Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee (NLC) which raises awareness about sweatshop abuses and child labor, has taken on corporate giants like Disney, The Gap and Wal-Mart. In a free illustrated public lecture titled The Current State of the Campaign to End Sweatshops and Child Labor on Monday, October 25 at 8 p.m. in UCSB Corwin Pavilion, Kernaghan will discuss the latest developments resulting from the efforts of the NLC and its more than 10,000 affiliated organizations worldwide.

The NLC focuses particularly on the plight of young women in Central America, the Caribbean, China and other developing countries who assemble garments, shoes, toys and other products for export to the U.S. Several major campaigns during the last few years have been especially successful in bringing widespread attention to the issue of labor abuses. Most recently, the NLC launched the People’s Right to Know Campaign, demanding full public disclosure of the names and addresses of the factories that companies hire to produce inventory.

The NLC’s highest profile campaign began when Kernaghan testified before Congress that 13-year-old girls in a Honduras factory were forced to work 13-hour shifts under armed guard, for 31 cents an hour sewing pants for the Kathie Lee Gifford label and Wal-Mart. Gifford’s tearful, indignant response on her nationally televised program fueled major press coverage and unprecedented discussion of child labor and sweatshop abuses.

In 1998, Kernaghan and the NLC proved that Wal-Mart’s claim to purchase American-made goods was misleading. An NLC undercover investigation showed that only 17 percent of the clothing was made in the U.S.

Last year, the NLC authored the ground-breaking report Behind the Label Made in China, documenting conditions in Chinese factories where workers toil 60- to 96-hour work weeks for wages between 12 1/2 cents and 28 cents an hour producing clothing for Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, Wal-Mart, Ann Taylor, Esprit and other U.S. companies.

One of the NLC’s greatest triumphs came in 1995, when it organized a two-month speaking tour for a pair of Central American teenagers who sewed clothing for The Gap under harsh sweatshop conditions, earning just 12 cents for every $20 shirt they produced. The tour led to a national campaign to pressure The Gap to guarantee the rights of their workers in El Salvador by opening its contractors’ plants to independent monitoring. Since then, the NLC has helped arrange a second independent monitoring project in Honduras.

Similarly, the NLC exposed Disney sweatshops in Haiti where women earned just 6 cents for every $19.99 101 Dalmatians children’s outfit they assembled, resulting in more than 6,000 letters to Disney from elementary school children and Disney’s withdrawal from Myanmar, inclusion of the right to organize in its Code of Conduct, and a review of working conditions at its contractors’ plants around the world.

Kernaghan and the NLC have also influenced government policy. By documenting the use of hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars to finance company flight from domestic shores, the NLC spurred legislation which rewrote U.S. foreign aid laws preventing similar uses of tax dollars in the future. After NLC testimony in the Senate showed evidence of American firms’ use of child labor in Honduras and the NLC video Zoned for Slavery was viewed at the White House, President Clinton withdrew a pending $160 million-a-year increase in tariff benefits to U.S. companies that made products in Central America and the Caribbean due to their violation of women’s and workers’ rights.

Charles Kernaghan’s visit is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, Department of Sociology, the MultiCultural Center and Global and International Studies.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2080.