Labor

Here is a copy of the lawsuit filed by Marc Kasky against Nike, Inc. alleging labor abuses in its overseas manufacturing operations and seeking compensation to California consumers under state laws against false advertising and unfair business practices. Read More

During a two-week period in September 1996, U.S. Department of Labor Officials travelled to six countries -- the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India and the Philippines -- as part of a major study of codes of conduct in the garment industry. The outcome was a report, The Apparel Industry and Codes of Conduct: A Solution to the International Child Labor Problem? (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 1996). Read More

In April this year, with much fanfare, US President Bill Clinton announced the introduction of a new ''No Sweatshop'' Code of Conduct for US Apparel and Footwear companies. The code is voluntary, but high profile companies like Nike Inc., Reebok International Ltd. and Liz Claiborne Inc. were among the ten initial signatories. These companies agreed that a set of minimum standards for working conditions in factories would be adhered to in the production of their goods -- wherever that production occurs. Read More

Last fall, a reporter from The Times asked me about the relationship between Crenshaw High School boys' basketball program and Nike in terms of what the corporations donates to the basketball players. To my knowledge as the principal, I told him, the company gave each member of the boys' team a pair of tennis shoes, just as Karl Kani, a smaller African American ownedbusiness, gave shoes to members of the girls' team. Read More

The case had been settled only minutes ago, and now jurors for Mendoza v. Contico were seated in a room outfitted with movie theater chairs and plugs for devices like VCRs. They were in the ''Ceremonial Court'' in El Paso, where victorious lawyers often hold post-trial press conferences. Read More

The co-editor of Prison Legal News, a Washington State prisoner himself, Wright reports on private companies, like Boeing, that are making out like bandits by using prison labor. Read More

The impact of technology on employment in all industrial nations has been dramatic and severe for the last two decades, but by the mid-1990s it was clear that what had been happening was evidence not of ''a transitional or temporary or cyclical problem,'' as Stephen Roach, the chief economist of Morgan Stanley, has put it, but of ''a lasting and structural problem.'' The problem is technology. Read More

Was your Microsoft Windows 95 packed and shrink-wrapped by a Washington State prisoner? According to one prisoner who works for Exmark, a company specializing in product packaging, approximately 90 prisoners at the Twin Rivers Correctional Center (TRCC) in Monroe shrink-wrapped 50,000 units of Windows 95. Read More