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No Sweat Apparel ('No Sweat) is an American company founded in 2000 with the goal of establishing union-made clothing as the gold standard for sweatshop-free apparel. [1]
| This article needs to be updated.(December 2023) |
No Sweat Apparel ('No Sweat) is an American company founded in 2000 with the goal of establishing union-made clothing as the gold standard for sweatshop-free apparel. [1]
The company experienced meteoric growth in 2004–05 following the launch of their No Sweat sneaker, a Converse look alike, shortly after Nike bought the iconic Chuck Taylor all-star. No Sweat put a spec sheet in the shoe box that detailed the wages and benefits received by their workers and challenged Nike to do the same. No Sweat's challenge to Nike was covered by AP, NPR, The Boston Globe and many other media outlets around the world.[ citation needed ]
After rapid expansion to over 200 fair trade stores around the world in 2005, No Sweat lost their union sneaker factory in 2006. Unwilling to switch to a non-union vendor, the company was never able to replace its hot product. No Sweat finally had to close its retail divisions and passed through bankruptcy in 2011.
Since 2012 No Sweat changed its focus to wholesale. The company sells T-shirts, sweatpants and hoodies in the U.S.
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor or illegal working conditions. The manual workers are poorly paid, work long hours, and experience poor working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, or uncomfortably/dangerously high or low temperatures. The work may be difficult, tiresome, dangerous, climatically challenging, or underpaid. Workers in sweatshops may work long hours with unfair wages, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. Women make up 85 to 90% of sweatshop workers and may be forced by employers to take birth control and routine pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing health benefits. The Fair Labor Association's "2006 Annual Public Report" inspected factories for FLA compliance in 18 countries including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, China, India, Vietnam, Honduras, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and the US. The U.S. Department of Labor's "2015 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" found that "18 countries did not meet the International Labour Organization's recommendation for an adequate number of inspectors."
Converse is an American lifestyle brand that markets, distributes, and licenses footwear, apparel, and accessories. Founded by Marquis Mills Converse in 1908 as the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in Malden, Massachusetts, it has been acquired by several companies before becoming a subsidiary of Nike, Inc. in 2003.
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Reebok International Limited is an American fitness footwear and clothing brand that is a part of Authentic Brands Group. It was established in England in 1958 as a companion company to J.W. Foster and Sons, a sporting goods company which had been founded in 1895 in Bolton, Lancashire. From 1958 until 1986, the brand featured the flag of the United Kingdom in its logo to signify the origins of the company. It was bought by German sporting goods company Adidas in 2005, then sold to the United States-based Authentic Brands Group in 2021. The company's global headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts, in the Seaport District.
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Starter, Inc. is an American clothing manufacturer, focusing on major league sports teams. Starter's current licenses include MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL teams. Non-sports agreements include a partnership with Coca-Cola.
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Adidas Yeezy was a fashion collaboration between American rapper, designer, and entrepreneur Kanye West and German sportswear company Adidas. It offered sneakers in limited edition colorways, as well as shirts, jackets, track pants, socks, slides, lingerie and slippers. The first shoe model was released in February 2015. In 2020 Forbes described Yeezy's rise as "one of the great retail stories of the century". Yeezy influenced and inspired a multitude of other fashion brands. Outside of the former Adidas collaboration, Yeezy is the name of Kanye's company Yeezy LLC and is not connected to Adidas.
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