The Olympic Games are almost over and, as we root for our nation’s gold medal tally to keep rising, distraught members of Congress are ensuring one thing never again happens in the Olympics. No, not doping or a similarly egregious offense; it’s about the clothes the athletes wear.
Since it became public that Team USA’s Ralph Lauren uniforms were made in China, there’s been an unending amount of jaw-flapping by politicians. The idea that athletes representing our country would wear garments manufactured by our archenemies—I mean, it’s China for goodness sake!—is just unthinkable and downright unpatriotic.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said they could take the uniforms and “put them in a big pile and burn them,” while House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) raked the Olympic Committee over the coals, saying, “You’d think they’d know better.”
I suppose we should cheer for the first showing of bipartisanship in a long while, but methinks the politicians
protest too much. The dismal public approval ratings Congress currently enjoys might have a thing or two to do with this latest stunt. If they can’t agree on the budget and health care, at least they can all go after Ralph Lauren and make sure everyone knows how tightly the threads of patriotism are sewn through their own suits.
You’d think the hubbub would have died down after the opening ceremony, but unfortunately it hasn’t. A group of senators continue to carry the torch by way of the “Team USA Made in America Act of 2012.” This piece of legislation mandates that Olympic uniforms (including all appropriate accessories, like ribbons, hats and leg warmers) bear the “Made in the USA” tag.
Frankly, it’s ridiculous. Ask the majority of Americans to look at the tags on their clothing. They won’t read homemade. More than likely, they’ll read made in China, Bangladesh, Malaysia or Vietnam. It’s old news that nearly all of our clothing is made abroad—98 percent of it, according to ABC News.
Last year, the network televised an experiment with commuters at New York’s Grand Central Station, asking them to take off every article of clothing that wasn’t made in the U.S. The results were telling. The report stated that, “In most cases, our participants would have been standing naked in the terminal had we not called off the experiment.”
If it’s so prevalent, what’s all the fuss about? If it’s that serious, Congress should mandate that “head to toe, all legislators’ clothing must be made in America.” I’d like to see someone try that. This is a farce. They need to get over it and start introducing legislation that really matters—like, say, stricter enforcement of the fair treatment and payment of the people making the clothes.
Criticizing the outsourcing of our clothing manufacturing is pointless. The globalized state of our economies equates to the distribution of labor across continents. It’s just
reality. Another reality is that American clothing labels are creating job opportunities in countries stricken by extreme poverty, and that’s something to be proud of.
What we shouldn’t be proud of is how those companies often go about it. According to the same ABC News report, Chinese factory workers are paid $14 a day, which, in an eight-hour day, breaks down to $1.75 an hour. On top of that, multinational companies have long been guilty of overlooking the sweatshops and inhuman working conditions of overseas employees.
Take Wal-Mart, for example. According to Public Broadcasting Service’s Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town, 85 percent of Wal-Mart’s wares are imported, often made in third-world sweatshops. Accountability for many of these megacorporations is nonexistent.
What better way to show our patriotism than by holding American companies to the ideals and principles our country was founded on? Equality and freedom, to name two. Our legislators could better spend their energy on ensuring that the people employed by American companies overseas are treated with the fairness, equality and respect any American citizen would expect. That just might influence my vote.
