No Sweat IF YOU THINK YOUR JEANS ARE UNCOMFORTABLE, GUESS WHERE THEY CAME FROM by Puja Seam Guess jeans ranks with the designer labels of Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein as representative of the modern man or woman. While America's brand-conscious youth continue to demand and wear Guess' sexy designer jeans, immigrants work overtime in Los Angeles sweatshops for less than minimum wage to produce them. Five contractors for the $500 million Guess clothing empire were recently cited by California inspectors for illegal home-sewing operations. In a class-action suit, Guess and 16 subcontractors were accused of paying their mostly Latino immigrant workers less than minimum wage. One contractor allegedly forced workers to pay a sum at the end of the week if certain quotas had not been fulfilled. Guess was the first big-name clothing manufacturer to join the U.S. Department of Labor's "Good Guy" list of corporations that forswear sweatshop practices, and with the discovery of Guess' exploited laborers, it was removed from the list. The colloquial definition of the term sweatshop implies low-paid piecework, unpaid overtime, and unsafe working conditions. According to the Department of Labor, more than a quarter million individuals work in American sweatshops, and half of these individuals toil in the nation's 22,000 sewing businesses. Besides Los Angeles, New York City's famous Garment District is notorious for its tenement sweatshops, filled with immigrant workers going floor-to-floor looking for an opportunity to work with the many transient subcontractors who occupy the multistoried buildings. Unknowingly, American consumers have been supporting sweatshops both here and abroad. Large corporations such as Mattel, Nike, and Disney have all used sweatshops and child labor. Children in Pakistan hand-sew a majority of the world's soccer balls for sports retailers including Reebok, Nike, and Adidas. Few Americans possess enough information to make an informed buying decision; according to a U.S. News poll, 89.3 percent of consumers say they are willing to pay a few more cents for peace of mind when buying a product. Few people realize that American consumer spending can be an influential factor in corporate sales. When news of sweatshops in Guess's manufacturing process became public, Guess stock plummeted 14 percent. The initial response of the Guess corporation and its owners, the Marciano family, to the exposure of sweatshop practices was to move 40 percent of its manufacturing to Mexico and South America. Obviously, this response is inadequate. Guess cannot be allowed to circumvent its inhumane and unjust labor practices in the United States simply by moving its exploitation abroad where laws protecting labor practices are even less stringent. The Marciano family also waged a war against its own workers who tried to campaign against sweatshops and for union sympathizing, but the National Labor Relations Board forced them to rehire the employees. Guess then tried to improve its image by offering a position to a top Californian labor enforcer official, Jose Millan. Millan turned them down saying, "I got the sense that they really weren't serious about improving their sweatshop monitoring program as much as they were interested in getting some kind of PR value from having a former state official." UNITE, the nation's largest garment workers' union, is taking legal action, organizing a national boycott, and protests on over 300 colleges campuses‹a key Guess market. Guess, on the other hand, is conducting a public relations campaign targeted towards this key market in order to clear its image. The Marciano family believes that it can buy America's youth. Guess paid an exorbitant amount of money to be the sole sponsor of an independent film tour to college campuses that will bring off-beat new films like Girls'Town, Stonewall and other previous Sundance Film Festival entries. At each of these events, Guess will plug its merchandise with its usual advertising savvy. Guess expects that by pushing their clothing at the film tours around college campuses, they can convince young adults to forget their consciences and follow their vanity. Guess is attempting to stifle the national boycott and student protests with advertising, hoping that America's materialistic, self-centered youth will succumb to their favorite trends despite the inhumane and illegal manufacturing practices of Guess clothing companies. With the news of Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line being produced using child labor in sweatshops, the issue of fair labor standards has reemerged at the forefront of America's labor movement. Nationally, ornery picket lines have arisen across the country at Guess's 67 retail outlets. Students across college campuses are organizing their umbrage at the Guess Jean company and the Marciano family in the form of Students Stop Sweatshops. This group coordinates the student protests and propels the national boycott by using email forwards and panel discussions such as the one at this week's Labor Teach-In. A representative from UNITE will be another speaker at the Teach-In. To convince consumers that socially responsible shopping can make a difference, Pete Castelli from UNITE's Greensboro, North Carolina division will be speaking on some of the corporate techniques and high-visibility campaigns that UNITE organized in the past and is planning for the upcoming year. Working with local political, religious, and social leaders provides one successful strategy that UNITE employs to show individuals that labor issues are not just union issues, but community issues. In a phone interview Castelli said, "The labor movement is about dignity, human rights, and civil rights." At the teach-in, Castelli will also discuss other current labor issues, student involvement in the labor movement through organizations such as Union Summer, and the action UNITE has taken against Guess. Guess needs to be taught a lesson. Avoiding the problem of sweatshops by moving the manufacturing to Mexico is no way to right a wrong. As the key consumers of Guess merchandise, we can have a dramatic impact on the sales figures in the upcoming year. Let's send a message. How difficult is it to find a new clothing company to patronize? With the abundance of designer labels available these days, it would be simple for all but the most incompetent of shoppers to find a new favorite line of clothing. For the standard retail price of $58 per pair of jeans, it seems only reasonable that Guess can ensure that the subcontractors they hired are paying their workers minimum wage and the correct overtime. If not, the Guess image of smart, slick, and sexy, with our help, could become one of boycotted, bankrupt, and barely existent.

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