Child Labor & Shoes

Guest_2 · Post by **Guest_2** » 06 Mar 2005 19:37

As many members of the forum are concientious of not only their lives (vegetarians), but also compassionate for others, I found it a little ironic that Adidas' Rod Lavers are the most chosen (60+%) shoes for Freestyle; even though Adidas is well known for their tangles with child labor/sex discrimination/sweat shops. Nike, Reebok, LA Gear, and of course Adidas are prime examples, the resources for such information is listed below.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nike+child+labor http://www.saigon.com/~nike/NikeChina.html http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/SISBIKUM.htm

My inquiry is: What footbag shoe is not tainted with these unlawful business practices?

brian relly · Post by **brian relly** » 06 Mar 2005 19:39

None, unless New Balance isn't down with it, but they probably are.

Just try not to think about it, and you'll be alright.

sampotter · Post by **sampotter** » 06 Mar 2005 19:53

Stephen Barnes wrote:Just try not to think about it, and you'll be alright.

Nice. :-p

While I try and be compassionate for others in the aforementioned ways, I find this to be an unfortunate situation. To my knowledge, no shoe exists that fits these criterion. However, instead of not thinking about it, you can acknowledge that despite all of your efforts, it's near impossible to remove yourself from the system of exploitation and destruction that's been established by capitalism. When I buy my shoes for footbag that have been invariably made by a child, I remind myself of what I said and apply myself harder to removing myself from the system. If you really want to logic yourself out of feeling bad, you can use the bull shit logic occasionally applied by veg*ns when buying leather. Such that, if they buy it from someone else instead of buying directly from those who are doing the exploiting, they'll somehow not perpetuate all of this. ie... Buy some shoes off ebay or from someone you know.

brian relly · Post by **brian relly** » 06 Mar 2005 20:01

I was joking, by the way. I agree with what Sam said.

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 06 Mar 2005 20:02

that's why i only play barefoot, lol..

see this is an issue that always results in me being really confused.

I don't want to support them because of that, but honestly it's either barefoot only (bad for your legs) or purchase the shoes off someone who has already bought them..

Unfortunately I'm in a state right now where footbag is part of my life therefore buying the appropriate shoes are a necessity, I unfortunately have to deal with their immoral business practices and find ways other than boycotting one or two of their products to try to change it..

edit: i suppose we could lobby to moral shoe companies to try to get them to design the ULTIMATE footbag shoe... Mosher? I'm looking your way..

junkyardjew · Post by **junkyardjew** » 06 Mar 2005 20:16

Actually, Nike isn't that bad anymore. Because of the massive publicity blitz against them, they cleaned up their act a little, hired environmental impact consultants, etc. in fact, they're making a shoe now called the "Nike Considered", where it's made only of materials found within 200km of their plant, made labour friendly and out of hemp.

also, if you think you can shred in chuck taylor style shoes, adbusters has a black spot shoe that you can find if you put your mind to it. The other thing to do is organize a campus boycott or something. Shit like that gets picked up because the market there is their demographic for a lot of products. It worked against nike, and against shell to some extent.

crazydwarf · Post by **crazydwarf** » 06 Mar 2005 20:37

Or you can try and play with the same shoes for as long as you can in an attempt to not give them any more bussiness... that only works for so long though

cd · Post by cd » 07 Mar 2005 09:35

If you get your shoes off ebay, chances are that the company won't see any profits from it (especially if they're used shoes). You may be wearing shoes made by exploited children, but at least you aren't contributing to the problem.

junkyardjew wrote: also, if you think you can shred in chuck taylor style shoes, adbusters has a black spot shoe that you can find if you put your mind to it.

adbusters rules. you can put a black dot over the logo of anything you own, and they encourage putting one over any corporate logos in areas vulnerable to spray paint. My lavers have black dots over everything adidas.

sampotter · Post by **sampotter** » 07 Mar 2005 15:50

Of course you're contributing to the problem. While you may not be directly contributing, you're putting money in the hands of the people who bought the shoes in the first place, allowing them to resume their activities. Whether or not they will is another thing, but it sort of puts it out of your hands. It's sort of a cop out, in my opinion.

Guest_2 · Post by **Guest_2** » 27 Mar 2005 13:06

Stephen Barnes wrote:None, unless New Balance isn't down with it, but they probably are.

I couldn't find any incriminating evidence against New Balance, so I'm going to pick up the ct520's. There are quite a few Vegan shoes stores carrying their products, though none could garauntee me that the all of their products/or just the 520's were made sweat shop free. I'm going along with the assumption that if I can't find anything on them, they haven't violated anything.

There were actually a few shoes I thought might be footbag shoes, but there's no way for me to test them. http://www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk/ at the top of the page you can 'select an item'. The "Track Legend" looked shreddable.

A simple poll might prove to a company with good labor practices that with the help of a few well known footbaggers (Richard Abshire once mentioned he is going to be expanding Freestyle recources) a footbag shoe would have a vast audience, especially with expert advice guiding their creation.

In the meantime, I've decided to purchase ct520's under the assumption that they have good labor practices. So now all that's left is to decide between the colors. Though from what I hear, It doesn't matter if you're black or white.

Asmus · Post by **Asmus** » 27 Mar 2005 13:32

junkyardjew wrote:Actually, Nike isn't that bad anymore. Because of the massive publicity blitz against them, they cleaned up their act a little, hired environmental impact consultants, etc. in fact, they're making a shoe now called the "Nike Considered", where it's made only of materials found within 200km of their plant, made labour friendly and out of hemp.

I do almost think that is more frightening.. Because they dont do it because they think of the kids but because they think this will sell good!

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 27 Mar 2005 16:05

Lol clearly none of you are economists

.

Economists point of view:

Problem: Sweatshops
Why is it possible for their to be sweatshops?
Because there are 3rd world countries that cannot afford unemployment benifits, especially since unemployment is so friggen high in these countries because they are so far undeveloped.

Most peoples solution:
Give aid to the countries so people can be educated and can get decent jobs.
Problem here: Who has enough money and is willing to provide this aid? Even if the aid is provided, the people that are educated are gonna realise pretty quick that if they save enough money and move to a westernised country their lives will be way better, therefore effectively educating people will only cause them to leave the country rather than help the situation.

Economists solution:
Before wages can rise and the govt can afford an unemployment benefit, employment needs to increase dramatically.
How do we increase employment? Let big companies utilise the cheep labour. Sure this is inhumain, but having a 2$ a week job is better than no job at all, or being a prostitute at the age of 8.
How this works?
Eventually the govt will be able to implement an unemployment scheme and everyone will either be employed or on the benefit.
Companies like adidas will still want to expand their sweatshops, so they will simply offer more money to the people if they come work for adidas. Hence there is competitoin between companies and the wage is pushed up.

Sorry if that is a little hard to understand, it makes more sence after a few years of economics.

Disclaimer: I am not saying I directly agree with the economists point of view, or that it has no faults (for instance the fact that the whole country will be earning 2$ a week for a long time before competition starts to kick in). I am however saying that poverty and sweatshops are a very difficult problem to solve, and boycotting big companies might not be the best way to save the children.