posted September 02, 2007 06:12 PM         

then later, as i went to find some new sneakers for my babe, i was searching through the stacks at a discount shoe store, and made a concerted effort to avoid the oodles of nikes, as nike is well known for their severe exploitation of sweat shop and third world labor.

and was delighted when i found the chuck taylors for kids...he got a cute pair of high tops -- on sale.

then later, browsing online, i discovered that Nike has owned Converse since 2003, manufactured well beyond the borders of usa -- sweatshop made, corporate approved.

posted September 02, 2007 09:54 PM         

It was the intention that counted though -right?

And they're still cute as hell, right?

Enjoy them!

Sendin' love your way,
"your friend in spirit"

posted September 02, 2007 11:26 PM         

film: Sweat

Film Synopsis:

SWEAT is the athlete’s version of Erin Brokovich, The Insider and Serpico. In 1997, a soccer coach at St. John’s University said no to taking part in a $3.5 million dollar deal to endorse Nike products because of Nike’s use of sweatshop labor. He was forced out of his job and outcast from the coaching ranks. People told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that work in a Nike factory was a “great job for those people.” He went to find out for himself. In the summer of 2000, he and a friend took off to live with factory workers in a slum in Indonesia and they lived on the workers’ wages, $1.25 a day. They lost 40lbs collectively in the month, but more importantly, by living in solidarity with workers, they built bonds of trust. Over the course of three research trips, workers shared the real human suffering behind the Nike success story. Together with workers, they have spent the past four years educating tens of thousands of people about this issue and fighting to end the injustice that Nike’s workers face each day. SWEAT is their story.

The Full Story:
While doing research for a term paper in Theology, Jim Keady, a graduate assistant soccer coach with the top-ranked St. John’s University Red Storm, discovers that the Nike Corporation is abusing its overseas workforce in sweatshops. At the same time Keady is exploring this issue, the SJU athletic department is negotiating a $3.5 million dollar endorsement deal that would require all coaches and athletes to wear and promote Nike products. Feeling that coaches and athletes would be walking billboards for a company that exploits its labor force in poor countries, Keady publicly challenges the SJU administration. They respond with an ultimatum, “Wear Nike and drop this issue … or resign.” Keady is ultimately forced to resign, and the story hits the major media, including ESPN, HBO Real Sports, the New York Times, the front page of the Village Voice.

In an attempt to silence critics at St. John’s and uncover the story behind the statistics about Nike factory workers, Keady assembles a team and travels halfway around the world to Tangerang, Indonesia to learn and document first-hand Nike's overseas’ operations. To gain a more human perspective on the lives of Nike’s factory workers, Keady and college friend, Leslie Kretzu live for one month in an Indonesian slum on the wages that workers are paid: $1.25 / day. In the process, they encounter the local mafia, intimidation, starvation, football-sized rats, fist-sized cockroaches, raw sewage in the streets, massive burning of toxic shoe rubber, corporate complicity and cover-up.

Through their time in Indonesia, Keady and Kretzu discover the reality of U.S. multinational corporations' labor practices in the developing world and how Nike's cutthroat, bottom-line economic decisions have a profound effect on human lives.

posted September 04, 2007 01:14 AM         

Liaoning Masanjia Labor Camp

Brief about Masanjia

The Masanjia Labor Camp, also called the “Ideology Education School of Liaoning Province,” is located in a suburb of Shenyang City, and is notorious for its heinous crimes against Falun Gong practitioners and known worldwide for its forced-brainwashing techniques.

Over the past four years and seven months, from July 1999 to February 2004, at least 99 practitioners were murdered there because of their belief in the universal principle of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.” Their ages ranged from 27 to 65 and majority of them were only between 31 and 39 years old.

In one incident that was reported by several news agencies, 18 female practitioners were stripped naked and thrown into the cells of male criminals.

The Masanjia Labor Camp is a fascist camp for the purpose of enslaving prisoners to perform labor for profit. Prisoners must work for extended hours under the most appalling conditions.

The main “business” of the women’s section of the Masanjia Labor Camp is textile production. Not only are the detainees not paid, but also their work hours and workloads are pushed to the limit to “boost productivity and profits.”

Falun Gong practitioners from 14 years of age to over 60 have been forced to do intensive labor in the labor camp. They are routinely forced to work 14-16 hours a day, with no days off. Sometimes when there is a big order, they are forced to work for 36 hours nonstop.Falun Gong practitioners live in the most inhumane conditions. There is no bathroom in the camp. They are not allowed to brush their teeth, or to wash, shower, or change their clothes. Even the time for using the toilet is limited. The food given is minimal and is often rotten.

The horrendous conditions and excessive workload damage the health of the practitioners. Many have swollen legs and experience irregular menstruation. Some even develop atrophy of their buttocks due to the extensive hours of being forced to sit still and work.

Due to exhaustion, some have even fainted while working. However, no matter what physical conditions they are in, and no matter what the state of their health, they are not spared from the hard labor.

Torture methods used in Masanjia Labor camp

Nearly 100 torture methods used at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs, here we only list the the most commonly used 20 torture methods. ( details including photos see this report)

Torture Names

Torture method 1: body folding
Torture method 2: torturing the arms
Torture method 3: handstand (standing upside-down)
Torture method 4: hanging upside-down
Torture method 5: sealing the mouth
Torture method 6: tie-up
Torture method 7: handcuffing
Torture method 8: sitting with arms raised
Torture method 9: split legs and head against the floor
Torture method 10: sitting on a small stool
Torture method 11: sitting in a basin with cold water
Torture method 12: savage beating
Torture method 13: electric shock
Torture method 14: sitting on metal chair in solitary confinement cell
Torture method 15: sitting on metal chair inside “sardine can”
Torture method 16: force-feeding
Torture method 17: force-feeding through the nose
Torture method 18: handcuffed in “dead person’s bed” while naked and receive force-feeding through the nose
Torture method 19: “golden dragon in the ocean”
Torture method 20: freezing.

Cases of torture

1. Zhang Guizhi, female, tortured to death in Masanjia

“On April 12th, 2003 Ms. Zhang’s family received a notice issued jointly by the Masanjia Labor Camp, the local police station and Liujiawopu Village Committee stating that Ms. Zhang “is receiving emergency treatment because she’s critically ill.”

“By the time Ms. Zhang’s family arrived at Masanjia, she was already dead.

“Family members say there were noticeable wounds on her body, including numerous bruises as well as bloodstains in her nose and mouth.

“Labor camp officials refused to allow the family to take any photographs of the body.

“Initially, police and camp officials declined to answer questions about the cause of her death. When Ms. Zhang’s family members demanded to know why her body was black and blue, the police claimed that she had fallen in the shower, triggering a heart problem that led to her death.

“According to a source familiar with Masanjia Labor Camp, prisoners are only allowed to take showers on specific days. April 12th was not a designated “shower day” for those held in the camp, the source says.”

- excerpt, Report from Falun Dafa Information Center, 8/4/2003, “Falun Gong Woman Exhibits Torture Injuries, Dies in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp“

2. After 23 Days of Torture, a Farm Woman Suffers a Mental Collapse

“While she was in the camp, her hands and feet were handcuffed to a pole. She was not allowed to sleep or to use the toilet facilities. The Masanjia staff wrapped her up in a plastic bag to contain the bad odors emitted from her bodily waste.

“After twenty-three days of torture, Ms. Liu finally broke down physically and mentally and could not recognize her own family. Even so, the police from the Beigang Town Authority still attempted to put her in a brainwashing session. ” ( More details )

3. A Woman’s Breasts Disfigured and Infected from Severe Electric Shock Torture

“Two guards from Benxi, holding electric batons, shouted, “We will see who is tougher!” The two men tore Ms. Wang’s shirt open and shocked her breasts with two electric batons for 30 minutes……. ( more details )

Warning: It is recommended that children and those with delicate sensitivities refrain from viewing these photos.

Photo 1, Photo 2

Cases of forced labor

1. Forced to Make Clothing for Export

“Zhou Yanchun, female, 33, product Inspector of the Shenyang Antibiotic Factory 104 workshop (illegally dismissed because she practices Falun Gong), resident of Haiwang Street construction working committee, New Town District, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, ID number: 210113680412642

“In the labor camp, Ms. Zhou was forced to make products for export, such as clothing, handicrafts, and embroidered goods, for the “Xinghua Clothing Manufacturer.”

“She was forced to work from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and sometimes even until midnight, with no breaks, no weekends off, and no compensation.

“Her hands were often swollen and covered with blood blisters, and her finger joints ached from the strenuous work.

“She was only given a limited amount of mildewed cornbread to eat. Her health declined rapidly. Due to the long work hours and appalling conditions, her face and eyes were swollen and she suffered intense abdominal pain. Yet, she was still not allowed to take any breaks.

“If she ever slumped over from weariness or showed signs of fatigue, she would be shocked with electric batons by the guards……. ( more details )

2. Forced to Work for Extended Hours to Make Products for Export

“Falun Gong practitioners, including Ms. Liu Fengmei, Ms. Cui Yaning, Ms. Xie Baofeng, Ms. Dong Guixia, Ms. Jiang Wei, Xu sisters, Ms. Li Ping, Ms. Luo Li, Ms. Li Yingxuan, Ms. Li Zemei, Ms. Bai Shuzhen, have been illegally imprisoned at the Masanjia Labor Camp due to the central government’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

“The practitioners are forced to work from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m., making clothing, handicrafts, and embroidery for export.

“They have no breaks, no weekends off, and no compensation. Sometimes they are forced to work for as long as 36 hours without a break.

“From March 7 to 12, 2000, they were forced to work on a batch of products that were waiting to be immediately shipped overseas because the customer had a rush order.

“On March 11, 2000, they were informed that they would have to work overtime. They were forced to work non-stop from 6:30 a.m. on March 11, 2000 to 4 p.m. on March 12, 2000 (totaling 33.5 hours).

“However, on March 12, they had not been able to finish the assigned work. To punish them, the guards did not allow them to eat lunch. In addition, the guards beat or shocked the practitioners with electric batons……

Address:

Masanjia Village, Masanjia Town, Yuhong District, Shenyang City
Liaoning Province, northeast China
Post Code: 110145
Tel: 024-89210822, 024-89212252, 024-89210454

posted September 04, 2007 10:35 AM         

im sure you try hard not to, but if you live in the states, its nearly impossible not to.

posted September 04, 2007 05:28 PM         

a company dedicated to sweatshop-free goods:

http://www.nosweatapparel.com/

a website with up-to-date info about sweatshop abuses of most major corporations:

Responsible Shopper

posted September 04, 2007 05:49 PM         

Thanks for posting this, and you're right, doing what we can, when and where we can makes a difference.

Peace and Hugs,
GG

posted September 04, 2007 06:22 PM         

i admit, i do not go to the lengths i once did to adhere to these principles. Target is my big box store of choice these days, and it gets some strong criticism from the responsible shopper site. i was somewhat impressed with this info from wikipedia though ~

quote:

---

Target Corporation is consistently ranked as one of the most philanthropic companies in the country. According to a November 2005 Forbes article, it ranked as the highest cash-giving company in America in percentage of income given (2.1%).[54] Target donates around 5 percent of its pre-tax operating profit; it gives over $3 million a week (up from $2 million in years prior) to the communities in which it operates. It also gives a percentage of charges from its Target Visa to schools designated by the cardholders. To date, Target has given over $150 million to schools across the United States through this program. Target's corporate by-laws state it must give 5 percent of its pre-tax profits to charity.[citation needed]

Further evidence of Target's philanthropy can be found in the Target House complex in Memphis, Tennessee, a long-term housing solution for families of patients at the city's St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The corporation led the way with more than $27 million in donations, which made available 96 fully furnished apartments for families needing to stay at St. Jude over 90 days.

Target has a standard no-solicitation rule at its properties, as it seeks to provide a "distraction-free shopping experience for its guests." Exemptions to this policy were previously made for the Salvation Army red kettles and bell-ringers outside Target stores during the holidays through Christmas. In 2004, however, Target asked the organization to explore alternate methods to partner with Target. Target donates to local Salvation Army chapters through its grant program and annually to the United Way of America (the Salvation Army is a member of the United Way coalition).

In 2005, Target and the Salvation Army[55] created a joint effort called "The Target/Salvation Army Wish List," where online shoppers could donate goods to the organization for Hurricane victims by buying them directly from Target.com between November 25, 2005, and January 25, 2006. In 2006, they created another joint effort called "The Target/Salvation Army Angel Giving Tree,"[56] which is an online version of the Salvation Army's Angel Tree program;[57] in addition to donating proceeds made from the sales of limited edition Harvey Lewis angel ornaments within Target's stores. During the Thanksgiving holiday of 2006, Target and the Salvation Army partnered with magician David Blaine to send several families on a shopping spree the morning of Black Friday. The challenge held that if Blaine could successfully work his way out of a spinning gyroscope by the morning of Black Friday, then several families would receive $500 shopping certificates. The challenge was completed successfully by Blaine.[citation needed]

During disasters, Target has been a major benefactor for relief efforts. Target provided monetary and product donations during the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S.; it also donated money for relief efforts for the 2004 tsunami in South Asia. Most recently, Target donated $1.5 million (U.S.) to the American Red Cross in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It also allowed its store properties in the affected area to be used as command centers for relief organizations. It also donated supplies such as water and bug spray. Besides these major disasters, Target also regularly lends support to disasters that are not as well known or only affect a regional area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Corporation

---

thing is, it can seem difficult to subsist on low wages (in first world countries) without the low-low cost mega-stores like wal-mart, but it depends on what we make our priorities.

here's an article from a very good thread in Gaia's Garden about the atrocities that make it possible for first world consumers to have all our stuff ~

Worldwide wage-depressor

Then there’s China. For years, Wal-Mart saturated the airwaves with a "We Buy American" advertising campaign, but it was nothing more than a red-white-and-blue sham. All along, the vast majority of the products it sold were from cheap-labor hell-holes, especially China. In 1998, after several exposes of this sham, the company finally dropped its "patriotism" posture and by 2001 had even moved its worldwide purchasing headquarters to China. Today, it is the largest importer of Chinese-made products in the world, buying $10 billion worth of merchandise from several thousand Chinese factories.

As Charlie Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee reports, "In country after country, factories that produce for Wal-Mart are the worst," adding that the bottom-feeding labor policy of this one corporation "is actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing long mandatory-overtime shifts, while tolerating the arbitrary firing of workers who even dare to discuss factory conditions."

Wal-Mart does not want the U.S. buying public to know that its famous low prices are the product of human misery, so while it loudly proclaims that its global suppliers must comply with a corporate "code of conduct" to treat workers decently, it strictly prohibits the disclosure of any factory names and addresses, hoping to keep independent sources from witnessing the "code" in operation.

Kernaghan’s NLC, acclaimed for its fact-packed reports on global working conditions, found several Chinese factories that make the toys Americans buy for their children at Wal-Mart. Seventy-one percent of the toys sold in the U.S. come from China, and Wal-Mart now sells one out of five of the toys we buy.

NLC interviewed workers in China’s Guangdong Province who toil in factories making popular action figures, dolls, and other toys sold at Wal-Mart. In "Toys of Misery," a shocking 58-page report that the establishment media ignored, NLC describes:

13- to 16-hour days molding, assembling, and spray-painting toys—8 a.m. to 9 p.m. or even midnight, seven days a week, with 20-hour shifts in peak season.

Even though China’s minimum wage is 31 cents an hour—which doesn’t begin to cover a person’s basic subsistence-level needs—these production workers are paid 13 cents an hour.

Workers typically live in squatter shacks, seven feet by seven feet, or jammed in company dorms, with more than a dozen sharing a cubicle costing $1.95 a week for rent. They pay about $5.50 a week for lousy food. They also must pay for their own medical treatment and are fired if they are too ill to work.

The work is literally sickening, since there’s no health and safety enforcement. Workers have constant headaches and nausea from paint-dust hanging in the air; the indoor temperature tops 100 degrees; protective clothing is a joke; repetitive stress disorders are rampant; and there’s no training on the health hazards of handling the plastics, glue, paint thinners, and other solvents in which these workers are immersed every day.
As for Wal-Mart’s highly vaunted "code of conduct," NLC could not find a single worker who had ever seen or heard of it.

These factories employ mostly young women and teenage girls. Wal-Mart, renowned for knowing every detail of its global business operations and for calculating every penny of a product’s cost, knows what goes on inside these places. Yet, when confronted with these facts, corporate honchos claim ignorance and wash their hands of the exploitation: "There will always be people who break the law," says CEO Lee Scott. "It is an issue of human greed among a few people."

Those "few people" include him, other top managers, and the Walton billionaires. Each of them not only knows about their company’s exploitation, but willingly prospers from a corporate culture that demands it. "Get costs down" is Wal-Mart’s mantra and modus operandi, and that translates into a crusade to stamp down the folks who produce its goods and services, shamelessly building its low-price strategy and profits on their backs.

The Wal-Mart gospel

Worse, Wal-Mart is on a messianic mission to extend its exploitative ethos to the entire business world. More than 65,000 companies supply the retailer with the stuff on its shelves, and it constantly hammers each supplier about cutting their production costs deeper and deeper in order to get cheaper wholesale prices. Some companies have to open their books so Bentonville executives can red-pencil what CEO Scott terms "unnecessary costs."

Of course, among the unnecessaries to him are the use of union labor and producing goods in America, and Scott is unabashed about pointing in the direction of China or other places for abysmally low production costs. He doesn’t even have to say "Move to China"—his purchasing executives demand such an impossible lowball price from suppliers that they can only meet it if they follow Wal-Mart’s labor example. With its dominance over its own 1.2 million workers and 65,000 suppliers, plus its alliances with ruthless labor abusers abroad, this one company is the world’s most powerful private force for lowering labor standards and stifling the middle-class aspirations of workers everywhere.

Using its sheer size, market clout, access to capital, and massive advertising budget, the company also is squeezing out competitors and forcing its remaining rivals to adopt its price-is-everything approach.

Even the big boys like Toys R Us and Kroger are daunted by the company’s brutish power, saying they’re compelled to slash wages and search the globe for sweatshop suppliers in order to compete in the downward race to match Wal-Mart’s prices.

How high a price are we willing to pay for Wal-Mart’s "low-price" model? This outfit operates with an avarice, arrogance, and ambition that would make Enron blush. It hits a town or city neighborhood like a retailing neutron bomb, sucking out the economic vitality and all of the local character. And Wal-Mart’s stores now have more kill-power than ever, with its Supercenters averaging 200,000 square feet—the size of more than four football fields under one roof! These things land splat on top of any community’s sense of itself and devour local business.

By slashing its retail prices way below cost when it enters a community, Wal-Mart can crush our groceries, pharmacies, hardware stores, and other retailers, then raise its prices once it has monopoly control over the market.

But, say apologists for these Big-Box megastores, at least they’re creating jobs. Wrong. By crushing local businesses, this giant eliminates three decent jobs for every two Wal-Mart jobs that it creates—and a store full of part-time, poorly paid employees hardly builds the family wealth necessary to sustain a community’s middle-class living standard.

Indeed, Wal-Mart operates as a massive wealth extractor. Instead of profits staying in town to be reinvested locally, the money is hauled off to Bentonville, either to be used as capital for conquering yet another town or simply to be stashed in the family vaults (the Waltons, by the way, just bought the biggest bank in Arkansas).

It’s our world

Why should we accept this? Is it our country, our communities, our economic destinies—or theirs? Wal-Mart’s radical remaking of our labor standards and our local economies is occurring mostly without our knowledge or consent. Poof—there goes another local business. Poof—there goes our middle-class wages. Poof—there goes another factory to China. No one voted for this . . . but there it is. While corporate ideologues might huffily assert that customers vote with their dollars, it’s an election without a campaign, conveniently ignoring that the public’s "vote" might change if we knew the real cost of Wal-Mart’s "cheap" goods—and if we actually had a chance to vote.

Much to the corporation’s consternation, more and more communities are learning about this voracious powerhouse, and there’s a rising civic rebellion against it. Tremendous victories have already been won as citizens from Maine to Arizona, from the Puget Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, have organized locally and even statewide to thwart the expansionist march of the Wal-Mart juggernaut.

Wal-Mart is huge, but it can be brought to heel by an aroused and organized citizenry willing to confront it in their communities, the workplace, the marketplace, the classrooms, the pulpits, the legislatures, and the voting booths. Just as the Founders rose up against the mighty British trading companies, so we can reassert our people’s sovereignty and our democratic principles over the autocratic ambitions of mighty Wal-Mart.

The evils of Wal-Mart
How the global company is remaking our world for the worse by Jim Hightower

for lots more info and discussion on this topic see the following ~

http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum9/HTML/000592.html

posted September 07, 2007 02:18 AM         

APEC Leaders Asked to Speak Up for China's Human Rights
By Sarah Matheson
Epoch Times staff in Sydney Sep 06, 2007

Hundreds gathered to ask APEC leaders to raise China's countless human rights violations with Chinese president Hu Jintao at a rally in Sydney on Thursday. (The Epoch Times)
Representatives from around the world travelled thousands of miles to ask APEC leaders to speak up for China's people.

Human rights figures, politicians, democracy activists, representatives for the people of Darfur and the Uighyristan Autonomous Region of China, and Falun Gong pracititioners from New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan descended on Sydney, using the APEC summit to push for social change in China.

Dr Sev Ozdowski, member of the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission from 2000-2005, spoke at a rally—attended by around 1000 people—to put human rights violation in China on the APEC agenda. The rally was held in Sydney's Hyde Park on Thursday.

"When China was granted the rights to host the Beijing Olympics, it promised to improve its human rights record, however the human rights in China has grown progressively worse," Dr Ozdowski said.

He said the persecution of Falun Gong has all the hallmarks of genocide.

"Furthermore the Chinese Government has exposed its 'human rights' to other countries like Zimbabwe, Burma and supports the conduct of genocide in Darfur."

He said if the international community had boycotted the Berlin Olympics in 1936 it was likely the Holocaust could have been averted.

"It is time to act now," he warned.

Falun Gong international spokesman Erping Zhang, from the US, said more 3074 Falun Gong practitioners in China have been confirmed persecuted to death but many, many more were missing and the figure did not include those killed through the state-sanctioned organ harvesting.

International human rights lawyer David Matas, of Canada, co-authored the 'Bloody Harvest' a compilation of evidence about organ harvesting from detained Falun Gong practitioners in China.

He said it was important to use the APEC conference to publicise the gross violations of human rights abuses in China today.

"Unless the Government's of APEC are discussing humanity they are not performing their function," he said.

Asia Pacific Human Rights Charitable Trust president Pan Qing, from New Zealand, commended the Australian Government for being willing to bring up human rights issues with the Chinese regime.

"We all live in the same world. We have to stop the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party's] human rights violations," he said.

Greens senator, Kerry Nettle, said the Australian Government had a very strong trade relationship with China, but their leaders had not done enough to address the important issues at APEC.

"We should be able to raise these issues of human rights and democracy," she said.

Phil Glendenning from the Edmund Rice Centre said a number of people who had sought asylum in Australia "went missing" when they returned to China.

He said all leaders at the APEC summit needed to read the Matas-Kilgour report on forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.

"We need a leadership that is prepared to tell the truth. We don't have that at the present time."

"The world requires a China that is not afraid of human rights. The world requires a China that is worthy of its history," he said.

East Turkistan Association of Australia Dimyan Rahmet said the Chinese regime was still killing, kidnapping and raping women in East Turkistan also known as Uyghuristan.

He said the Chinese Communist Party had also enforced a language assimilation programme, forcing all Uyghurs to speak Chinese, not allowing children to learn their mother tongue.