Tom Hayden: San Francisco No Longer Sweat-free?

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Tom Hayden
San Francisco No Longer Sweat-free?
Posted November 1, 2007 | 06:36 PM (EST)



Anti-sweatshop advocates are stunned by progressive San Francisco's granting to garment contractors five-year exemptions from the city's historic "sweat-free" procurement ordinance. When Mayor Gavin Newsom signed the measure two years ago, he declared that San Francisco would lead the way to new standards in the global sweatshop economy.

How can the highly-regarded liberal mayor, widely expected to rise as a state and national political figure, have granted such lengthy exemptions to taxpayer-subsidized contractors who admittedly fail to comply with the sweat-free law? According to the city's own sweat-free staff, San Francisco police trousers are assembled by Flying-Cross Fechheimer, a city contractor, in Colombia, where assassins routinely gun down labor leaders.

City officials have worked hard to implement the ordinance, but assert that the sweat-free standards are beyond what contractors are willing to accept. The toughest part of the ordinance, they say, is the requirement that contractors are liable to pay penalties for violations. But while that sticking point is a serious one, many of the contractors receiving exemptions refuse even to disclose their factory locations, a key barrier to any monitoring.

The basic point made by city officials is that there are "no compliant bidders," and police, firefighters, and Muni workers simply cannot go without new uniforms. But this claim is refuted by three facts:

* first, an SF city controller has stated that the procurement agency can avoid any supply crisis by issuing purchasing orders as needed, rather than five-year exemptions;

* second, Los Angeles officials say that San Francisco can attach itself to the existing LA sweatfree contract to obtain uniforms;

* third, while the shortage of responsible bidders is a serious problem, SF officials may not have searched seriously beyond the culture of traditional contractors. For example, the LA-based American Apparel expresses willingness to enter the uniform market as a bidder, but an SF official dismissed the company for "only making tee shirts." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/san-francisco-no-longer-s_b_70822.html

[Steepler0t]

1. Freakin Newsom

Too busy chasing skirts, boozing it up like a boy-king to give a shit.
When is SF going to finally elect Tom Ammiano already?
Oh well, at least Newsom is not the sleazeball Willie Brown was.
I cannot believe these folks call themselves Dems.
City hall has been a mess since Moscone was assassinated and Feinstein and crew moved in.

[EFerrari]

2. Tom's running for the Assembly and I think he's going to win.

We're stuck with "liberal" Newsom for at least one more term as far as I can tell.

[Steepler0t]

4. One more? let's hope not.

blech

[Peace Patriot]

3. San Francisco is headquarters of Gap, Inc., and its politicians and philanthropies

are major beneficiaries of Gap/Fisher family largesse--from massive profits earned off the backs of extremely poor young Asian women who are imported to Saipan, to sew Gap clothes, and then are indentured for their passage--literally "indentured slaves"--working long hours, for shit wages, with no benefits and no labor protections, and off the backs of child labor in India, as we have recently learned (children sold by their extremely poor parents to Gap sweatshop sub-contractors). The Gap/Fisher clothing empire includes Gap, Banana Republic (really, what a name for a sweatshop store!), Old Navy and Gap Kids, and also includes 200,000 acres of redwood forest in northern California, which the Fisher family logging company is raking over. The scion of the family, Donald Fisher, helped write the WTO textile rules that resulted in the proliferation of sweatshops worldwide, and has tried to break the Longshoreman's union. He is a major Bushite, and global corporate predator player.

It is no wonder to me that SF city politicians are now fudging on anti-sweatshop rules. Global corporate predators like the Gap have too much sway in SF politics. There is a hypocritical edge to SF's so-called "progressive" establishment. A lot of it is slick P.R.--which the Gap is very good at. Gap has a "progressive" reputation based on hot air. It is completely substanceless, as far as I can see. And I hope that the anti-sweatshop ordinance will not be merely hot air as well.

When governments enact labor or environmental policies, they can't stop there, and hope for the best. They need to invest development energy and funds into helping create the conditions in which their laws can be enforced, and they need to create the statutory framework, tax laws and economic and political climate for businesses that obey the law to get started and to thrive. It is an insincere government that does not do this. And, what is more, BAD business will use that lack of sincerity to resist the law, undermine it and get rid of it--just as these contractors are doing. And we need to ask, too: Are these other contractors, who claim they can't do business without exploiting labor--or hidden fascist/corporate powermongers--sabotaging start-ups that could provide sweatshop free uniforms to the city? Sweatshop labor is worth billions and billions of dollars. Sweatshop users would be loathe to see the success of "fair trade" products, in city purchasing, or anywhere else. They have much motive to prevent them starting up and succeeding. Is that what is going on? And if not, how to overcome this immoral and unjust business practice, of exploiting poor workers, and create proper conditions for "fair trade"? They could start by boycotting the Gap and its ill-gotten gains.