By Another Name, It Couldn't Be Sweatier
STEPHANIE SALTER
December 5, 1996, Thursday; Second Edition AT FIRST glance, it looks to be just another of those casual-chic clothing catalogs, albeit a thin one. On the cover is a beaming, healthy young woman in running clothes, jogging happily past a Latina in a Central American village.
"SWEAT GEAR" says the cover type. "A Lucrative Blend of Old and New. Designer Attire from Old-fashioned Sweatshops in El Salvador. For that Mean and Lean Look . . ."
An inside letter, from the "president & CEO of Sweat International," dispels any lingering notion that this is just another catalog: Dear fellow shopper,
I wish you could have joined me on my latest trip to El Salvador. I was visiting the San Marcos Free Trade Zone, a tax and tariff free economic zone nuzzled snugly in the hills near the airport . . . Was it only a decade ago that our tax dollars built this little oasis of profit? How it's grown in just 10 short years, while wages fell 50 percent! I must admit, at that moment, I felt more than a little pride in our accomplishments.
With perfect holiday timing and biting parody, the Sweat Gear catalog really comes from the folks at a 15-year-old, U.S.-based civil rights organization, CISPES (Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). It's their way of reminding consumers "that behind every $ 25 T -shirt in the catalog or the mall is a worker who probably earned about 16 cents for her labor."
Thanks to such organizations (including the Bay Area's Global Exchange), to U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, the last couple of years have been rich in ugly revelations about our country's offshore and domestic apparel industry.
Major manufacturers from Liz Claiborne to Nike have been forced to own up to myriad abuses of workers in countries such as El Salvador, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Despite most companies' pledges to provide fair wages and humane working conditions, reality is far different. Aided and abetted by host country governments, legal minimum wages are kept immorally low, children work full days, labor organizers are harassed, fired or terrorized, and working conditions give new meaning to the old term "sweatshop."
The chirpy, feel-good letter from Sweat International's CEO recounts a scene in a symbolic Salvadoran factory:
It was then, looking down the production line, that I suddenly saw her: 16-year-old Maria, a halo of dust and cotton lint framing her young face and irritating her lungs. Even though it will take her 101 years to earn my monthly salary, I sensed an instant bond between us.
. . . Though clearly exhausted, she offered up a shy smile as our eyes met. She spoke warmly of our new product line, all the while straining to assemble it, her nimble fingers darting to and fro under the relentless needle.
It is moments such as these that make this whole business worthwhile.
The CISPES catalog is also meant to raise awareness of a pernicious little Christmas tradition in El Salvador: To avoid government mandated bonuses for workers, factory managers simply fire as many employees as they can before the holidays. Neither the Salvadoran government nor the U.S. companies that profit big-time from these cheap operations are inclined to put a stop to the practice.
If you'd care to "order" some Sweat Gear, "All of our sweat gear is pre-sweated right on the factory floor", CISPES will send you a catalog. The national office can be reached at 212 / 229-1290; the Bay Area office at 415 / 255-1946, or a web site at http: / / www.blank.org / sweatgear.
As Sweat Gear's CEO puts it:
Sweat Gear is YOU. It is your consumer choices that make this global production chain possible. Thank you for helping us turn this economic fantasy into a reality.
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