Corporate Profits Real Reason for Sweatshops

The chief assumption underlying James Flanigan’s Aug. 4 column (“Garment Industry Awaits Welfare Recipients”) is fundamentally flawed. He argues that sweatshops flourish in Third World countries because U.S. retailers want to offer American consumers low-priced goods.

Nike is but one giant corporation shopping around the world for cheap labor. This Oregon-headquartered firm doesn’t produce a single shoe in the U.S. Instead its payroll for 12,000 workers in Indonesia was $5 million in 1994. Such wages were even below Indonesia’s meager standards. (Nike has paid Michael Jordan $20 million for the use of his name to promote its products.)

Nike shoes still cost around $75 to $150 a pair. So what accounts for the huge difference between miserly pay for Indonesian workers and inflated prices for American consumers? Could it be corporate profits?

RICARDO F. ICAZA

President, UFCW Local 770

President, Los Angeles County

Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO