GUEST COLUMNIST: HONDURAN CHILD LABORER
Until this week, I worked 14 hour days at a Russell Athletic plant outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It was brutal work: paid substandard wages, abused by adult overseers, and forced to do repetitive work without variation for months at a time. I want you to know that it was difficult for a youngster like me to bear.
That is, if I wasn’t tough as shit and didn’t have the ballingest life a kid in any country could ever have!
I mean, anywhere, and not just this godforsaken Bizarro Costa Rica I inhabit. I had money, assholes, money for the good things in life. For smokes. For beer. For fireworks to shoot at stray dogs. I had a gun! A motherfucking gun! What kind of American ninnyboy eight year old gringoshit has that kind of respect up in his waistband at the age of eight, huh?
Now my loansharking business is going to dry up, and why, you ask? No new capital, homes. Or shall I rephrase for your less-than-economically-inclined ears: I LOST MY JOB thanks to Penn State dropping my employer as a provider.
Why?
Because a bunch of college kids in Pennsylvania think my employer was abusing me.
Abuse? I’ll show you abuse when you wake up in your dorm room and my only real friend in the world, Demon the Dogo Canario, is waiting in a ventilated Fed Ex box without a label for you. Do you know how hungry he gets? Imagine that after I bribe Miami Customs to ship him through direct to you on overnight delivery. I have $480 left. It could happen.
But now, noooooo. I’m supposed to go to school. Do you remember how much school sucks? I can’t even drink in there. I could hang out and sniff glue in the alley, but you know what? I’ve matured past that. I’ve tasted too much of the good life to think the answer to life is in the bottom fold of a tube of airplane glue.
It’s at the bottom of a beer bottle, friends. Sweet, delicious, kid-tested beer. And as soon as I get my job back when a new sweatshop opens up, I’m gonna solve two problems in one stroke. First, I’m drinking a beer, and second, I’m breaking the bottle over a student protester’s head in person. Don’t say Pedro didn’t warn you.
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1
DC Trojan says:
I don’t know what all the complaints are about – children like repetition, it’s a necessary step for cognitive development. And they bounce back from RMI’s much more easily.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
2
WarChiziken says:
Sweet, delicious, kid-tested beer….yummmm
wait…where was I?
February 24th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
3
The Bull says:
Calm down! The kids from PSU did the right thing. Didn’t you know starving to death in the streets of hondurous is way better than working so your family can feed you?
February 24th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
4
Stacy Keible Luvs Me says:
RE: Stranko Montana – >Oh, So That’s Where He Is Dept:
Amazed to find out Stranko Montana is or was in Honduras. Amazin’
February 24th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
5
jacketexan says:
Don’t worry Pedro…GT has your back!
February 24th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
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TCOAN says:
Bull–
Your point would be more relevant if the issue at hand was not Russell Athletic closing a plant in response to unionizing, and kicking those kids into the streets themselves.
I agree with you that child labor in developing countries is a miserable dilemma, though.
February 24th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
7
Brian O'Blivion says:
Nike sweatshops > Russell Athletic sweatshops
February 24th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
8
Orson Swindle says:
Please, let’s not veer into the factual here.
February 24th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
9
DC Trojan says:
I was going to say…
February 24th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
10
MaconDawg says:
“godforsaken Bizarro Costa Rica”
Think of it as more of a Ron Zookian Belize . . .
February 24th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
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BurritoBrosShits says:
Come on, everyone knows the good stuff is made in Asia.
Our hands are more supple and dexterous. ASIA NUMBA ONE!!!!!
February 24th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
12
Big Jon says:
In an effort to lighten the mood, a bit of news from the homefront. Doesn’t involve an oblong ball fashioned from a pig’s bladder, but bear with me.
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/asu/articles/2009/02/24/20090224abrk-bballassault0224-CP.html
Typically when the AZ Republic runs a headline reading “Ex ASU Star Smith Arrested…” one can only hope it’s Stevin “Hedake” Smith, the point shaving guard from the mid 90’s who can best be described as the Mitchell “Fright Night” Freedman of basketball. Instead it’s Tommy, who took dat bitch’s phone and left her dumb ass at da lake! His biggest mistake was returning later to pick her up.
Re: the mugshot, apparently meth is a hell of a drug.
February 24th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
13
CincySooner says:
Big Jon,
After finally deciding I should watch at least one Oklahoma basketball game this year, (what with their best start ever and higest ranking since 1990), I jinxed the living shit out of the Sooners and watched them drop two in a row.
As a result, basketball will remain dead to me until I pony up my $3 at the office to enter the bracket pick-em pool in a couple of weeks.
Now what were you saying?
February 24th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
14
psuphiman80 says:
NIck Saban doesn’t have time for this shit.
February 24th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
15
Big Jon says:
Cincy-
Dude, I’m blown away at being a hoops school now; James Harden has finished what offensive coordinator Rich Olson started. I don’t want to hear about any heartbreak related to roundball though. At ASU we had misery from the dawn of time-2005.
February 24th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
16
Roadkillav8r says:
Lets award at least 2 Fulmer Cup points to Penn St for putting these little beer drinking gun totin darlins out of work.
February 24th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
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Corky says:
wait a second here. Russell Athletics still exists? I thought they went out with snap bracelets?!
February 24th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
18
4.0 Point Stance says:
wait – I thought snap bracelets were still cool!
February 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
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www.southbendblarney.com says:
The “child labor” law I like–football studs have to go to college for 3 years. No bypassing for the pros.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
20
PA_Tiger says:
Man the kids today have no sense of how hard people in this country used to work. Ask your grandparents how old they were when they started working full days, you might be surprised at the answer.
As for Closing a plant when you don’t like something your workers did, that is why it’s good to be the owner.
PA_Tiger
February 24th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
21
King Cockfight says:
Like my uncle’s always said: If you want to build character, force a child to make shoes 18 hours a day.
February 24th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
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King Cockfight says:
Oh, and he also said, “ROLL DAMN TIDE!”
February 24th, 2009 at 11:18 pm