As part of the agreement with the city, the Nike "swoosh," a worldwide fixture on sneakers and sports attire, will adorn the state-of-the-art football field. Under the deal, the trademarks of such rivals as Reebok and Adidas will be banned.
The city will operate and maintain the football field.
Speaking of the athletic apparel business, be sure and check out this ESPN Outside the Lines report on the Dallas Cowboys' use of Cambodian sweatshops in the manufacture of their independently produced line of products.
Eight years later, life is no simpler for Malay. She and her colleagues work harder than perhaps most people you know, logging regular 60-hour work weeks, sewing 10 hours a day, six days a week. They fear the wrath of their supervisors if they talk to a co-worker sitting next to them or take too long at the bathroom. They say they are essentially forced to work overtime daily and describe a hostile work environment in which supervisors yell and insult them. They work while sick because either they can't afford to go to the doctor or fear they will be fired if they miss work. They rent small rooms with sometimes as many as three other workers, eat substandard food and have irregular water and electricity.
All of this to make the clothes on your back, which just might include the Dallas Cowboys Sideline Kickoff Midweight Jacket you scored for Christmas, the one that sells for $100 -- or about what Malay will earn in one month.
Indeed, not just for America's Team but for nearly every sports team in America, virtually all of the jackets, jerseys, hats, pants and, yes, even bathrobes bearing your favorite team's insignia are made in factories abroad. Kol Malay, then, is the unseen face of a multibillion-dollar industry: The laborer who earns the minimum wage -- in Malay's case, 29 cents an hour -- who lives below the poverty level, who wouldn't know a Dallas Cowboy from a Dallas Maverick, and who has no real hopes of emerging from the cycle.
With the two hours of "voluntary" overtime she works daily, Malay brings home about $100 a month, which, according to one watchdog group is at least a third of what's required for a "living wage" in Phnom Penh.
"I can sew as many as 1,000 or 1,100 to 1,200 depending on the types of shirt," Malay says through an interpreter of the daily quota of parts of a shirt she completes. "To make so little money out of so many shirts made is an insult. I make thousands [of shirts], and they can sell each shirt for $70 to $80."
The issue is hardly isolated to the Cowboys, who, like most other major brands such as Nike and adidas, contract with independently owned factories around the world to get their merchandise made.
"The norm across the global apparel industry is your typical sweatshop, where workers are paid poverty wages," says Teresa Cheng, the international campaigns coordinator for United Students Against Sweatshops. "There's rampant sexual harassment. A lot of times there's even physical abuse.
"A couple decades ago, we first heard about all these sensational scandals about Nike sweatshops, and I would say, two decades later, not much has changed."
At the dedication of Nike Swoosh Field at Joe Brown Park, Mayor Landrieu made the following comments.
"This commitment to Joe Brown Park and New Orleans East shows the public and private sector confidence in our plans to build back better than before," Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a statement released before a scheduled 4 p.m. ceremony.
Landrieu, who was slated to be joined by representatives of the three groups footing the bill for about one-third of the costs, said, "Through this collaboration, we're creating not just buildings, but productive opportunities for our young people."
Congratulations to Mayor Landrieu for embracing this fine "public-private partnership" in the interest of "creating productive opportunities for our young people" in New Orleans and in Cambodia, as well!
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