Sweatshops: a new form of slavery

If someone asked you, "Do you support slavery?" what would your response be? Hopefully, it would be one of outrage or disbelief that someone would even ask that question today. Now, what if someone asked you if you supported free trade? Chances are, most of you would say, "Yes."

Eliminating trade restrictions has proven to be a very effective way at boosting the economy. But along with the economic prosperity we hear about so often from politicians, there is a dark side to unrestricted global capitalism. While we drive to the mall to spend our paycheck at the Gap, perhaps stopping at Starbucks on the way for a nice hot cup of coffee, millions of people around the world are needlessly suffering to make these very products.

Workers in free trade zones often do hard manual labor for 80-hour work-weeks. They are often screamed at, and beaten if they are too slow. These are mostly young women, often teenagers, forced to take birth control pills. Their workplaces are similar to Nazi concentration camps, heavily guarded compounds, surrounded by barbed-wire fences. Workers are strip-searched daily to ensure that they don't bring food to work. Fatal accidents are common, with safety standards almost nonexistent. All this, and yet, they barely make enough money to escape starvation.

They can't get a different job. The American companies have put everyone else out of business. This is the only way these people can survive. If that isn't slavery, I don't know what is.

Now some people would argue that if we were to establish minimum wage laws for free trade zones, we will have to pay more for our clothes. Not only is this an unethical argument, it is completely untrue. The entire labor cost of an average $15 college T-shirt is less than 3 cents (source: www.usasnet.org). The biggest chunk of what we pay is purely profit. Companies could afford to pay workers several times their current salaries and still profit from the same price we currently pay. Additionally, leading economists agree that increasing the living wages of sweatshop workers will not cause global inflation.

There is no excuse for sweatshops. It's time to put an end to corporate slavery, and the liberation front is coming to Kent. Jim Keady, former pro soccer coach, and his friend Leslie Kretzu went to Indonesia to expose Nike's sweatshops. On Monday, January 29th, they will tell their story. The presentation will take place at 7:00 PM, in the KIVA. Admission is free, and everyone is encouraged to attend. For more information, please visit, http://kentchange.tripod.com The time is now to put people over profit.

Mike Pesa

Freshman, history major