Looking for the UNION
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Look for the union label
when you are buying that coat, dress or blouse.
Remember somewhere our union’s sewing,
our wages going to feed the kids, and run the house.
We work hard, but who’s complaining?
Thanks to the I.L.G. we’re paying our way!
So always look for the union label,
it says we’re able to make it in the U.S.A.!
There’s a shop on Portland’s North Interstate Avenue that
sells something hard to find: U.S.-made garments, made by
union workers. Many of the clothes even sport the union label.
In fact, the shop is packed, ceiling to floor, with well-made
coats, dresses and, blouses, and the prices are reasonable. These
clothes were made to last. And it’s a good thing they were, be-
cause every garment in AlexSandra’s Vintage Emporium is 40,
50, 60 years old.
“There’s nothing in here made in China,” says owner
AlexSandra, (pictured at right) for whom that’s a point of pride.
AlexSandra, 29, organizes a monthly vintage fashion show,
at which in October, she got a singer to perform “Look For The
Union Label.” The song — a catchy jingle in a union ad cam-
paign — aired on national television from 1975 to 1982. It was
intended to make union members proud — but also, indirectly,
to warn consumers of the danger imported goods posed to the
American way of life.
Outsourcing, to low-wage foreign factories, killed U.S. ap-
parel manufacturing. Last year, imports made up 91 percent of
apparel and 99 percent of shoes sold in the United States. U.S.-
made is largely confined to uniforms and workwear, men’s
suits, and quick-turnaround items.
And apparel is just a small part of an unmistakable trend.
The United States hasn’t had a trade surplus since 1975, and the
annual trade deficit has soared since the early 1990s, passing
$100 billion in 1996 and $758 billion in 2006.
For the most part, the deficit isn’t about foreign companies
selling into the U.S. market; it’s about U.S companies outsourc-
ing production to foreign contractors.
Clothing was one of the first U.S. industries to shift manu-
facturing overseas. Other industries followed, including toys,
tools, electronics and housewares.
“We still make things here,” says Robert Scott, an economist
with the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based
think-tank that advocates shared prosperity.”But we make ma-
chine tools and electronic parts and industrial equipment, trac-
tors — things you don’t see on the storeroom floor at Target.”
In short, consumer goods of all kinds that once might have
been made by American workers are now largely produced by
workers overseas.
When finding a “Made in USA” label in a mall or depart-
ment store can take hours, looking for the union label can be
pretty daunting. The AFL-CIO’s Union Label and Service
Trades Department, responsible for promoting union-made
goods, has just one staffperson. Charlie Mercer organizes an
annual union products trade show in a U.S. city, and maintains
a list of union-made products at www.unionlabel.org. The de-
partment used to publish that list in book form, but Mercer said
the companies on the list were so rapidly offshoring and de-
unionizing that it became impossible to keep the book up to
date. Even the Web list was swiftly becoming obsolete, so the
Union Label board voted a few years ago to purge anything on
the list older than five years. Of the remaining 2,000 items, very
few are available to consumers in retail form. And the list is lit-
tered with defunct Web sites and incomplete information.
Last month, the Oregon AFL-CIO sent a questionnaire to
over 100 offices of affiliated unions asking for information
about products made by Oregon union members. Just three
unions responded.
While union labels have become rarer than bald eagles, the
“Made in China” labels seem to be on nearly everything.
Of course, locating them can also be a challenge. U.S. Cus-
toms rules require all imported manufactured goods to be la-
beled by country of origin when they enter the United States,
PAGE 12
but the label is usually in small print on an out-of-the-way part
of the box. There’s no rule against retailers covering that up
with their own price sticker, as they commonly do. Other tricks
abound. You have to be a savvy shopper to know that the PRC
in “Made in PRC” means People’s Republic of China, or that
Macau and Hong Kong are China as well. “Designed in USA”
or the location of the U.S. company headquarters may display
prominently while “Made in China” hides in the fine print. Web
sites may advertise “Made in USA” only to ship products la-
LABEL
beled “Made in China.”
“I think U.S. consumers really are stuck,”
said Barbara Briggs, senior associate at the
National Labor Committee, an anti-sweat-
shop group. “There’s no way we can buy
ourselves out of this problem.”
Buying union or U.S.-made might ensure
that goods weren’t made in a sweatshop, but
consumers don’t have that option in most
cases, Briggs said.
“Until we have strong laws to protect
workers,” Briggs said, “we all will be wear-
ing and consuming sweatshop [goods] every
day.”
Congress has done little or nothing to
slow the outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing
jobs to foreign sweatshops, and in fact has
ratified numerous trade agreements that
likely made it even easier.
But Briggs’ organization is backing a
modest proposal that might start to turn
things around.
The Decent Working Conditions and Fair
Competition Act, introduced in January by
U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota,
would declare sweatshops a form of unfair
competition, and would prohibit the sale of
sweatshop goods in the United States. The
bill has 15 co-sponsors in the Senate. No
Oregon or Washington senator has signed on.
The House version has 134 co-sponsors, in-
cluding Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Brian
Baird of Southwest Washington. Of the five
members of Congress seeking the Democra-
tic presidential nomination, New York Sen.
Hillary Clinton and Ohio Representative
Dennis Kucinich are the only co-sponsors.
[Senators Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and
Barack Obama have not signed on.]
If such a law had passed 30 years ago, maybe the union label
wouldn’t today be confined to vintage clothing stores. Now, if it
were to pass and be strictly enforced, it’s not clear what will re-
main on American store shelves.
“Our globalized economy has become a race to the bottom,”
Briggs said, “based on what country and what workers are des-
perate enough to accept the lowest wages, the worst working
conditions, essentially the most misery.”
Some union gift ideas
All hope is not lost to buy union gifts with your union
paycheck. Below are a few ideas. But if you’ve got kids on
your gift list, you may want to start with a lead test kit to
help check for lead in Chinese toys. United Steelworkers is
selling lead test kits for a penny each, plus $2.97 to ship.
The kits contain two lead check swabs, a test verification
sheet, reporting forms, manufacturer’s directions, informa-
tion on recent recalls and a tip sheet about what you can do
to help stop toxic imports. Buy online at steelworkersmer-
chandise.com or by calling 1-888 SAY-USWA.
• Candies at See’s Candies, manufactured at two Cali-
fornia locations by members the Bakery, Confectionery, To-
bacco Workers and Grain Millers.
• Tickets to the Oregon Symphony or Oregon Ballet The-
ater, where the musicians are members of American Feder-
ation of Musicians Local 99.
• An Alaskan cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line, which
has union crews made up of U.S. citizens.
• Outdoor knives and multipurpose tools by Tigard-based
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Gerber Legendary Blades, where some workers belong to
the Machinists Union.
• Books, calendars, and cards at Portland-based Powells
Books, one of the few union bookstores in the United States,
where workers belong to the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union Local 5.
• Boots by Portland-based Danner Boot, represented by
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555.
• Tillamook cheese, made by workers represented by the
Teamsters and Operating Engineers Local 701. Buy it at Al-
bertsons, Safeway, or Fred Meyer, where many stores em-
ploy members of UFCW Local 555.
• Men’s shirts by New Orleans-based Kenneth Gordon,
where workers belong to UNITE HERE; available online
at www.kennethgordon.com.
Lastly, be sure to mail your gifts via the all-union U.S.
Postal Service or UPS — not anti-union FedEx, which is
defending itself in multi-state lawsuits over its classifica-
tion of drivers as “independent contractors.”
DECEMBER 7, 2007