Alternative Apparel

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Is Alternative Apparel An Ethical Alternative?

Alternative Apparel has positioned itself as an alternative to traditional garment companies that rely on sweatshop labor and foreign outsourcing to escape important regulations of the workplace here in the United States. Is Alternative Apparel really an alternative, though?

That's the question this lens focuses on - looking at the larger questions of labor conditions, environmental quality, and the ethics of consumption. This information is important to you because, after all, it isn't just clothing manufacturer like Alternative Apparel that needs to make ethical judgments. You do too - when you decide whether you'll buy what Alternative Apparel has to buy.

Can Alternative Apparel Be Ethical And Work In China? 

Are China and Manufacturing Ethics Compatible?

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Alternative Apparel is NOT American Apparel 

The name is a knock off

The first thing you need to understand about Alternative Apparel is that it is not the same thing as American Apparel. American Apparel makes all of its clothes in the United States, and that means that it makes its clothes in such a way that meets the environmental and labor standards of American law.

Alternative Apparel cannot say the same thing. They outsource their work, making their clothes in China, an autocratic country with serious problems with human rights abuses and environmental pollution. Alternative Apparel manufactures in China so that its factories do not have to meet American ethical and environmental standards.

If you want some American Apparel shirts, a good place to go is Skreened, which prints on American Apparel shirts in Columbus, Ohio. You can't get more American than that.

Can Apparel Be Alternative In China? 

Video explores the ethics of Alternative Apparel manufacturing in China.

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Information Related to Alternative Apparel 

Articles and other information about Alternative Apparel

Alternative Apparel Keeps Tibet In Chains
How can Alternative Apparel be regarded as ethical when China keeps Tibet in chains?
Is Alternative Apparel Really Sweatshop Free?
Could Alternative Apparel possibly check its factories in China enough to be sure of fair labor standards?
Skreened
Skreened is a place to buy and sell t-shirts made in the USA by AMERICAN Apparel
Alternative Apparel Not Very Alternative, Really
Alternative Apparel uses Chinese labor to evade American labor and environmental laws

An Example Of A Real Sweatshop-Free Shirt 

This is what a made in the USA shirt looks like

The shirt you see here is genuine sweatshop-free. How do we know? It's sold through Skreened, and Skreened only sells shirts that are manufactured and printed in the USA. It's that simple. Alternative Apparel can't say that about their own shirts.

It's a British dragon shirt, but it's made right here, on our side of the Atlantic.

News About Sweatshop Labor 

Labor Abuses in Outsourced Factories in China and Elsewhere

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Books About Sweatshop Labor 

Read Up While the Sweat Beads Up

Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops

Amazon Price: $12.87 (as of 11/23/2009) Buy Now

Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry

Amazon Price: $26.95 (as of 11/23/2009) Buy Now

Students Against Sweatshops: The Making of a Movement

Amazon Price: $15.00 (as of 11/23/2009) Buy Now

Can We Put an End to Sweatshops?: A New Democracy Form on Raising Global Labor Standards (New Democracy Forum)

Amazon Price: $15.00 (as of 11/23/2009) Buy Now

by irregularworld

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