2005-8-12
NFL and NBA jerseys made in developing world sweatshops. When we purchase a $75 NFL or NBA jersey, do we ever imagine that they were made by young women...
--Locked in the factory compound 10 to 13 hours a day,
--Being paid just 19 cents for each $75 jersey they sew--meaning their wages amount to just 3/10ths of 1 percent of the jersey''s retail price,
--Trapped in misery, living in one-room huts, many without running water or electricity,
--Who have no rights and who will be fired and blacklisted if management even suspects they are organizing a union.
It doesn''t have to be this way. The NFL, NBA and Reebok are marking up the prices of these jerseys by 1400 percent.
If the players--some of the greatest athletes in the world and among the highest paid--would pay these women 20 cents more per jersey, they would be able to climb out of misery and at least into poverty.
The NFL and NBA players should not be financing their strike fund and their union on the backs of sweatshop workers who are stripped of their rights and paid a starvation wage.
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