2008 Woodie Awards
Clothing should be produced under decent working conditions
Issue date: 4/15/08 Section: Opinion
The true March Madness is the sweatshop conditions under which college clothing is manufactured. While college basketball was at the center of the sporting world's attention, fans across the country followed the games, cheered for their favorite teams and donned their favorite college T-shirt.
Unfortunately, as the games were dissected and analyzed from every angle, a much more important story was hardly mentioned. While most consumers know who plays point guard for their favorite team, very few of them are aware of what is happening in the factories where college apparel is produced.
Tens of thousands of workers in many countries work in factories that produce college apparel, and most earn poverty wages, are required to work extremely long hours and work in unsafe conditions. Major brands like Nike, Adidas and Reebok hold the licenses to market college apparel, and they use contractor factories to manufacture the product. Intense competition pushes these contractors to offer the absolute lowest price, forcing factory managers to keep wages as low as possible rather than pay the extra couple of cents per T-shirt that it would cost to respect the rights of workers.
The result is that, across the board, university clothes are made in factories where workers are not receiving anywhere near enough to support themselves or their families. According to research published by the Worker Rights Consortium, wages in key apparel producing countries would need to be doubled or tripled to cover the cost of basic needs like food, clothing, housing and health care. For the American consumer, however, this would add less than a dollar to the cost of a $35 sweatshirt.
Brands need permission to use university names and logos, a relationship which gives the university community a great deal of power to help ensure that the workers producing their apparel have decent working conditions.
Anyone who goes to college, sends his or her kids to college, works for a college, or roots for a college sports team can significantly improve the lives of tens of thousands of garment workers - at little cost to American consumers - by urging college presidents to change this system.
Unfortunately, as the games were dissected and analyzed from every angle, a much more important story was hardly mentioned. While most consumers know who plays point guard for their favorite team, very few of them are aware of what is happening in the factories where college apparel is produced.
Tens of thousands of workers in many countries work in factories that produce college apparel, and most earn poverty wages, are required to work extremely long hours and work in unsafe conditions. Major brands like Nike, Adidas and Reebok hold the licenses to market college apparel, and they use contractor factories to manufacture the product. Intense competition pushes these contractors to offer the absolute lowest price, forcing factory managers to keep wages as low as possible rather than pay the extra couple of cents per T-shirt that it would cost to respect the rights of workers.
The result is that, across the board, university clothes are made in factories where workers are not receiving anywhere near enough to support themselves or their families. According to research published by the Worker Rights Consortium, wages in key apparel producing countries would need to be doubled or tripled to cover the cost of basic needs like food, clothing, housing and health care. For the American consumer, however, this would add less than a dollar to the cost of a $35 sweatshirt.
Brands need permission to use university names and logos, a relationship which gives the university community a great deal of power to help ensure that the workers producing their apparel have decent working conditions.
Anyone who goes to college, sends his or her kids to college, works for a college, or roots for a college sports team can significantly improve the lives of tens of thousands of garment workers - at little cost to American consumers - by urging college presidents to change this system.
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