NYT: Factory Defies Sweatshop Label, but Can It Thrive?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/business/global/18shirt.html?_r=1




Michael Kamber for The New York Times

Joseph Bozich, C.E.O. of Knights Apparel, and Mireya Perez, a union leader. In the Dominican Republic, a Knights plant pays far above industry averages.
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: July 16, 2010

VILLA ALTAGRACIA, Dominican Republic SITTING in her tiny living room here, Santa Castillo beams about the new house that she and her husband are building directly behind the wooden shack where they now live.

The new home will be four times bigger, with two bedrooms and an indoor bathroom; the couple and their three children now share a windowless bedroom and rely on an outhouse two doors away.

Ms. Castillo had long dreamed of a bigger, sturdier house, but three months ago something happened that finally made it possible: she landed a job at one of the world’s most unusual garment factories. Industry experts say it is a pioneer in the developing world because it pays a “living wage” — in this case, three times the average pay of the country’s apparel workers — and allows workers to join a union without a fight.

“We never had the opportunity to make wages like this before,” says Ms. Castillo, a soft-spoken woman who earns $500 a month. “I feel blessed.”

The factory is a high-minded experiment, a response to appeals from myriad university officials and student activists that the garment industry stop using poverty-wage sweatshops. It has 120 employees and is owned by Knights Apparel, a privately held company based in Spartanburg, S.C., that is the leading supplier of college-logo apparel to American universities, according to the Collegiate Licensing Company.

For Knights, the factory is a risky proposition, even though it already has orders to make T-shirts and sweatshirts for bookstores at 400 American universities. The question is whether students, alumni and sports fans will be willing to pay $18 for the factory’s T-shirts — the same as premium brands like Nike and Adidas — to sustain the plant and its generous wages.

Joseph Bozich, the C.E.O. of Knights, is optimistic. “We’re hoping to prove that doing good can be good business, that they’re not mutually exclusive,” he says.

FULL 3 page story, slide show with audio, & photos at link.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Note to self

next time I go to my alma mater to do research on labor, I WILL go to the bookstore and BUY a T-SHIRT made by that label. If they don't have it, I will ask the manager on duty why NOT?

Yes living wages in the Dominican Republic will transfer to good wages in the US...

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. read this yesterday. great story

[NYC_SKP]

3. Kick and Rec for an end to globalist sweatshop US job killing policies. nt.

[madrchsod]

4. i have no problem if companies pay a living wage....

and accept unions no matter what country it is. if they are paid a living wage then maybe in the future they can buy something from us.

i`m sure if the quality and fit are as good or better than nike and adidas he`ll have no problems....