Ignorance was once bliss for Ontario's Catholic education students--oblivious to those hand-stitching their school crests for possibly less than a dollar an hour. Sweatshops were the unfathomable.
But the wool is now pulled back from over their eyes.
"Everyday, it bothered me that I could possibly be wearing something that was made under poor labour conditions," says student Christopher Longtin, an 18-year-old senior at Hamilton's St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School. "The notion of sweatshops is contrary to the teachings in my school."
Longtin and his classmates just wanted their school board to mandate their uniform suppliers to show and tell. They participated in a grassroots campaign last year in the same vein as well-known Canadian activist Craig Kielburger's, who by age 15, was responsible for Free the Children--the international network of more than 100,000 youths helping other youths out of child prostitution and labour. In the fall of 2002, the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board paid heed and was the first board in Canada to form a "No Sweat" policy, requiring their uniform supplier to divulge manufacturers' names and addresses upon the request of the board.
"More and more people are looking at their clothing labels and asking questions," says Longtin.
Lori Ryan, Youth Initiatives Coordinator for the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, is an exuberant mother hen to Longtin's cause. According to Ryan, high school students are now following the path recently blazed by anti-sweatshop campaigners on university campuses. Within a carefully woven network of NGOs, labour unions and human rights advocacy groups, young lobbyists have solicited greater corporate accountability in a globalized economy. …
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