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No Sweat

By Robyn TayloR-neu & Dean neu

A father and daughter venture to El Salvador, where a co-op is struggling to break the sweatshop hegemony.

Veronica, a member of the Co-operative of Single Mothers, says co-op work means “helping out with all the tasks.” ph

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DDespite the prevalence of sweatshops and poor labour conditions in Third World countries, some workers are fighting back and establishing their own alternatives. In August 2006, Dean Neu travelled with his daughter, Robyn Taylor-Neu, to El Salvador to visit a co-op that makes clothing. They wrote journals about their experiences, then wove them together to create this father/daughter dialogue.

Robyn: Ciudad Futura is a new city on the outskirts of San Salvador, intended as a home for maquila workers. Needless to say, it isn’t most people’s ideal vacation spot. So what were we doing here in the summer holidays? My father—a business professor/activist (if there is such a beast)—and his friends are visiting the Cooperativa de Madres Solteras (Co-operative of Single Mothers). On the way to Ciudad Futura, I hear snatches of a conversation in which the disease “dengue” figures prominently. Annoyed at being out of the loop, I ask: What is dengue? When the response comes, I think they’re pulling my leg. Apparently, the disease, transmitted by mosquitoes, does something to your blood, causing your cells to collapse, resulting in blood streaming from your eyes, nose and ears, and every other opening. Sounds like science fiction, no? After being assured that they were definitely not joking, I fly into a panic. When we leave the car, I practically hose myself down with bug spray, pulling my sweatshirt sleeves down over my hands, and attempt to cover every square inch of skin. We’ve been told that dengue is common in this area.

Dean: It is raining in Ciudad Futura. We are sitting in the tiny house of one of the members of the co-operative, talking about what it means to be a co-operative. There are about 10 adults crowded into the tiny space, as well as children of various ages playing, talking and crying. The lights flicker intermittently as the rain continues—after all, August is the rainy season in El Salvador, bringing with it humidity, power disruptions and the ever-present risk of dengue. Indeed, one of the themes of conversation is that one of the neighborhood children recently contracted hemorrhagic dengue and, miraculously, survived. Marta starts the conversation, stating emphatically that “a co-operative means working together and helping each other out.” The other women nod in agreement. When Marta pauses, Veronica takes the opportunity to add that working co-operatively means “helping out with all the tasks, such as putting the shirts in plastic bags and packing the boxes for shipments.” The women smile and laugh, recounting how they stayed up all night making sure one of their first orders was ready to be packed onto the plane the following morning. When the laughter dies away, Marta concludes that “we need to work co-operatively because there is no other way.”

Robyn: I am sitting in a small plastic chair in the cramped living room in Veronica’s house. As the others talk in rapid-fire Spanish, my mind drifts to other topics. I recall that when we’d first arrived a small group of children had been kicking around a deflated soccer ball. And how Oscar, a member of our party, immediately joined in. Being able to play soccer in this country gains you the respect of the locals. Funny how different cultures can be. The people of Ciudad Futura, like the rest of the developing world, live with the reality of unstable employment, health problems like dengue and the constant preoccupation with whether there will be enough food to eat tomorrow.

Dean: Why do people have to live with these uncertainties? One reason is that our economic system rewards the lowest-cost producers. In 1974, the Multi-fiber Agreement set inter-national tariffs establishing how much textiles and clothing a producing country could export to a consumer country. Countries like Bangladesh or El Salvador could export a set number of T-shirts or trousers to the US or European market; retailers were forced to outsource their operations to as many as 50 countries to guarantee a steady supply. With the termination of this agreement in 2005, brands could relocate production to lowest-cost producers. These changes have encouraged centralization of production in the very countries that have the fewest protections for workers. In El Salvador, the tariff changes have led to the closure of hundreds of maquilas, throwing thousands of people out of work. And while the conditions of work were never great—Veronica recounts how she used to earn $5 per day (and spend $2 and 15 hours every day commuting and working)—at least there were jobs. What a different world from Canada.

Robyn: On our return to Calgary, I noticed how different the values and fears of the average Canadian are from those of the maquila workers. My terror of spiders seems petty in compari-son to their fears about not having enough food to eat. What my schoolmates and I might spend on lunch is more than a day’s wage for them. Isn’t it absurd that we can so proudly wear brand-name clothing without a thought toward where it came from and who made it? What is it that causes this lemming-like behaviour? The answer lies in the nature of the brand. With increasing industrialization, the production of goods moved from the community to the factory. However, people weren’t prepared to trust goods from factories far away. Marketers introduced characters such as Aunt Jemima and Tony the Tiger so people could relate to these characters the same way they would relate to a local shopkeeper—and people would trust the products because they trusted the characters. Over time these brands have become an end in themselves. People buy products to consume the imaginary attributes associated with them, to say who they are and who they want to be. No longer are we buying a T-shirt that fits well and has good quality, but rather we are buying an image, a feeling, a set of emotions.

No SwEAT

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Dean: It seems that we can’t escape these conflicting realities. We visit our local market, which sells products by local artisans, and stop at a booth selling screen-printed shirts. The artist tells us she uses Gildan shirts because they are certified as “sweatshop-free” by the Fair Labor Association. But what do we mean by “sweatshop-free”? Gildan tried to shut down one of its plants in Honduras when the workers attempted to organize a union. After much international pressure, it agreed to rehire the fired workers—but not before redistributing them among their other plants, perhaps to ensure they would not organize. How can such a producer receive the endorsement of the Fair Labor Association? International monitoring organizations have emerged to reassure consumers that the brands they purchase aren’t tainted with the sweat of the children and other workers that have produced them. Throughout the late nineties this issue became increasingly visible. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Nike and Gap were pressured to change their labour practices. Multi-stakeholder monitoring organizations emerged—including the Fair Labor Association, Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production, and Social Accountability International—that attempt to monitor the maquilas. How-ever, when one reads the fine print, one realizes that more is concealed than revealed by these organizations.

Robyn: On the ride home from the market, my experiences in Ciudad Futura and Canada suddenly come together. In that moment, I understand why the co-operative sees fair trade as

one of their few opportunities to escape the uncertainty and drudgery of maquila work. Furthermore, I see why the co-operative’s slogans are “Clothes with a History” and “Clothing with a Conscience”. This logo opposes traditional brands that sell images and emotions while exploiting the workers who make the products. It is a reminder that these individuals should not remain nameless and faceless.

Dean: I hope that Robyn and the women are right and that it is possible to survive and succeed in the global economy through optimism, hard work and co-operation. At the same time, I am reminded of the ocean in El Salvador and how dangerous it is to swim during the rainy season. The global economy for clothing is like the ocean: its currents and undertows can suck the unwary in. But, like Robyn, I understand the importance of actively swimming against the current. It isn’t easy for the women’s co-operative to survive and prosper in the global economy, but they are trying. Over the course of the last year, they have shown themselves that they can produce quality, stylish clothing products, and that there are consumers who value their toil. But they need our hard work and co-operation. We need to buy fairly traded products and to ask retailers why they aren’t selling such products. For those of us who dream of a better world, we do not have any other choice. #

Robyn Taylor-Neu is a Grade 10 student. Dean Neu is the director for public interest accounting at the University of Calgary.

A member of the Co-operative of Single Mothers with two of her children. The co-op’s slogan is “Clothing with a Conscience.”

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CiTizEN ACTioN

Promoting Fair Labour

5 ways to Buy Better.

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1. Be Aware3 Did you know that approximately 6,000 Toronto women sew garments for $3 an hour? That wristbands supporting the “Make Poverty History” cam-paign were discovered to have been made in a factory in China that violated labour standards? You might be familiar by now with the basics of sweatshop data (a great many Third World workers toil for low wages in terrible conditions, and the goods they make end up in megastores here), but a lot of the info out there might surprise even the most conscientious consumer. A good place to look is www.verite.org, the website of an NGO devoted to exposing and improving the realities of global labour. Another online source of information is www.corpwatch.org, which keeps tabs on the doings of spe-cific companies, while the International Co-operative Alliance (www.ica.coop) represents and reports on co-ops around the world. The Maquila Solidarity Net-work (www.maquilasolidarity.org) is a good site for labour news, including the story of the 6,000 Toronto “home- workers.”

2. Buy Selectively3 Co-op America reports that many major corporations subcontract their manufacturing so they can wash their hands of responsibility for working con-ditions in factories. Then they gobble up market share thanks to the cut-rate prices they can afford to charge. It’s tough to say no to lower prices, but we can buck this trend by paying a bit more and shopping at locally owned businesses. On the other hand, “international” does not necessarily mean “bad”—there are

importersin Canada that

follow strict principles. One example is Ten Thousand Villages, an international fair trade organization with stores in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge. Its products range from furniture to musical instruments and are made by artisans in 35 developing countries, 70 per cent of whom are women. The company seeks artisans who are unemployed or underemployed. Artisan groups deter-mine a fair price for the product, and are paid before the goods leave their country. Another way to make sure you don’t exploit the underpaid: buy union-made goods. Go to the website www.shopunionmade.org for an index of companies whose workers have union protection.

3. Buy Less3 As for those corporate giants (Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and the like), where are you most likely to see their logos? Often you’ll spot them on the ground: Big Mac boxes crushed into the sidewalk; Wal-Mart carts toppled at a bus stop. Litter and packaging are one of the consequences of our mega-retail culture. One way to fight back is to reduce the packaging that you

leave behind, simply by purchasing less. And by purchasing goods that

aren’t so swaddled in plastic. And by recycling the materials you do end up casting aside. In other words enact the oft-invoked three R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle.

4. Invest Ethically3 If you play the market, be sure

not to let potential profit blind you to the ramifications of where you put your money. At 21 years of age, The Ethical Funds Company is a pioneer in the field of ethical investing. Call 1-877-384-4225 (1-877-ETHICAL) to find out more. Another investment outfit, Meritas, (www.meritas.ca), provides different av-enues of investment based on different criteria—among the options are the social index fund and the international equity fund. A resource for more info is the Social Investment Organization: visit www.socialinvestment.ca, or call 416-461-6042. 5. Urge change3 The Fair Labor Association, World-wide Responsible Apparel Production, Social Accountability International and other “multi-stakeholder organizations” are supposed to monitor maquilas and pressure bad companies to improve their practices. However, as Dean Neu points out, it’s worth checking the fine print to see how these groups really operate: they sometimes con-ceal more than they reveal. If you would like to pick up the slack and insist that corporations stop exploiting labourers, you can do so through Amnesty International, or through the Clean Clothes Campaign, online at www.cleanclothes.org.

— Kirsten Mundy & Peter Norman