Why Are Sweatshops So Invisible? One Answer: The Media

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Why Are Sweatshops So Invisible? One Answer: The Media

Tuesday
19 Oct 10
10:29 am

By Richard Greenwald


As the 100th anniversary of New York City's Triangle Fire tragedy approaches (it's March 25th), I have been thinking a lot about both the fire and garment workers past and present. Even prior to 1911, garment workers were part of a larger pubic discussion. But in today’s rushed environment, we buy clothing with little thought about who made it.

Garment workers have simply faded from our frame of reference almost completely. And in that absence of thought, the machines still hum, cloth still moves, workers still toil, and clothes are still made. In that silence, exploitation rules unchecked and unobserved by most.

So it's rare that I read a piece of journalism profiling the struggles of garment workers. Rarer still, is an article that focuses on a micro level of a shop and a worker. When I do, I am reminded of the longer muckraking journalistic tradition that cared about workers. And that's just what Gabriel Thompson did in "When Even the Minimum Wage is Distant Dream," which has been re-published in the brand-new Pieces of a Decade: Brooklyn Rail Nonfiction 2000-2010.

Thompson's article originally appeared in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of The Rail, a Brooklyn monthly newspaper that focuses on culture and politics. I mention it because I remember being struck by how tender and human Thompson's depiction of Luz, a Mexican-born Brooklyn sweatshop worker, was when I first read it. It was the kind of article one would have seen regularly 100 years ago. When I opened Pieces of a Decade, a kind-of greatest hits from the paper, I was struck by the beauty of this article and the detail of its reporting. And I realized what we have lost by not having articles like this. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6568/why_are_sweatshops_so_invisible_one_answer_the_media/

[elleng]

1. 'Garment workers' are invisible, have always been,

only visible when ORGANIZING occurs, as in ILGWU. One of the many sectors of workers we all take for granted, like farm workers.

[jdlh8894]

3. Showing my age here

Song going through my head - "Look for the Union label"

[elleng]

4. 'Our' age, jdl!!!

[jdlh8894]

5. Side note-

GO 'EERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[elleng]

6. Oh, YEAH!

[HopeHoops]

2. There ARE NO SWEATSHOPS! They've been rebranded as "WalMart High-Tech Production Facilities".

Hey, for $0.12/day, you can make a pretty good living in whatever country they are exploiting this week.