Angry in the Great White North

The Green Party of Canada has as part of its policy platform the idea of fair trade:

There's an old adage that good fences make good neighbours. The Green Party supports fair trade, not free trade - trade that puts Canadian sovereignty first.

Trade isn't just about shipping goods and services. Trade agreements also impact on human rights, labour standards, cultural diversity and environmental laws.

To address some of these issues, citizens around the world have set up international networks to create their own brand of trade - fair trade. International fair trade networks build direct links between producers and consumers ensuring that labour standards and environmental laws are respected.

Indeed, among those labour standards are those affecting women and how they are treated in the workplace, and the effects of that treatment:

Stereotypes are dangerous. They contribute to behaviour that can be far more threatening than words. The commercialization and exploitation of women, sexism, and discrimination in the workplace all contribute in a variety of ways - some subtle, some not - to a culture that for far too many condones violence against women.

All very good. Trade that focuses on Canadian sovereignty and on respectful treatment of women.

So why is it that the Green Party of Canada ships money off the the United States to a company notorious for how women workers are treated?

Goods for Greens

100% Organic Cotton T-Shirt, made in the USA and manufactured by American Apparel.
The design is the small sunflower logo of the Green Party of Canada with the words, green party, either side of the logo
The fabric is 100% organic fine jersey cotton and is one of the softest on the market.
This is a classic T-shirt for women. Lovely material, only available in a natural colour

American Apparel is the darling of the left. Located in Los Angeles, it makes a big deal about how it is not a sweatshop, about how environmentally conscious it is, and so on.

Fine. Apparently there is not Canadian maker of T-shirts that fits this bill. Not a single one. That's too bad.

But then American Apparel is unique. The hyper-sexualized workplace maintained by owner Dov Charney is well known:

It's not unusual that the plaintiffs in a sexual harassment suit are women. It is unusual however, that the ones suing Charney are not alleging that he coerced them for sex, but rather that he created a "wholly intolerable" and "intimidating" atmosphere rife with unnecessary libidinous testosterone. What's more unusual is Charney's unrestrained "business and pleasure" pride, which further deepens the suspicions about his integrity.

Charney founded American Apparel (then American Heavy) in 1997 and nurtured it into a retail empire which thrives on a fashionably familiar porn-esque sensibility that now boasts more than 4,500 employees, 50 stores in five different countries and annual sales exceeding $250 million. That's a lot of track jackets.

Lawsuit? No biggie, right? Not exactly. It doesn't help Charney's case that his stores are papered with Penthouse and Oui magazine snapshots and that he happily admits to having sex with his employees. Nor does it help that he brags about his penchant for masturbating in front of women. So much so, that he masturbated in front of reporter Claudine Ko while she interviewed him for Jane magazine. Ko reports in Jane:

"'Can I?' he says adjusting himself in his chair. And thus begins another compulsive episode of what Dov likes to call "self-pleasure," during which we casually carry on our interview, discussing things like business models, hiring practices and the stupidity of focus groups. 'Masturbation in front of women is underrated,' Dov explains to me later over the phone. 'It's much easier on the woman. She gets to watch, it's a sensual experience that doesn't involve a man violating a woman, yet once the man has his release, it's over and you can talk to the guy.' Soon enough he loosens his Pierre Cardin belt. 'Are you going to do it again?' I ask."

I've had a few interviews with reporters, and, well, I've never, not even thought, well, you know...ok, this guy is mega-creepy!

So how does it that American Apparel, with questions about the way women are treated by owner (and compulsive public masturbator) Dov Charney, is such a darling of the left that the Green Party of Canada seems compelled to send Canadian money into the United States for the t-shirts, despite the party policy of fair trade? It seems that American Apparel is about marketing to the guilt-ridden left:

The real story of American Apparel’s ads is how the company has used the bodies of its barely legal employees to shore up its appeal to the progressive left by implanting anti-sweatshop shtick into every article generated by its low-budget, sexist ads. And the AA demographic – low-wageworker- defending (but high-wage-earning), guiltridden lefties who want nothing more than to assuage their own angst-ridden middle-class anxiety about having succeeded in the capitalist world by consuming with conscience (and the more conscience, the better: sweat-free, fair-trade, organic, vegan, and sustainable) – ate it up.

“He [is] basically telling the left on one hand, ‘Yeah, you’re making me work,’” says Neiman. “On the other, [he’s saying], ‘Kiss my hairy bare butt.’”

American Apparel’s fame as an anti-sweatshop hero company is rooted not in ideology, but in the cut-throat clothing industry. Charney had just opened American Apparel’s first retail store in downtown L.A. when he learned that another Tshirt- and-tank-top outfitter, the late SweatX, aimed to open a retail outlet right next door. “He saw a threat from SweatX, so all of a sudden he realized that there was press – lots of it – so he played that angle,” says Neiman.

“Dov had never shown any interest up to this time in the sweatshop issue whatsoever,” Neiman says. “It was all about sex – sexy tees, sexy tees, sexy tees – was it.” Sex is still the central concern for Charney. Wherever Charney goes, rumors and insinuations follow. Stories about workplace nudity, inappropriate come-ons, and outright sexual harassment seem to sprout out of Charney.

The Conservative Party uses Brymark Productions for the its t-shirts and such. Brymark is a Canadian firm with a head office in Ottawa, and with offices in both Canada and the US. Brymark uses a global network of suppliers, and allows the client to specify where the product comes from and how it was made. For example, you can insist on Canadian-made products from unionized shops. American Apparel, on the other hand, is non-union, and has been accused of union-busting.

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