by Young Chang
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
In an effort to raise consciousness about sweatshop practices in Latin America and the United States, a coalition of various action groups sponsored "Fashion Slaves: an Incident at the Corner of Sweat and Profit." Held in Levering’s Arellano Theater last weekend, the feature of this alternative fashion show was not the garments themselves, but their making.
Strutting their all but haute-couture attire, students walked the Arellano stage in items from The Limited, Gap, Guess and other designer labels. Providing musical entertainment on a raised dias to the side of the stage, saxophonist John O’Brien bellowed his lamenting tunes. And in keeping with the glitz of an actual fashion show, strobe lights in green, red and blue flashed on stage while amateur models struck their poses.
Coordinated by the Student Labor Action Committee (SLAC), the Baltimore Action for Justice in the Americas (BAJA) and Gimme Shelter Productions, a local independent theater group whose work involves homeless advocacy, this first-time theatrical event at Hopkins was, at its roots, a political one.
"We wanted to show that a lot of clothes that everyone wears and purchases as consumers in the United States is actually a product of sweatshop labor," says graduate student Bill Scott, member of the SLAC and one of the organizers of the event.
Christopher Powers, also an organizer, adds, "Some of the worst sweatshop labor has taken place in the garment industry, which is why we chose an alternative fashion show as the theme."
Audience turnout, with approximately 30 attendees on Saturday and about 50 on Sunday, was scarce, but according to Powers, organizers were not surprised.
"In general, it’s difficult to get big turn-oats for political events in the United States and on a campus like Hopkins," he says. "We had hoped for more, of course we always hope for more, but..."
Scott adds that his hope was not to attract "swarms of people," but instead to begin a trend at Hopkins and nearby campuses to have more consciousness-raising events.
Powers and Scott are both quick to explain, though, that they’re intention is not to have everyone boycott certain manufacturers.
"Our point was to raise consciousness about the issues," says Powers. "Personally, I don’t think that a better kind of consumerism is gonna change the problem, but that what is needed are social movements which can force corporations to change their practices. And that’s a result of consciousness and education."
The term "sweatshop," according to Powers, stems from the 19th century during industrialization periods in both Europe and the United States. More specifically, the word refers to factories where workers were subject to extreme exploitation, 14-hour workdays, "absolute minimal wages" and abuse. Women and children were the most severely affected.
Unfortunately, the issue is still a concern today. "You would think (sweatshop labor) would have been abolished with all these labor laws and everything," says Scott. But with the passage of laws like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), companies are allowed to establish factories in countries where they needn’t pay taxes, and where the prices of raw materials and labor are significantly cheaper, according to Scott.
"Large corporations like Nike, Disney, Walmart, K-Mart, Guess and Kathie Lee Guifford take advantage of this kind of thing," he says.
Though on the surface, these companies appear to be opening markets to multinational corporations, in reality they are providing a "kind of slave labor force."
The goals of SLAC and the coalition are two-fold. According to Powers, their primary goal is to "expose the truth about sweatshop labor and the conditions under which products that we take for granted are made." Second, they are trying to present the international connection.
"The relation between economic facts like NAFTA and GATT, what’s called globalization," he says. "The so-called free market, neo-liberal political economy, which is carried out through multi-national corporations based in the United States... and sweat-shop labor in the Third World."
Scott offers another, very applicable goal that renders the study of economics more concrete. "When people study economics on a college campus, they learn a lot of abstract formulas and they learn how to make a lot of money with big corporations," he says. "But we’re trying to show the connections between these kinds of factories and the way these clothes get made ... that the clothes you wear on your body actually do have something to do with the way economics get created."
As residents of the United States, a country where many of the multi-national corporations are based, we have the opportunity to place pressure on these corporations to be public about their labor practices, according to Powers, and to instigate the adoption of fair labor practices.
Coincidentally, October 3rd, the show’s opening night, was also National Right to Know Day, an event sponsored by the Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR). Because one of the primary problems with the issue of sweatshop practices is the fact that their locations are not disclosed to the public, the CLR pushes for legislation which would coerce corporate disclosures of the factory addresses.
But efforts to raise consciousness and alter legislation have seen fruitful results. The Labor Movement from the turn of the century into this century was successful in Europe and Euro-American economies, according to Powers, in abolishing some of the worst practices such as child labor and minimum working wage. One of their results includes the eight-hour working days.
The show, a combined effort not only between different labor groups but also between Hopkins, nearby colleges and youth community groups, raised about $800. Proceeds will go to the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), and different homeless shelters in Baltimore including My Sister’s Place, Heart’s Place Shelter, House of Ruth and Viva House.