Todays Experiment: The Effects of Consumerism on the Fingers of Others By Jake Mlnarik

I think its safe to say everyone here is wearing a shirt. Jeans? Some shoes. Hopefully undergarments. These are things we need. Things we want. Things that are easy enough to obtain just from slapping down some greenbacks at a store near you. Aside from not being hip, think for a second, how buying into these things may strain one another. Have an idea? The label on most common T-shirts will read its washing instructions, its thread consistency, its size, and where it was made. The biggest of all these facts? The brand name of course. We have to know what were wearing. Quality and reputation no longer have a bond. Normally, the tag reads the country the garment was made in, in the smallest print, a very ironic statement when you consider some aspects of the disturbing, underground world of sweatshop labor. If the title is misleading, a sweatshop is normally a small cramped work environment, where deprived laborers slave over an array of machinery for the lowest wages imaginable. Normally, this machinery is used to make clothing for popular companies such as Nike, The Gap, Disney, Reebok, WalMart, and many more, but other factories make much more than clothing. To name a choice few is easy, "I could have guessed these companies were up to no good anyway," you may think. But virtually every outfitting company has products made by cheap laborers in at least some locations. Locations you may assume overseas? Robert B. Reich is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served on the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as being the U.S. secretary of labor. He has seen the statistics of underpaid workers, immigrated workers, and sanitation violations of sewing shops all around the U.S. He has seen the full effect of this silent epidemic. In New York, 65% of these shops dont provide minimum wages or overtime wages, and thats documented. Many more technicalities exist in these shops where workers sometimes arent even paid at all. These workers sometimes are afraid to tell of their oppression because they know the punishment they would receive would not be worth the complaint. Some fear physical consequences, some unemployment, and for others, deployment. Fear is feeding this need for product. 144 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery still exists in the United States. The companies that these products are made for know the wages, and conditions of these workers, but seldom any more than that. Little supervised action is technically required. Another part to consider is the well-being of the workers themselves; the effects of their employment on their children, families, and physical structure. Most of these laborers work long, 12-18 hour workdays, some 7 days a week. 90% of these workers are women, and my guess is that just as many are single parents trying to bring children into a life of poverty. These people break their backs to clothe ours, whether you sport a $20 gag shirt from Kohl's, or an $80 button-down from Hollister. Organizations have addressed this modern act of slavery, and have thrown in their two cents of help. United Students Against Sweatshops has encouraged universities around the nation to market their appeal using garments made by workers that are paid a sustainable amount and work in creditable conditions. The No More Sweatshops coalition is doing its best to spread awareness of this national enigma by online and literary means. Other

organizations have taken strides to better the working conditions for these souls. An ultimate goal of striving to ensure these workers a fair pay, much similar to the movement in the coffee bean growing industry, is just that though, an ultimate goal. Dont expect me to stand on a street corner and preach, because really only so much of these acts can be blamed on the companies. American culture has developed into what I would like to call a fad nation. Things are popular, things arent. These fads have a large span. From dieting pills, to vacuums that clean on their own, we insist on buying things we think we need. This mere example of clothing is still a thing people need, but it also pours into our cast iron mold of our fad nation. Chuck Palahniuk also had an idea of this kind of nation. These quotes were taken from his book, Fight Club. You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own; now they own you. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. In this kind of nation, it is easy to walk right over this metaphorical crack in the sidewalk, and not consider what put it there. Things like sweatshop labor, economical and ecological conundrums have always existed. Companies have even started making clothing out of recycled materials. I cant assure you that even those products arent made by cheap laborers. Solving problems like living this way, and overlooking something as oppressive as such in everyday life says something, to me, about the lives that our general population live. Solving some of these problems may seem impossible, as to be simply solved. But according to the Merriam Websters dictionary, to solve is to to find a solution, explanation, or answer for. In times like these, I might think to solve something is to completely abolish a conflict, and have it in good working order. In other words, Im not saying that we, as average Americans, should drop all our problems to give these people what they have worked their fingers off for what they rightly deserve even though our problems may be more trivial. Although that would be just, a proportional solution would be to have an informed nation. A nation where the general public acknowledges the unethical deeds that take place in everyday life and work together to pursue them, and not just expose them, as I hope I am not appearing to do. So my solution would be to take organizations like the No More Sweatshops coalition to a new level, a level of healthy national awareness. I believe as Americans, we can come together to change something as small as solidly understanding a shirt tag. To attribute the people below us, that make our lives and jobs easier, whether we buy into the fruits of their tyrannical labor or not.