Regarding Dov Charney’s statement:

“Women initiate most domestic violence, yet out of a thousand cases of domestic violence maybe one is involving a man.”

What does that even mean?? It makes no sense, only 1 in 1,000 domestic violence cases involve a man? What is he saying, that most domestic violence cases are between lesbian couples??

Sounds more like nonsensical rambling than irrefutable evidence of misogyny.

Say what you will about American Apparel, they are at least very forthcoming about every aspect of their business. Anyone interested knows in minute detail the wages and benefits earned by the employees. There are hundreds of photos available on the Web of the factory and the working conditions inside it. You know who makes the shirts, where they are made and under what conditions. You know exactly where the factory is and if so inclined, you may visit it. You know about their increasing use of organic cotton, the solar panels on the roof, the free staff bicycles, the masseuses, the english classes… in short, it’s clear that they have nothing to hide. Alternative Apparel however… they can’t even get straight how many different countries they manufacture in, let alone what those countries are and what local labor laws are being enforced.

Another manufacturer who claims complete transparency is NoSweat Apparel. They say they are open source manufacturers:

We will tell you about our sources, highlight them, show them off. The workers who make our clothes will have living wages and decent working conditions; they will have unions. Will that lead our competition to the same shops? Excellent. We want our sources to thrive. That’s the whole point. Or a good part of it, anyway. The other part of open source apparel making is a challenge to our competitors: let them, too, reveal their sources. Let them suffer shame and loss of revenue for favoring sweatshops. Let them reap the rewards of choosing union shops and respecting workers rights.

However, the list of manufacturers on their Web site is out of date. Also, the calibre of information about the wages, benefits and working conditions in any of the Union shops they cite is uneven. This is an important detail for those of us all to familiar with the existence of corrupt and even criminal unions.

Of the shops that they do provide real information about, unionized Universal Sportswear pays its employees less than American Apparel does and uses no organic cotton. Just Garments in El Salvador needed the help of Georgetown students to raise $16,000 just to stay afloat - and there is no information about their wages and benefits on the site. The most comprehensive information relates to the Bata factory in Indonesia that makes NoSweat’s awesome sweatshop free running shoes. You know, the one’s advertised with the scantily clad woman lying on the ground and the guy standing ominously above her? The unionized workers in that shop make less than $120 a month. That’s what an employee at American Apparel can make on a good day. The rest of the suppliers are given a pass by mere dint of the fact that they are unionized. Little more information is offered about them.

I’m sorry. I remain duly unimpressed. For my ethical dollar, American Apparel remains the best option. There’s is a truly transparent, open-source and ethical business model that works.

And I love LOVE their yoga pants!

You made me realize that I allowed my personal bias into this discussion. (That I have a professional bias because I am paid by American Apparel is a given, of course). This is probably because I grew up in communist Poland, where those who controlled information wielded enormous power and regularly abused this power. This might be why whenever I see propaganda that damages something I care about — and I consider the Clamor piece propaganda against a company and a business model I personally think is a positive force — I fight against it with a passion. Passion impedes reason, which is why a dispassionate court of law might be the best place to decide whether the Clamor piece is libel or not. But I don’t think The Society for Professional Journalists should be dismissed as irrelevant. Institutions that may not have legal authority still provide imporant checks and balances on power — in this case, power to disseminate information and influence opinion.

This why I don’t agree with you on this point; “freedom of speech means anyone can practice journalism using whatever methods they want.” I think that freedom of speech means that anyone can practice ADVOCACY using whatever LEGAL means they want, but they should not be able to pass that advocacy off as JOURNALISM when it is done in a way that does not respect journalistic standards.

And this is not just an academic matter of semantics; this should be an important matter for anyone who cares about truth. In a democratic country the public has a reasonable expectation to believe that what they read in printed publications is a an accurate statement of fact. I think that people who grew up with free press in countries where there are checks and balances on power may take this for granted, but I don’t take it for granted. That’s why I do what I do with convinction.

But I realise that my opinions have no power to influence anyone elses opinions. Nor should they: I am not bound by any code of ethics, and none of you know me personally, so you may reasonably think that I say what I say solely in order to get my paycheck. It would be much more effective to get people who are known and respected as purveyors of fair and unbiased opinion to weigh in on this…

With this thought, and since I have already stated all facts relevant here, I am signing off from this discussion. I thank everyone who has read my comments carefully and challenged me; you have made me rethink my positions, and even if I didn’t agree with you in the end, I found the excercise very uselful. Opinions atrophy when they are not challenged.

For anyone who would like to follow up, my address is weronika@americanapparel.net.

In the case of libel, someone is writing false information about someone else to ruin his or her reputation. So in this case you can talk about whether the facts are true or not but don’t bring up journalism standards as they mean absolutely nothing coming from a PR person.

To the rest of you, go ahead and spend your hipster dollars on t-shirts made by a unionized Indonesian shop where the average wage is $117 a month. Feel better now? No sweat indeed.

But I will address your points now, since you raised them:

1. I agree that the comment is crass, but do you mean “it is not legal” or “it is not polite” or “it is not morally right”? If you would like to talk about it, please write to me, as this would be really off-topic here.

2. This one is not right for business reasons, so I wholeheartedly agree with you. Fortunately, at American Apparel one can advance one’s career — work on interesting projects and be given more responsibility — by exhibiting initiative and competence, and by bolstering it with hard work. Even if one is very very critical of senior management and very vocal about it. I am speaking from experience.

3. What happened to 3? It seems to be missing.

4. There is no such thing as the Canadian Charter of Human rights. Do you mean Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or Canadian Human Rights Act? The first applies only to conduct of government, not conduct between private individuals, and the second applies only to workplaces integral to federal undertakings… But never mind which statute you apply; Canadian law still allows employers to discriminate against certain individuals if they can show that that the work requirement that leads to discrimination is rationally connected to performance on the job, was adopted in good faith that it is necessary for legitimate work-related purporses… But I am getting ahead of myself: since the alleged “girls only” policy was abandoned, there wouldn’t even be a human rights law case; while “sex” is covered as a ground of discrimination, “personal style” is not.

5. That comment sure is distasteful, but I don’t think it is illegal.

Speaking of comments about individuals: my cyber-virtue is important professionally both to me and to my employer, since I am my employer’s representative in cyber-space. That’s why I protect it. On a purely personal note, Former AA employee, I am surprised that you profess to care about your former co-worker Laurelle’s reputation, but sling insults at your former co-worker Weronika. Is it because you think a “shill” is not an insult and “slut” is? Or is it because you believe that somehow it is right for you (but not for Dov Charney) to do it?

1. It is not right for the CEO to call an ex employee a slut or talk about wanting to masturbate in her face (oh but he’s such a character and over the top!!)

2. It is not right to promote young women over anyone else with no rhyme or reason other than they look good and they appeal to the libido of senior management.

4. It is not right to go against the Canadian Charter of Human rights to explicitly discriminate against someone because of how they look. And at one point explicitly discriminate against males, with a female only hiring policy (which has now been stopped)

5. To refer to some of the women you have hired as “mopeds, you ride them once and it’s fun, but you don’t want to have one forever”

This isn’t just “something to bitch about”..these are serious issues stemming from the behavious of the founder of your company….a company which prides itself of being progressive in labour issues, but which paradoxically prides itself on allowing certain behaviours to take place which haven’t been acceptable since the 50’s, if ever!

And furthermore these are issues that the company as a whole seems dismissive of.

Witness Weronikas rebuttal to my first mention which went on and on about her being called “a sad PR flack” (who cares, its a freaking message board, spend your employers time and money defending relevant allegations and issues, not your cyber-virtue)and about his drug use, but did not address what Dov said to me about Laurelle.

I hate going off-topic, but since Former AA employee raised a point about my boss and drugs on this public forum, and since Clamor allowed that comment, I must respond. My statement about Dov not doing drugs comes from a private e-mail I sent to Ben Popken, the editor of Consummerist, as an explanation of why I didn’t comment on Miciak’s letter. In that letter I explain that I don’t comment on facts I don’t know, and I started working for AA after Miciak left. I was Dov’s assistant, bought his groceries, did his laundry, ran his errands, and worked with him at the place where he was living at the time. I have never been asked to buy “weed” or stuff that goes with it, or any other drug, for him. I have seen people around him smoke joints, but I don’t think he ever did, not around me in any case. That could be because at the time he was working on financing every waking hour, and I imagine that would not be possible if one were stoned. The point of my letter to Popken was that Charney is not a lush who pays his employees poorly while spending money on drugs.

But enough about me and about drugs. I believe that the discussion here is about the quality of the Clamor report specifically, and about responsibilities and obligations of investigative journalists more generally. That’s the interesting discussion here.

The fact of the matter is that Clamor’s article was biased, and in my personal opinion that is a reflection of poor journalism. American Apparel is all about the grey areas, and in no way does the company attempt to deny that. As an employee there I have observed a few consistencies in the company’s character. Sometimes I feel as though it is absolute chaos, which is inevitable considering how the hierarchy of the organization consists of young and young-minded individuals. Some of us can be jerks and Dov is often over-the-top. Our company is extraordinarily abnormal, but in no way are we dishonest or insincere in what we’re doing.

Assigning a union representative to cover a story on union discussions at a factory is irresponsible. It would be one thing if Jim was writing an editorial, but he wasn’t and it is very clear what Clamor’s intentions were here in featuring this article- casting American Apparel in a negative light. Weronika’s responses on this board have been stellar in showing just that. By the way, whoever is criticizing her for spending part of her work day responding to this board must be missing a fucking chromosome. Try writing an expose on the Gap, or any bullshit billion dollar clothing manufacturer, and see if they have a representative participating on a response blog. Dishing juvenile jabs at Weronika for responding to your, at times, ultra-liberal garbage posts (I mean, someone compared her to the Bush Administrations for fucks sake) is ridiculous.

I guess I’m just getting heated because I’m tired of intelligent young people hating on things just for the sake of having something to bitch about. Here is a company that is doing the right thing when it comes to manufacturing ethics and setting an example for other retail companies to come, and yet we’re all pissed over in Williamsburg and Ft. Greene because it’s starting to become popular. Just like how your friend was pissed when his girlfriend was roommates with the BFF of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! and they didn’t recognize him when approaching them at a sold out show. Pull your heads our of your asses and do something useful, like coming down here to Pennsylvania to help us get Santorum out of office. You can even stay at my house and we’ll hold hands as we go door-to-door together as long as you talk to me about someone that’s fucking worth listening to (which doesn’t include your bullshit college kid postmodern theories on Charvey’s marketing techniques).

By the way, could someone over at Clamor tell Colin I said hey? I came across his picture in one of the spoof ads. I was his roommate at one point. We had heart to hearts in the bathroom as he took shits. Oh, and Jim, I’m from Pittsburgh if you want to talk about growing up in the rustbelt.