We care about the footprint, let’s not forget the foot

Today my feet are nice and cozy in a pair of Merrell slippers. Like 90% of shoes, they were Made in China.

This is going to be a brief Where Am I Wearing Wednesday because today I want to talk about feet more than shoes.

The Shoe:

Merrell’s corporate code of conduct – I couldn’t find one on their site. Contact them and join me in asking them what’s up with that:

The environment and labor practices both factor into my shopping decisions. I scanned your website for your corporate code of conduct and couldn’t find one. Could you please direct me to it?

Thanks,

Kelsey Timmerman

Labor conditions in the shoe industry in China – Well, it is China. When I visited there in 2007, I met workers who put in nearly 100 hours per week, even though the Chinese labor law stated they weren’t to work more than 44 hours. The workers would clock out and then go back to work. As if making our shoes was a privilege.

Still, going barefoot sucks and non-Made in China shoe options are limited.

I was speaking to a group of Labor Studies faculty the other day and the subject of fair trade shoes came up. I stated that I haven’t seen a pair of fair trade shoes in which I would run a marathon (note: I don’t really want to run a marathon regardless of the type of shoe, but that’s beside the point). They found this remark distasteful, but because they couldn’t directly argue the matter, they said, “Maybe we need to change our lifestyle – stop running marathons.”

Now there is a campaign I wouldn’t want to touch: Stop Exercising! We Americans are tubby enough already.

The Foot:

Today is Earth Day and I haven’t stepped foot outside. I feel like I’ve been huffing exhaust from the world’s most fuel inefficient SUV – light headed, sore throat, and feverish. But I can’t turn on the news without hearing something about our carbon footprint. Even my favorite TV show, 24, has reduced their carbon footprint and now claims to be carbon neutral.

This is great. More and more corporations are jumping on board and offering environmentally-friendly products. I’ve seen shoes made from hemp, others glued with glue that does less harm to the environment, and shoes packed in boxes that are 100% post consumer recycled. As an engaged consumer, I’m happy to have these options. Still, I want more.

What about the feet? We care about our footprint on the world, but what about our impact on one another. Saving the environment is in style, but concern for the workers who make our shoes isn’t.

Don’t believe me? Call up any shoe company and ask them how they reduce their impact on the environment. They’ll likely have a long list of ways their trying to do this. Then ask them about what they are doing to ensure that the workers who make their shoes are being treated fairly. You’ll soon find yourself lost in the corporate phone chain.

This Earth Day, I’m glad to have the option of buying environmentally-friendly shoes, but what I’d really like to see is a pair of socially-conscious shoes.

Know of any?

Wal-Mart in trouble in Bangladesh…again

From WAIW?:

In 1992, Dateline NBC aired footage from inside a garment factory in Bangladesh, featuring a Wal-Mart production line where kids as young as seven were operating machines and trimming garments. Wal-Mart argued that the people of Bangladesh are extremely malnourished and that the individuals that appear to be seven-year-old kids are actually adult Bangladeshis whose growth has been stunted.

And a recent headline in Businessweek: “Wal-Mart Supplier Accused of Sweatshop Conditions.”

Basically, the hardworking folks at SweatFree Communities uncovered a factory that supplies Wal-Mart with some of their “Faded Glory” line. The report showed that employees of the factory are forced to work 19-hour days. Wal-Mart has been self-inspecting the factory, but the visits are usually announced and the factory makes preparations and puts on a good show for the inspectors.

I have a few comments and questions:

- Self-policing isn’t the way to go.

- Is this a situation where Wal-Mart is indirectly asking, “Lie to us.”

- Cases of child labor have been greatly reduced in Bangladesh. But kids under 14 (minimum working age) sometimes lie to the factory to get a job. Workers lie to factories; again, a possible lie-to-us situation. Factories lie to retailers. When people are desperate for a job, factories are desperate for work, and brands are desperate for cheap products, this kind of thing is bound to happen.

- How ironic is the name of Wal-Mart’s brand “Faded Glory?”

- It will be interesting to see if Wal-Mart and Sweat Free Communities are able to work together to right this situation. I kind of feel like they won’t be able to. And this is the problem. I don’t think progress can be made in worker’s rights unless retailers and activists work together.

The press release from SweatFree Communities is below the cut.

Read more

Will Run for Orphans

Don’t know about you, but I would pay NOT to run a marathon. I got an email the other day from a fella that’s running the NYC marathon while collecting money for one of my favorite charities, Casa Guatemala. (Note: If donating to orphans doesn’t do it for you, support this guy for his name alone – Egbert. How cool is that? It’s as if he finally escaped Dilbert’s strip and Dogbert’s rule. Keep on running Egbert. Keep on running.)

Dear friends,

What do the New York City Marathon and Casa Guatemala have in common? Well, they’re both sponsored by ING (my employer). About 4 years ago ING granted me a sabbatical to volunteer in Casa Guatemala, an orphanage located on the banks of the Río Dulce near the Caribbean coast. Casa Guatemala was founded about 25 years ago by Angie Galdamez who has grown the organization to what it is today. It started out as a small orphanage for babies in Guatemala City and now entails the orphanage in Río Dulce that cares for the health, nutrition and education of 250 children. Please visit www.casa-guatemala.org for much more on the activities of the Casa and to get a visual impression of what the Casa looks like.

I worked as an ‘Orientador’ , or caretaker, and together with two other volunteers I was responsible for a group of up to 25 boys between the age of 5-10 years old. We would wake the children up in the morning (5am !), get them ready for breakfast and then school, be there for them during the school breaks and after school. Help them out with any homework and read them bed time stories before going to sleep at around 8pm. One of us would always spend the night in the dorm with the boys in case one of them would have to go the toilet or have the occasional nightmare (no electricity after 8.30pm, so pitch dark!). Not always easy to divide your attention over so many kids at the same time. At times it has been challenging, but ultimately a very rewarding and unforgettable experience. See https://picasaweb.google.com/egbert.voerman/CasaGuatemala for some pics of my time in the Casa.

On November 4th I will be participating in the New York Marathon for the third time and of course I will try to beat my time of last year. However my main goal this year is to raise money for Casa Guatemala. Together with 10 colleagues (from 6 different countries) who are also running in the NYC Marathon we are aiming to raise enough money to cover one year of school supplies, textbooks and other educational materials. Your tax deductible donation*, be it $10 or $1,000, will go a long way against that goal. And the fact that ING will match the first $2,000 raised be each runner** will make your donation all the more effective.

Making a donation is easy. Just visit https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=21070 . The donation form is pretty self explanatory, it even allows you to allocate your donation to more than one runner. You can also donate on behalf of somebody else (for example your company) Please note that we have partnered with Groundspring.org, a non-profit organization facilitating on-line donations with any of the major credit cards using a secured connection, so your online donation will be save ! The campaign runs until Monday November 12th,

Do you want to know how I am doing during the marathon or if and in what time I make it to the finish line? Athlete Alert will send email or sms alerts to the first 5 persons donating $50 or more !

Thanks very much in advance for considering making a donation towards the education of the Children of Casa Guatemala.

Best, Egbert

*for tax residents in the US, Canada, UK and Spain
**matching policy differs per location

Believe it or not: A hitchhiker in Indiana

My hitchhiker’s karma is drastically unbalanced. I’ve received somewhere between 80-100 rides and I’ve given three, counting the one I gave yesterday.

Normally the hitchhikers we get in these parts of the world look like they’ve been thumbing rides since Vietnam. This fella didn’t. He had a laptop bag, wheeled-luggage, and was wearing an aircast.

I drove by amazed that there was someone standing beside the road to Farmland. That’s right – the city is named Farmland. You might catch a friendly farmer on the way to look at his crops, but chances are you’re not going to get a ride of any distance. It’s a doldrums for hitchin’.

I thought about all of the times I stood alongside a road – mostly in New Zealand, but other times in Hawaii, Australia, Romania, and Bosnia – in the rain and watched car after car pass. It’s the kind of thing that can really make a day crummy and have you lose faith in humanity.

I stopped.

Kenneth is from Alaska. He was visiting his brother in Greenville, Ohio. His brother’s wife is a nut and stole his pain pills he was taking for his torn ACL (tore it working on his bro’s roof). Once the pain pills were done, she stole his wallet. He had enough and was off to Minnesota via Chicago – penniless. A buddy he made in Iraq that saved his life lives in Chicago.

Kenneth has had some bad luck. He drove over an IED in Iraq. He lost a kidney and several feet of intestines. He doesn’t approve of the war in Iraq, but thinks our fight in Afghanistan is worthwhile. I tell him I’m a writer and he tells me he’s thinking about making his journal from Iraq into a book.

Kenneth has had some good luck. His brother – the good one, not the one in Greenville – is a procrastinator. In 2001, he made Kenneth’s family late to the airport. They were off to Cancun, but missed their flight. United 93. Kenneth says that every person on that flight was a hero. That plane was heading for the Whitehouse.

In Minnesota, Kenneth will get his long-time girlfriend and mother of his twin girls and head back to Cordova, Alaska, where he has a home with a back porch overlooking the ocean 50 feet below.

Kenneth says that in Alaska if a police officer sees three cars pass a hitchhiker, the fourth car will get a ticket. The elements and the wildlife of Alaska can be lethal.

Speaking of wildlife, Kenneth has had some close calls.

There are two pods of Orca near where he lives. Kenneth has known the dominant male of the “M-pod” since the whale was not much bigger than my truck. This particular killer whale has swum close enough for Kenneth to pet him from his kayak.

One time Kenneth was riding his motorbike down the highway when a moose stepped out. He drove right between the moose’s legs. The moose’s belly scraped some paint off of his helmet. He was riding one of those low profile “crotch rockets.”

Kenneth makes a living long line fishing. He knows the names of glaciers and has seen them recede some 30 miles. He thinks Hong Kong is a fun city and Japan is a good time, too. When I tell him that I taught SCUBA in Key West for awhile he tell me he has a relative that teaches SCUBA on Marathon Key. When I tell him I did a lot of hitchhiking in New Zealand he tells me that he has family there.

He might rejoin the military. After all, he does have one kidney left.

I buy him a taquito at Taco Bell and leave him at a truck stop. Maybe he can catch a ride to Ft. Wayne or, if he’s lucky, all the way to Chicago. The truckers might take some convincing: A hitchhiker in rural Indiana?

It’s almost unbelievable.

Note: “Sorry I’m late, honey, I picked up a hitchhiker” is not a good excuse to be late for dinner.