There's no doubt that clearly the enforcement has to come from the Jordanian government through its ministry of labour or whatever due process it has to make sure that happens.
Let me talk to Mr. Kernaghan about a number of these corporations that you've mentioned, places like Walmart, Nygard, and a number of others. Are you familiar with the sense that over the years a lot of these companies have--and it was spearheaded by Nike a number of years ago--had these so-called “workers' charters” when they were looking at the offshore industries they were producing?
In Nike's case, they are the ultimate brand in North America in the sense of not making anything here. They make no product here. They keep the brand here. They make the swoosh that they basically put on a product, but they actually don't make any shoes in this country or in the United States anymore. They also have become the ultimate in branding in the sense of not having to own the means of production anymore in the sense of owning a factory: you let someone else do it.
Of course, the big complaint--and it started on campuses--against Nike was sweatshops, as they called them then. This goes beyond the sweatshops, in my estimation; this basically is like a jail. Ultimately what you have is a throwback to the 1600s or 1700s, where we actually have a bunch of slaves. That's what these folks are. They've been trafficked into a slave situation under the guise of a free trade agreement, which I find hugely reprehensible.
Can you speak to the sense of why it is that these major multinationals--Walmart being one of the largest retail outlets in the world, if not the largest--where they have a workers' charter, seem unable to or simply don't enforce what is supposed to be in their charter and work with their so-called offshore producers, if you will, when they said they would make sure to take care of that?