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Spotlight: Labor & Economic News Across the Country
No Sweat at SweatX
What Ben & Jerry did for ice cream, the Ben half of the socially conscious duo is now trying to do for the clothing industry.
Ben Cohen believes that quality clothes — and profit — can be made without running a sweatshop and he’s set out to prove it in Los Angeles. In April, in a warehouse near the city center, he launched brand “SweatX,” a casual, hip and sweat-free clothing line targeted for college bookstores and sports shops.
Cohen put a former banker in charge — at a 50 percent pay cut — and hired veteran garment workers who, “can hardly believe their luck at landing an $8.50-an-hour job, with benefits, a pension and profit-sharing,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
The company is aiming to show a profit within a year, Cohen told the paper, proving to other manufacturers that it’s possible to pay a living wage and still make money. “We aim to put the lie to the myth that it’s impossible to produce clothing at a competitive price and have a good quality of work life,” he said.
The workers are already organized under UNITE, the nationwide garment union. Under a labor-management agreement, no manager can earn more than eight times the pay of the lowest-paid employee.
Sewing machine operator Ana Acevedo, a Salvadoran immigrant, told the Times the job almost seems too good to be true. “I’ve been working in clothing for 20 years and never had a paid holiday before this,” she said. “My last job paid cash. Sometimes less than the minimum.”
Promises, Promises
A slip of the tongue is casting doubt on the Bush administration’s pledge to help workers who lose their jobs when trade pacts send U.S. companies packing for countries with cheap labor and none of those pesky safety rules or pollution standards.
The promised aid is called Trade Adjustment Assistance, but don’t hold your breath. At least that was the essence of the message from Department of Labor Deputy Secretary D. Cameron Findlay at a recent meeting between unionists and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.
“TAA is treated like a teenage girl in the back seat of a car,” he said. “You promise her anything to get what you want. And then when you get it, you leave her.” Translation: As long as the powers that be need to court labor to pass trade legislation, they’ll promise the moon. After that, struggling workers and their families are on their own.
His choice of words and what they revealed stunned the group. Hoping to mitigate things, a red-faced Zoellick put his hand on Findlay’s arm and said, “We still have some work to do with some of our colleagues.”
But Findlay — second in charge at the Labor Department — continued to stick his foot in his mouth. “We don’t want TAA to be better than a job,” he said. “We have a fear of keeping people on the dole too long and having them not look for jobs.”
The exchange at the closed-door meeting was shared anonymously with the Washington Post’s “In the Loop” column. A few days later, the column reported that Findlay had written to “explain and apologize,” saying “I should have chosen a different analogy or avoided analogies altogether.”
SAG’s Soap Opera
Who needs celebrity boxing when you’ve got Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mary Richards’ best pal, Rhoda, duking it out for the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild?
After a bitter race — even gentlemanly actor James Cromwell likened it to a “cat fight” — Melissa Gilbert, aka the beloved Little House on the Prairie heroine, is the undisputed head of SAG.
Gilbert, 37, beat actress Valerie Harper, 61, last fall to head the 98,000-member union. But the count was nullified after Harper and her supporters charged that the election was tainted because New York members had two extra days to vote and ballot envelopes didn’t have a signature line, the Los Angeles Times reported. In a second round of balloting this spring, Half Pint — oops — Gilbert, received nearly 57 percent of the vote.
In addition to public spats between the women and their supporters about the union’s six-month strike against advertisers in 2000, Harper charged that Gilbert was too cozy with Hollywood insiders. Gilbert’s team, led by actor Mike Farrell — B.J. of MASH fame — called Harper’s camp “the refuse to lose ticket.”
“You don’t even have to watch the soap operas anymore,” quipped one actress. “Just read about SAG.”
What Ben & Jerry did for ice cream, the Ben half of the socially conscious duo is now trying to do for the clothing industry.
Ben Cohen believes that quality clothes — and profit — can be made without running a sweatshop and he’s set out to prove it in Los Angeles. In April, in a warehouse near the city center, he launched brand “SweatX,” a casual, hip and sweat-free clothing line targeted for college bookstores and sports shops.
Cohen put a former banker in charge — at a 50 percent pay cut — and hired veteran garment workers who, “can hardly believe their luck at landing an $8.50-an-hour job, with benefits, a pension and profit-sharing,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
The company is aiming to show a profit within a year, Cohen told the paper, proving to other manufacturers that it’s possible to pay a living wage and still make money. “We aim to put the lie to the myth that it’s impossible to produce clothing at a competitive price and have a good quality of work life,” he said.
The workers are already organized under UNITE, the nationwide garment union. Under a labor-management agreement, no manager can earn more than eight times the pay of the lowest-paid employee.
Sewing machine operator Ana Acevedo, a Salvadoran immigrant, told the Times the job almost seems too good to be true. “I’ve been working in clothing for 20 years and never had a paid holiday before this,” she said. “My last job paid cash. Sometimes less than the minimum.”
Promises, Promises
A slip of the tongue is casting doubt on the Bush administration’s pledge to help workers who lose their jobs when trade pacts send U.S. companies packing for countries with cheap labor and none of those pesky safety rules or pollution standards.
The promised aid is called Trade Adjustment Assistance, but don’t hold your breath. At least that was the essence of the message from Department of Labor Deputy Secretary D. Cameron Findlay at a recent meeting between unionists and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.
“TAA is treated like a teenage girl in the back seat of a car,” he said. “You promise her anything to get what you want. And then when you get it, you leave her.” Translation: As long as the powers that be need to court labor to pass trade legislation, they’ll promise the moon. After that, struggling workers and their families are on their own.
His choice of words and what they revealed stunned the group. Hoping to mitigate things, a red-faced Zoellick put his hand on Findlay’s arm and said, “We still have some work to do with some of our colleagues.”
But Findlay — second in charge at the Labor Department — continued to stick his foot in his mouth. “We don’t want TAA to be better than a job,” he said. “We have a fear of keeping people on the dole too long and having them not look for jobs.”
The exchange at the closed-door meeting was shared anonymously with the Washington Post’s “In the Loop” column. A few days later, the column reported that Findlay had written to “explain and apologize,” saying “I should have chosen a different analogy or avoided analogies altogether.”
SAG’s Soap Opera
Who needs celebrity boxing when you’ve got Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mary Richards’ best pal, Rhoda, duking it out for the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild?
After a bitter race — even gentlemanly actor James Cromwell likened it to a “cat fight” — Melissa Gilbert, aka the beloved Little House on the Prairie heroine, is the undisputed head of SAG.
Gilbert, 37, beat actress Valerie Harper, 61, last fall to head the 98,000-member union. But the count was nullified after Harper and her supporters charged that the election was tainted because New York members had two extra days to vote and ballot envelopes didn’t have a signature line, the Los Angeles Times reported. In a second round of balloting this spring, Half Pint — oops — Gilbert, received nearly 57 percent of the vote.
In addition to public spats between the women and their supporters about the union’s six-month strike against advertisers in 2000, Harper charged that Gilbert was too cozy with Hollywood insiders. Gilbert’s team, led by actor Mike Farrell — B.J. of MASH fame — called Harper’s camp “the refuse to lose ticket.”
“You don’t even have to watch the soap operas anymore,” quipped one actress. “Just read about SAG.”