Uniforms, headgear and footwear worn by Chicago Police officers, firefighters and other city employees could not come from “sweatshops” or be produced using child labor under a crackdown advanced after a politically incorrect debate.
The ordinance, championed by the City Council’s Asian-American Caucus and approved by the Budget Committee, would require the city to purchase millions of dollars in uniforms only from those garment vendors who sign affidavits ensuring there are no sweatshops anywhere in their supply chain, including sub-contractors.
Uniform contractors that fail to comply would be found in default. That would empower the city’s chief procurement officer to either terminate the contract and rebid or give the contractor a 30-day “opportunity to cure” the defect.
The ordinance defines “sweatshop labor” as any work performed by a person engaged by a contractor or sub-contractor who has “habitually violated laws of any applicable jurisdiction governing wages, employee benefits, occupational health and safety, non-discrimination or freedom of association.”
Abusive forms of child labor were defined as work performed by a person under 18 either, against their will, under threat, in violation of a jurisdiction’s minimum age requirement or the use of anyone under 18 for illegal activities including prostitution or the production or trafficking of illegal drugs.
The ordinance was introduced just weeks after the one-year anniversary of a garment industry disaster in Bangladesh, Thailand that killed 1,129 workers and injured 2,515 others.
