Sweatshop Crucifixes

In a follow up to this post, I came across this video by Jim Hightower discussing crucifixes that have been made using sweatshop labor in China.

Labor Group Says St. Patrick’s Sells Sweatshop Goods

Nothing is sacred anymore.

A workers’ rights group yesterday accused St. Patrick’s Cathedral of selling religious items made under terrible conditions in sweatshop factories in China.

“It is immoral, it is unjust and it has to change,” he said.

Mr. Kernaghan, a veteran of battles with industries over the treatment of foreign workers, said the six-inch wooden crucifix and other religious articles were frequently made by women who toiled for pennies an hour in an unrelenting grind of assembly work.

Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said yesterday that the archdiocese would investigate the charges. He said that Mr. Kernaghan’s news conference was the first time he had heard of the claim, adding that the gift shop buys its items from a variety of religious dealers.

“I am sure the cathedral gift shop directors will look into this now that it has been raised,” Mr. Zweilling said. “I don’t know at this point what the facts are.”

Gap Profits Rise in Third Quarter

The AP reports that GAP 3rd Quarter Earnings rose 26% as marketing prices fell. According to the article:

Gap, which also operates Banana Republic stores, said it cut marketing expenses by about $75 million in the quarter, as planned.

On the sales side, one of the few bright spots came from online sales, which surged 36 percent to $247 million, from $182 million in the third quarter of last year. Gap operates online shoe store Piperlime, gap.com and other e-commerce sites.

The company ended the quarter with $1.7 billion in cash and investments. It repurchased 48 million shares during the quarter for $887 million -- part of a $1.5 billion share repurchase program announced in August.

Aggressive cost-cutting has reduced in 1,500 job cuts this year, and the company is reorganizing its North American real-estate holdings -- selling underperforming, older stores in aging markets and buying property in hot growth suburbs and urban retail centers.

The company opened 187 new stores this year and closed 127 stores, including closure or conversion of all Old Navy outlet stores, and the closure of all Forth & Towne stores, which targeted older women. Overall, the company increased store square footage by 2 percent.

Analysts peppered executives about the seemingly slow pace of the turnaround. Reorganizing the company's retail holdings could take years, but Murphy emphasized that the turnaround has already begun.

"Round one is just identifying what we're going to do, and then we focus on executing," he said.

The piece, of course, credits lower marketing costs, increased online sales and cost-cutting measures as being the driving forces behind this surge in profits. I wonder if one of these 'cost-cutting' measures was the cheap labor costs that Gap enjoyed from their use of child labor in sweatshops.