Last week when I wrote about how wonderful Chucks are, I neglected to mention - no, I deliberately omitted, an important fact about them. Since 2001, when Converse was bought by Nike, Chucks have been made in sweatshops.
I left it out because there is nothing praiseworthy about a sweatshop. Nothing. Sweatshops, as we know them today, have been in existence since the mid 1800s. Like sweatshops today, they exploited the vulnerable; namely poor people, new immigrants, and women. You probably know about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911; if not, do look it up, and especially look at the pictures. In short, 146 workers, mostly young women who were new immigrants, were killed when a fire broke out at the building where they worked on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. The doors to the stairwells had been locked, purportedly to prevent them from taking unauthorised breaks and stealing, trapping them inside. Some women were killed by the fire. Some died from smoke inhalation. Some were crushed in the panic. And some died in a vain attempt to escape the building by jumping. I can't describe the sadness of the photos of their broken bodies on the street.
1911 was over 100 years ago, so things must have changed, right? Well, they have; for some of us. Some of us live in countries that now have labour laws to protect us from these tragedies (although many within this country seem hell-bent on reversing those laws under the guise of improving our economy). We see workers protesting outside McDonalds and toot our support, glad to be somewhere where workers can protest (though that's another right that's being compromised) and then off we go to Glassons, or The Warehouse, or Topshop, or Karen Walker. Off I go to a shoe-shop to buy Chucks.
Meanwhile, three weeks ago, a factory/sweatshop in Bangladesh, which had been inspected and found to be unsafe but remained open, collapsed, claiming 1127 lives (a number that may rise). 1127 people, who were working in an unsafe building for a wage that is barely worth mentioning, yet will be sorely, sorely missed by their heart-broken families. The footage on the news has had me in tears every single time; children holding photos of their missing mothers, and dust-covered bodies being carried out from rubble.
This kind of tragedy is hardly isolated. Just last September, there were two factory fires in Pakistan on the same day, in which over 300 people died.
It's easy to look at the labels for whom those particular factories were working (GAP, Primark, Benetton), boycott them for a while, and carry on our merry way. But we can't. So what do we do? I don't have lots of answers. I abhor the idea of advocating "trading lives", but I'm not going to tell a low income mother to stop buying her kids' clothes from K-Mart. I just know that these tragedies are not separate from me. My choices in my every day life bear on people I've never met, who have no choices, and that's not okay with me. There are some things where I might justify to myself that I don't have a choice (not entirely true), like when I buy stockings, all of which are made in countries without labour laws except the French ones which cost more than a week's petrol. But most of the time, I have a choice. That choice is partly why I buy secondhand, but that's not for everyone, and I respect that. Some people argue that awful wages are better than no wages (which I think misses the point, but) with which I can't decisively argue, but doesn't change the fact that those of us who have rights and power also have a responsibility. So here are some things we can do. if you have more ideas, please leave them in the comments; I'm happy to admit mine are hardly original, and could use some work.
1. Pressure places we like to do what's right. Boycotting one place means patronising another, and sometimes they're not really any different. I mean, by all means, boycott so they get the message, but let who we're shopping with know why we're doing so, and if we're a letter to the editor writer, or we know our local MP, tell them too. (Yes, I'm that person. I emailled our local supermarket to commend them on stocking fairtrade bananas a couple of days ago. I was born a nerd.)
2. Think of our money as a vote. (This works better if you care about politics, but then you wouldn't have read this far if you didn't.)
3. Be aware of where things are made. It's not foolproof (most garments don't say where the fabric itself was produced), but it's something. More expensive doesn't mean workers were paid fairly; an embarrassing number of NZ designers have shifted production overseas (partly, they say, because they're competing with places like Topshop, produced in sweatshops and headed by cretins like Phillip Green who won't pay tax). I'd like to post a list of those who are still made in NZ here at some stage; one that comes to mind now is WORLD.
4. Make the things we buy count. If we're not sure where/how something was made, be sure it's worth it to us. I should wear the fake Chucks they sell at fairtrade shops, but I don't, and I accept that makes me a hypocrite, and my only explanation is that I love Chucks. It's an incredibly privileged way to live and one that some people disagree with, but it's realistic; for me, anyway.
5. Give ourselves a break. For the most part, I try, and for the most part, I'm okay with my decisions. But I only get a break as long as I keep trying.
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