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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202-219-8211
Kathie Lee Gifford will help bring together some of the
biggest names in fashion and entertainment for a Washington forum this summer
designed to expand the crusade against sweatshops, Labor Secretary Robert B.
Reich said today in New York.
"All of us must demand that the industry accept the moral
responsibility for ending third world working conditions in the most prosperous
nation on earth," Reich said. "Kathie Lee Gifford and every other celebrity can
protect their good names by making sure they don't put them on sweatshop-made
garments."
Reich and Gifford made the announcement today at New
York's Fashion Cafe. The Fashion Industry Forum will be held in mid-July on the
campus of Marymount University in suburban Washington, D.C. National retailers,
manufacturers and celebrities will be invited to participate in the event.
Clothing bearing the Kathie Lee label has twice in the
last month been linked to sweatshops in the United States and abroad. Gifford
expressed an interest in waging a campaign for garment worker rights following
the disclosure May 23 of a Manhattan sweatshop making Kathie Lee apparel for
Wal-Mart, which has exclusive rights to the merchandise.
Gifford and Reich initially spoke on the telephone last
week and decided the fashion forum would raise public awareness of the growing
sweatshop problem.
Reich has been engaged in a crusade to eradicate
sweatshops since coming to office in 1993. The department's No Sweat campaign
is a multi-pronged strategy of enforcement, recognition and education to
eradicate sweatshops in the garment industry. In three years, the department
has recovered $7.3 million in wages for more than 25,000 garment workers.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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