THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996 TAG: 9607130050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KIM WADSWORTH, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: 53 lines
THE FASHION industry, tarred by evidence that it exists partly on sweatshop and child labor, is taking action to clean up its act.
Kathie Lee Gifford, whose clothing line for Wal-Mart has been linked to sweatshops in Central America and the United States, is scheduled to testify today before a House subcommittee about new efforts to police the industry. On Tuesday, she and hundreds of other fashion figures will meet at a Labor Department-sponsored forum in Arlington to discuss the problem.
Some designers and manufacturers have already taken action against sweatshops.
After the Labor Department charged that J.C. Penney was selling clothes made by underpaid workers, the national chain enacted purchasing rules that require its 6,600 suppliers to submit to Penney's anti-sweatshop monitoring requirements.
According to the Labor Department, which has cheered the move, Penney's policy is the first of its kind among major retailers.
The issue of poorly paid work forces and child labor in the fashion industry was highlighted in recent months by disclosures about Gifford's Wal-Mart line. Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee charged that Gifford's clothes had been made in a Honduran factory that employed children. Later it was learned that a New York sweatshop with underpaid workers had turned out some of her clothes.
Gifford has developed a plan to ensure that her line is produced legitimately. She is hiring a newly formed nonprofit organization called Verite to monitor labor compliance for the 25 contractors that sew the clothes.
Many other fashion figures have been linked to sweatshops. Several years ago, designer Norma Kamali's OMO line went out of business after a boycott triggered by allegations of worker exploitation.
Charges have also been leveled at suppliers for Liz Claiborne and The Gap. Both are now instituting labor-monitoring programs for their Central American contractors, according to the trade publication Women's Wear Daily.
More than 500 designers, celebrities, retailers and others have been invited to Tuesday's forum in Arlington.
The forum will address the exploitation of laborers and will showcase companies that remain profitable without resorting to sweatshop contractors.
Hopes are that the daylong event will signal the willingness of designers and others to react to recent public pressure and root out worker exploitation.
``There is a new banding together of the retailer and the consumer and the designer that's very natural,'' the Labor official said. ``Never underestimate the power of the creative.'' ILLUSTRATION: AP FILE PHOTO
Kathie Lee Gifford has pledged to curb use of sweatshops. by CNB