Word: gifford
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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KATHIE LEE GIFFORD Lengthy pleas and support from pals make her the poster girl for the antisweatshop crusade...
...flaying of celebrities like Gifford and Jordan made it easy to miss the point. For years children have been sold as slaves, blinded or maimed for crying or rebelling or trying to return home, ill-fed, bone-weary, short-lived. They file the scissor blades, mix the gunpowder for the firecrackers, knot the carpets, stitch the soccer balls with needles longer than their fingers. Human-rights groups guess there may be 200 million children around the world, from China to South America, working full time--no play, no school, no chance. All of which raises the question, once the news...
...stories were too much for a celebrity who doesn't need the money enough to justify the grief. So Gifford wrote checks and went on Larry King Live and launched a crusade. And the more she succeeds, the clearer it becomes that even the purest consumer can't avoid complicity. The trousers are from Honduras, the orange juice from Brazil, the teddy bear from Thailand. "I like a cheap shirt," admits a Labor Department administrator, "so I'm guilty...
...that was one reason the agendas ran so thick and fast last week, as protectionist unions and corporate spin doctors and politicians and consumers saw 20 years' worth of exploitation boil down into one week's news. Labor Secretary Robert Reich skillfully recruited Gifford to the cause--offering absolution if she would become a watchdog. Reich argues that more than half the 22,000 U.S. garment contractors pay less than the minimum wage; working conditions are often appalling. He has about 800 inspectors to police them all, which is why public outrage comes in handy. "Consumer pressure is vitally important...
...Gifford, who is gifted at both self-promotion and self-preservation, this has become a consuming cause. When the charges first hit, her tearful self-defense rightly noted that of her clothing line's $9 million profit last year, she donated $1 million to the Association to Benefit Children, which opened shelters for crack-addicted children and children with AIDS. She promised to monitor factories where her clothes are made and said she would recruit other famous endorsers like Jaclyn Smith to help pressure manufacturers to police labor practices more closely...