No Sweat

While Olympic athletes are raking in millions for their hard work, it's always good to remember the hard, thankless work that props up the giant companies that can afford to give athletes such money.

Clothing and shoes are mostly made in Asian countries by people who work for a pittance, often extremely low wages even in their poverty-racked countries.

In the late 90's Nike tried to improve its image of using sweatshop labor by moving to better factories. But this report from an Australian news station just last month shows how forced labor (not simply sweatshop conditions) is used to this day to produce some of Nike's goods. It's not a Nike factory itself, but a contractor--some Malaysian sweatshop they don't own so they can turn their head to the human rights conditions. Its truly appalling.

Nike is looking into the problems, of course.

Monday: The Dangers Foreign Oil