolling through the San Francisco Board of Supervisors without a recognition that the five-year exemptions cripple the city's ability to enforce its sweat-free policy, which could be a case of closing the barn door after the animals have escaped. Ordinarily, San Francisco supervisors deal with broad policy issues, leaving contract matters to the mayor's office.
San Francisco officials continue to take pride in having "the most progressive standards in America" but then justify the exemptions by claiming that the standards are too high and inflexible. They offer no explanation for why any exemptions should be of five-years' duration without conditions. Without public acknowledgment, City Hall has decided to back away from its sweat-free commitment in the face of concerted lobbying by contractors like Fechheimer. At this point, only the rhetoric remains, though it is possible the issue will surface once again if and when abuses are discovered in a factory facility subsidized by San Francisco taxpayers.
By contrast, the earlier LA ordinance based on the lower standard requiring a vague "good-faith effort" by contractors has resulted in the disclosure of more than fifty factory sites in such countries as the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Kenya, Bangladesh and China. The WRC has begun working with labor and human rights advocates in those countries to uncover the abuse of sweatshop workers. If and when sweatshop violations are uncovered, the standard of "good-faith efforts" by the contractors can be evaluated by government decision-makers.
Tom Hayden is a former state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His books include The Port Huron Statement [new edition], Street Wars and The Zapatista Reader.
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
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5 Comments so far
Show AllI smell something rotten going on here. And how likely is it that abuses in sweatshops (an oxymoron) will be discovered when contractors refuse to divulge where they are?
Taking pride in standards that they claim are too high and inflexible to enforce sounds insane.
This whole issue is a classic example of living in denial, something Americans are very accomplished at doing.
There is an entire group of worker's in the US that are never mentioned. Young, talented, visionaries that bust their asses and live barely above the poverty level, they are screenwriters and actors, are a few of the aforementioned group.
The chance they have to be noticed is to be a part of an indie film or production. For years now, the indie filmakers, have a go now and again, then use top box office stars as actors, these actors feel they are doing all the great unwashed a service by using their established stardom and box office draw, working for free or peanuts, (since they already have tens ,hundreds of millions of dollars, already, not affecting them at all )to bring attention to governmental, racial, true-life depictions of these injustices on celluloid. What they have done and have been doing is keeping people that need these jobs to become noticed, thereby allowing them to, perhaps make a living jobless and unemployed. My daughter has been at it for years and I still have to pay off student loans, car payments, car insurance and health insurance, as she works all night as a bartender to pay her bills and eat, which amounts to nil. She drives a cheap economy car, studio apartment in Little Armenia in Hollywood, UGH, and comes home at 4 am and starts writing until she gets a few hours sleep to go back to the shithole she works at. This is a woman with a degree in world religion's yet her entire life was superior at writing and artwork, therefore she writes.
Not exactly a classic sweatshop scenario, but what is occurring in the industry is Sundance and Tribeca are becoming a scouting activity for big name stars trying to find a project deemed a hotbed for young, guilty pseudo activists that allows them to assuage their otherwise indifference while attending to their lives. They, in fact, are guilty of what they say they are trying to prevent.
O roe,
Your daughter is very fortunate to have such a father.
Good for you and good for her. I understand her situation, from decades of personal experience. Best of luck to her.
On a slightly side note; One of the things that many actors face is the fact that their own visions/hopes, for doing work that is truly meaningful and/or artistic, is compromised simply so they can work at all. It is usually a situation of - make a stupid Hollywood movie or don't work at all. After becoming a star, they understandably still wish to make a film (act in one) that is closer to their original dreams. It offers some sort of redemption for years of doing fluff. In that, I understand their desire to work in meaningful 'indie' films. That is not all of them, to be sure, some are just egocentric and want fame and stardom above all else. But not all.
Part (if not all) of the problem is that, upon seeing the popularity of the Arts, business people see a potential profit. When the business people start trying to direct the Arts, the Arts suffer and decline - witness MTV and the corporate takeover of the music business in the seventies, which resulted in a great demise in the creativity and quality of music.
Hopefully, with technology and the internet, there will be a brighter and alternative future for artists in every field, including filmmakers.
OK. You've got to be kidding me. Are you seriously trying to compare actors who CHOOSE to work "flexible" jobs in order to PURSUE THEIR DREAMS with sweatshop workers who are very often merely inches away from ACTUAL SLAVERY?!?!?! Your poor little girl renting a flat in Hollywood?! Poor enslaved child, with a loving daddy paying off the COLLEGE LOANS, CAR PAYMENTS, CAR INSURANCE, and HEALTH INSURANCE. Poor dear! Someone call Amnesty International right away!
Please consider that real sweatshop workers are regularly forced to work any and all required hours under penalty of dismissal, beating, or worse. Thay often live in crappy slum "dorms" packed in like rats, much unlike the dorms at your daughter's college, I'm certain. Sweatshop workers are paid barely enough to keep them alive, they are often not free to leave, they are often beaten or raped, they are often killed if caught trying to organize, and they generally DO NOT GET TO CHOOSE TO WORK A CRAPPY JOB TO PURSUE THEIR ARTISTIC DREAMS. Many only dream to survive. Many only dream to not be a prostitute again. So please spare us the teary comparisons between well-off middle class Americans and sweatshop slaves from impoverished nations.
Next time you're at the GAP or Banana Republic getting some new kakhis and black turtlenecks, think about the 12-year-old girls who are forced to sew those garments for up to 16 hours a day - perhaps they dream to even be able to write, much less write a screenplay with help from daddy's wallet.
Thank You, Buckycat for introducing some desperately needed sense into this discussion! And for steering it back on topic.
Remember the scene in Michael Moore's film, The Big One, when the guy from Nike states that Americans just arent interested in making sneakers and his company was therefore forced to seek sweatshop labor? San Francisco officials seem to be singing a similarly ludicrous song.
Question: Why is the SF gov unable to enforce the penalties upon violation of the ordinance? Many branches of gov utilize penalty monies to finance and expand their enforcement operations. It is done.
I'd also like to know how the contractors so clearly communicated that "the sweat-free standards are beyond what contractors are willing to accept". The American populace could use the coaching on making their voices heard and their opinions count.