SAS has valid points
To the editor,
On Monday, Sept. 11, Josh Aronson wrote a letter in which he justified sweatshop conditions and called Students Against Sweatshops' (SAS) claims about factory conditions "empty." In addition to work and school, members of SAS research the issues surrounding sweatshops because they are concerned about social justice and workers' rights. Their claims are well educated and far from empty.
Sweatshops are places where people are yelled at and hit for working too slow, fired or threatened with death for trying to form a union to improve working conditions, made to handle cancer causing chemicals, not provided proper protective gear, and where women are forced to take pregnancy tests and fired if they are pregnant. These workers are paid starvation wages and often forced to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. It is true that these workers do not have many alternatives, but this desperation doesn't justify the abuse.
Aronson asked, "What is it exactly that SAS has a problem with?" Like many members of the labor movement, SAS has a problem with workers being exploited . These students also have a problem with the Fair Labor Association (FLA). The FLA is supposed to monitor factories and improve conditions for workers, but fails to do so. All of the labor and religious organizations present during FLA negotiations severed ties with the association because it is not set up to make substantive changes in the apparel industry. The FLA is a marketing tool for companies that does not guarantee real improvements in workers' lives. Monitoring of factories within this system is not independent, which means that the companies in question are allowed to police themselves.
The FLA allows: workers to be paid below poverty wages and made to work excessive hours of overtime, violation of workers' internationally recognized right to form a union, using the local military to keep "order" in the factory and put down strikes, vague mechanisms for getting input from workers and non-governmental organizations, announced factory visits, only 5-10% of a company's factories to be monitored, companies to choose their own monitors, results from monitoring to be kept from the public, a lengthy and convoluted process for investigating third party or workers' complaints, lax enforcement, and it allows companies to improve their image without making real changes.
President Likins signed a commitment guaranteeing withdrawal if the FLA could not be reformed-it hasn't been and it won't be. The UA Task Force encouraged him to pull out. Likins has violated his commitment and disregarded the task force he set up. SAS, understandably, has a problem with this, too.
Jennie Mahalick
UA alumna
AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C.
Companies are a concern
To the editor,
In the Monday edition of the Daily Wildcat, a student wrote an uninformed letter to the editor about Students Against Sweatshops. In it, he asked "what is it exactly that that SAS has a problem with?" As an active member of SAS, I would like to answer this question. SAS has a problem with corporations monitoring themselves and then being declared "sweat-free." This self-monitoring program is exactly what the Fair Labor Association and President Likins support.
SAS supports corporations being independently monitored by an outside organization, and it supports upholding the rights of workers to have fair and safe working conditions. So, we support the Worker Rights Consortium, an organization that is designed to protect worker rights and provide truly independent monitoring.
We are not asking the University of Arizona to end its contract with Nike, or any other licensee. We are advocating for the improvement of working conditions in factories overseas and in the U.S., so that workers can keep the jobs they need and provide a decent life for themselves and their families.
Finally, the author of Monday's letter to the editor suggested that the sweatshop issue is not important. As the economy is becoming increasingly globalized, and corporations are spreading their influence to all areas of the world, we should all be concerned that these companies are putting the need for profit over the needs of people. Many students on this campus are here because they hope to find a good job after graduation. The way that companies treat their workers is a concern for anyone entering the job market.
Lydia Lester
Linguistics junior
Co-president of SAS
'Children' column insipid
To the editor,
Justin Trapp, we hearken to your word. We were playing with our Lincoln Logs, eating Big Hunks and drinking Kool-Aid when we realized the historical inevitability of your clarion call, and we decided to pause to lend our support to your perceptive and original insights in your article "Realizing the Child's Beauty" (Sept. 11). Indeed, the child is the father to the man. As the great political scientist, Jesus, once said, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 18:3). Looking around campus at the legion of grown men wearing short-pants, flip-flops and ballcaps, we see a growing army of manchildren whose only law is instinct. They lack only a guru of your caliber to inspire them to free themselves completely of the tedious hassle of maturity. We are your disciples Justin, and we await further instructions. Tell us more about how "new" it is to shop every week - we don't hear enough about this from the commercial propaganda that bombards us in the adult world. We agree that adults "seem to be missing out on a web of beauty" created by the "dependency of all things on each other." Those plastic androids toiling in the adult world apparently have forgotten how natural it is to shop; they don't understand like you how exchange relations constitute nature's "web of beauty," at the center of which is God's chosen land, America. This natural web reminds us just which forms of exploitation are especially beautiful, like the child labor in those less significant parts of the world that enable us as Americans to live like children. Tell us more about how cool it is to ride a motorcycle, manchild. And, please, we need to know how we could be more completely liberated from those troublesome "obligations" to our fellow beings and our environment. Nothing perturbs our ability to commune with the natural world more than the annoyance of other people and their tiresome "adult" hang-ups, and their so-called "civilized" manners. What can be more incarcerating than feeling obliged to feed the hungry when we have the spontaneous impulse to buy a dirt-bike, flog a coolie or go wilding in a neighborhood park?
Unnecessary "obligations" to community, family and friends certainly have dulled our spontaneity. To combat this, we've begun wetting our beds in celebration of your new ethos. We've never felt a more poetic beauty than the damp, soiled sheets against our naked skin. Perhaps we should begin exposing our genitals to children like their elementary school classmates are wont to do - why not? Honestly. The human body is beautiful;
Only the practical adult world forces us to lose touch with that blissful, tranquil knowledge. With our "full-sized bodies" why shouldn't we want "to explore the world with the mind of child" - we know not only how to "dress for a snowball fight" but how to dress for a healthy, sublime game of "Doctor." We want to be pedophiles like you, manchild, not in the pejorative, small-minded "adult" sense of the word, but rather in its true meaning, as "lovers of children and child-like things."
We agree, manchild, that it is indeed wise to be "silent," because far too many adults are cluttering our otherwise beautiful natural world with their opinions. That's why from this moment on, we shall not express any idea that cannot be communicated through crying, stamping our feet or laughing moronically.
Robert Horning
English graduate student
Jesse Showalter
Classics graduate student
Men's rights important
To the editor,
The article written about sexual relations on campus by Nick Zeckets on Sept. 8 was highly inappropriate. The issue of sexual relations is an extremely controversial and debatable one. Now, I am very supportive of women being treated equally and fairly, but I couldn't stand to read Zecket's article.
His article focuses on an article written in Men's Health.
For those who are not familiar with Men's Health, it is a magazine written explicitly for men, hence the name. Being a subscriber of the magazine, I have also come to realize that much of the literature in the magazine is not only factually based, but also entertainment based. The author of the article/poll kept his focus on what males would want in a university. Although half of the poll was designed in sarcasm, it had some very valid points.
Women's rights are very important, but that doesn't make men's rights any less important. I grew up playing the game of soccer. I have grown to love the sport and, in turn, have become very good at it. The sad reality is that soccer, along with other men's sports, is not offered to men at the collegiate level in many universities because of the recent sexual controversies (i.e. Title IX). Is that grounds to consider Arizona less male friendly? Of course, because it prohibits males from participating in a sport in which they would be allowed to participate elsewhere. I know I'm not alone in saying that I considered going to community college to play soccer. Imagine choosing a community over a highly respected university. It shouldn't happen, but it does.
The Men's Health article hits the nail on the head when it considers aspects such as athletics and academic courses to determine male-friendly schools. Frankly, having read that same article in the midst of choosing my college, I laughed at the article. I found it interesting, but I did not take it to heart. I understood that the article was written for entertainment. The poll was very much like those polls one would find in a teen magazine. But I don't see Nick Zeckets analyzing the factors that make Brad Pitt the most beautiful man. Or maybe he's in the process right now.
Furthermore, I noticed that Nick didn't even care to interview a male subscriber to Men's Health in getting his quotes; he might have found responses that differ to females and male friends of his.
J.P. Benedict
Pre-business freshman
UA football deserves more
To the editor,
I am amazed at all the articles that have been posted by the students and your sports reporters concerning the U of A football team. Have they been watching the same games as the rest of us? I seem to see them bash Ortege repeatedly for all that is wrong with the Wildcats this year and place all the blame for the team's troubles squarely on his shoulders. That is the normal response of uneducated, i.e. stupid, fans who don't seem to know better, but I expected a little bit more from the people who you staff as sports reporters. There were many reasons why the team lost to the Ohio State Buckeyes, but Ortege was not one of them. First, the only reason that the OSU offense rallied in the second half was because the defense finally wore themselves out after two complete games of being on the field, giving their all, I might add for those of you to blind to notice, way too much trying to win the game by themselves. Second, the offensive line did not do an adequate job in protecting the quarterback, or in opening holes for the running backs to run through, save for a few plays. Quarterbacks and runningbacks, no matter how talented, can only be as good as their line lets them be. A quarterback needs time to throw so that his receivers have a chance to get themselves free of defenders. Ortege very rarely has had that time and has had to improvise a lot to make up for it. When he did have time he usually completed the pass or it was dropped by one of the receivers. The running game suffered also because they had nowhere to run. There were plays where the OSU defense seemed to get to the quarterback before the ball got to him on shotgun situations, when the only purpose of the shotgun is to give the quarterback more time. A good example of what I have been talking about is the Dallas Cowboys. I do not like them personally, but look what they did when their offensive line was the best in the league. They won three Superbowls, Emmit looked like he would catch Walter Payton as greatest RB ever, and Troy was one of the very best quarterbacks. Now look at them lately. I am not placing the blame solely on the O-line, there is blame to go around, but at least our guys played hard and didn't give up. That is all that I ask for as a true fan of wildcat football. I was reminded of that recently by another UofA student. To all the rest of you "fans," and I use the term loosely, until you can suit up and play the game better than our guys, shut up and give them the support that they need, and deserve, right now.
Marshall Morris
Former Student
Fair weather fans
To the Editor,
To Jason Kissen, your letter to the editor is repulsive. It is fair weather fans like you that give our football team a bad reputation. Who are you? What do you do? What gives you the right to criticize the football team?
First of all, let's get something straight - if you don't like the football team, then by all means use some common sense and don't go to the games. No one is forcing you to go. And truthfully, no one cares if you go. The game will not stop because Jason Kissen doesn't show up. And if you watched the game, you probably realized . . . well, by your letter, you don't understand, so I will help you out - Ohio state has one of the best defenses in the nation! They dominated us! It's not OJ's fault. We got outplayed.
Before you go blaming OJ or coach Tomey, look at yourself and get a clue
Nick Duddleston
Media arts sophomore
Fans don't need obscenity
To the Editor,
This is for some of my fellow UA classmates whom I was so "fortunate" to be sitting near Saturday night. Saturday night's game, though a loss for the 'Cats, was an OK game. However, having to listen to your obviously limited vocabulary was embarrassing. I found it somewhat ironic that the obscenities you were shouting at Ohio State were the same you shouted to our team in the fourth quarter.
Look, I want all of us, including those who bring their kids and/or their parents, to be able to go to the games and have fun. There will be plays we won't like, there will be calls we won't like and of course there is always the opposing team that we don't like. But there is also the foul language we can do without.
None of us care how many different phrases you can put with one of the few words you know, F---!
Spend your energy and vocalizations cheering your team. Let's have a great season together and show that we are not fair weather fans, but true Wildcat fans.
Michelle Sorenson
Elementary education junior
Sweatshop issue vital
To the Editor,
Although I was not present at last Friday's open meeting nor claim to represent the interests of Students Against Sweatshops, I feel Mr. Aronson has unjustly presented the SAS group in his letter titled, "SAS out of line." I have a lot of respect for people (especially students) who have a deep concern for and a mission to help the oppressed and the deprived in society. And that is exactly what the SAS was working towards at the meeting.
When Mr. Aronson writes, "[sweatshops] may not be up to the standard working conditions . . . but they are obviously better than any other jobs these people could get," he is implicitly saying that despite all the dangerous and unsanitary working conditions, despite all the work-related deaths and injuries resulting from these conditions and despite all the forced long hours and child labor that come along with sweatshops, this is still work sweatshop employees should be thankful for.
What Mr. Aronson does not understand is how the American people, and even our university, help promote and continue these inhumane working conditions. The fact is, sweatshop employees rarely have union stewards or local-led organizations that fight for their rights. In today's world, capital gain (like Nike's sponsorship money to UA) is prized above human loss (such as a sweatshop worker losing a limb as a result of unsafe work conditions without ever having the hope of workers compensation).
And this is exactly the SAS' pet peeve about sweatshops and organizations that ignore their role, no matter how indirect it is in devaluing a neighbor's life in favor of monetary or personal gain. If President Likins is reading this, then I would hope you too will also see how your decisions can either help enrich or further deprive the lives of sweatshop employees.
Joyce Chu
Family studies exchange student
