Six Degrees of Exploitation: Anti-Sweatshop Activists Target Kevin Bacon
If you’ve ever taken a long-distance car drive, there is a good chance you’ve played the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” On the off-chance you haven’t, this is the game - riffing on the idea that all of the earth’s people are connected by no more than six intermediate degrees - where you try to connect movie stars to Kevin Bacon through the movies they have appeared in. Now, with the help of student anti-sweatshop activists, Kevin Bacon is getting a taste of real life “Six Degrees,” and the connections are unsettling.
Meet Marlenny Franco. A textile worker in the Dominican Republic and the mother of a new born child, Marlenny stood up to her bosses at the Hanes factory where she works to stop discrimination against women and unsafe conditions. The company retaliated by firing her, along with many others who protested. And now students are holding Kevin Bacon accountable.
The connection? Kevin Bacon is a paid celebrity spokesperson for Hanes, helping to sell the company’s t-shirts and underwear through a high profile ad campaign. The students are asking Bacon, who has a reputation for liberal politics, to use his status to help stop labor abuses at Hanes overseas textile plants.
The students, who are part of a national organization called United Students Against Sweatshops, confronted Bacon in New York at the premiere of his film “Death Sentence.” According to Connor X, a Columbia University student who held a banner at the protest reading “Kevin Bacon: Tell Hanes to Stop the Exploitation of Workers,” Mr. Bacon came up to the protestors and promised he would look into the situation.
But since then, say the activists, there has been no follow-up from Mr. Bacon’s camp and the situation at the factory has only gotten worse. In response, the activists have launched a national campaign, with student protestors showing up to challenge Mr. Bacon at events across the country - from the Emmy awards, where they say their protest won a brief glimpse on national TV, to small-town concerts by the Bacon Brothers, the rock band led by Kevin Bacon and his lesser known brother Michael.
In keeping with the times, they have even launched a website, titled Six Degrees of Exploitation.com, and a group on Facebook, which boasts nearly 1000 members, all to shine a light on conditions at the Dominican factory.
The students’ claims about sweatshop conditions at the Dominican Hanes factory are backed up by an investigation by a leading labor rights monitoring organization, the Worker Rights Consortium, which counts 175 colleges and universities among its members. The organization released a report in June, finding that workers at the TOS Dominicana factory, owned and operated by Hanes, are subjected to unlawful forced overtime and psychological abuse and that the company has systemically fired workers who have chosen to join together in a union.
The situation is indeed disturbing. Workers at the Hanes plant earn about $1.25 an hour. Workers interviewed for this article reported that they had to borrow money most weeks just to cover food, rent and medicine for their families, and often had to forgo extra expenses such as telephones. With such low wages, many workers reported that to make ends meet they had to work extra shifts, amounting to up to 72 hours in a week.
One single mother who was working two additional night shifts to make ends meet said “By the end of the week my body is totally worn out, with extreme back pain. After working two shifts I spend most of my days off sleeping. In reality I don’t have any time to be with my son because the time I am home I am exhausted or sleeping.”
The long hours have taken a toll on workers’ health, particularly for women. Several workers reported having to be hospitalized because of the strain of working long hours, under extreme pressure, while breathing in lint-filled air. One woman was forced to quit because within six months of working in the factory she began to get heavy menstruation up to three times a month. Another woman developed such severe symptoms that her doctor diagnosed her with asthma after just six months working in the factory.
Marlenny was also hospitalized due to the strain of the work on her body. Though Hanes deducted money from her weekly paycheck to pay for health insurance, they had not filed her insurance information. As a result, she was forced to borrow money to pay for her hospital bills. She said “The company didn’t take responsibility for it, even though I got sick at work. For their negligence I had to pay 6,000 pesos out of my pocket. Five months later when I was fired I was still paying back the loan. I am not the only one who has been taken advantage of with the work insurance but the company just doesn’t care.”
Those who have protested have faced harsh retaliation. According to the Worker Rights Consortium, the factory has targeted union members for dismissal - in a 5 day period in April, for example, the company fired 31 workers, of whom 30 were union members. The worker who leads the factory’s union was recently subjected to a death threat.
The protest campaign continues. And many are counting on Kevin Bacon to use his real world connections put an end to some all too real exploitation.
Zach Knorr works with United Students Against Sweatshops.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to boycott Hanes products and write letters stating you are boycotting them?
“You’re another corporate fucking shill. You’re just a whore at the capitalist gang bang. And if you do a commercial, there’s a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect, and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink.” (Bill Hicks, Relentless - from the album)
Good advice, dcbeltway, And that’s what I intend to do. Although, if I were to take the same stance towards all the sources of my clothes, I’d soon be arrested for indecent exposure. Nevertheless, one has to start somewhere. I intend to start with Hanes.
dcbeltway,
No reason you can’t do both, eh? Targeting Bacon brings some media exposure that is sorely needed to get things done nowadays.
dcbeltway said ” Wouldn’t it make more sense to boycott Hanes products and write letters stating you are boycotting them?”
I see nothing wrong with direct communication with Kevin Bacon the paid front man for Hanes products. It is often the case that the media likes to bury workers stories related to corporations because advertising is how the media earns it’s money. I think people should use all legal avenues open to them to obtain justice in this situation. So whatever order you want to put it in we can boycott, right letters and contact celebrity front people to help the cause. It is true, separateness is an illusion. What others do has an affect on us. So for a better world we must act in ways that is good for us all.
Peace.
I personally think a direct boycott would be more effective. Yes, you can still pressure Kevin Bacon but Hanes can always replace him with another celebrity corporate shill.
I agree with dc and witness. Both ideas are commendable and worth the effort. I for one, will no longer purchase items witht the Hanes label. Pretty soon, I won’t be buying much of anything except food and only if it’s not contaminated with chemicals.
“Wait ’til we get our Hanes on you…”
The sad part is that improving wages and working conditions for these people wouldn’t add much to the cost of clothing, as manufacturing labor is a small part. Most of us would gladly pay a dollar more to know that we are doing the right thing ethically; it’s the greed of the manufacturers, distributors and retailers that’s the problem, and it is at them we must direct our action.
The problem is not Kevin Bacon it is the celebrity worship culture.
I think publicity campaigns against celebrity spokespersons is an excellent tactic. Make them think twice (thrice, or even more) before signing a contract with a manufacturer. And geez, how long have textiles industries been dealing with sweatshop issues? You’d think signing on with a clothing manufacturer would at least raise the tiniest bit of concern with a celebrity who (at least in this article) is said to have “a reputation for liberal politics.“
Kevin Bacon is part of the problem. He represents a concept that Hanes clothing is an acceptable or preferable choice. Instead of the reality that Hanes clothing maybe representative of exploitation of the people that make them. It is deception, and it should be brought to his attention so that he is responsible for what he represents as a media personality.
I didn’t even know Bacon was advertising for Hanes…isn’t Michael-somebody (some black/American ex-sports-star?) more prominent as a Hanes-spokesman/shill?
Here’s a website for Maine made underwear!
In a family of 12 the daughters are making the garments. But BY choice! It’s the opposite of child slave labor, American entrepreneurship of the highest order.
I too started a business when I was 12, painting christmas motifs on neighbors windows in teempera. My contract INCLUDED, removal of the pictures after the holidays.
http://www.wintersfamilystore.com/undergarments.htm
The blithering fools in the U.S. went through the SAME CRAP about 100 years ago and for the last 30, they’ve PISSED AWAY the concessions the brave men and women who were beaten, shot, and burned alive got them. Hell, now they laud the same groups of toadies responsible for it as heroes again. Hooray for those kids responsible for trying to bring it to light, but hell, what was it, 20 years ago precious pretty Kathy Lee went through the same “ordeal” and she’s older, more wrinkled probably but just as fat-cat rich from that crap now as she was when she “doe-eyed” her way out of it then.