California Conservative

Mayor Gavin Newsom and flamboyant homosexual comedian, Supervisor Tom Ammianno, have come up with a new joke.

S.F. Chronicle reports: “Newsom teamed up with Supervisor Tom Ammiano and dozens of activists to announce a proposed ordinance to bar the city government from buying products made under abusive labor conditions.”

Does San Francisco have nothing better to be concerned about? No question.

As far as we can see, plenty of homeless still on the streets and the city economy is still hurting.

“The ordinance, which Ammiano said would be introduced today in a Board of Supervisors meeting, appears to have unanimous support on the board, and Newsom and Ammiano predicted it would be quickly approved and signed into law.

“Now is the time to put our principles where our spending is,” Newsom said in a rally at San Francisco’s City Hall, pledging that the measure would get results. “Often we’re good at passing resolutions asking someone else to do something about a problem. This is an ordinance with real teeth and real enforcement.”

Sounds very righteous. Unfortunately, in every case the person picking up the bills remains the same: The taxpayer.

“San Francisco is expected to give [the Workers Rights Consortium, a monitoring group] a $50,000 annual contract to help enforce the new ordinance. But [Scott Nova, executive director of the organization] warns against high hopes.”

When it comes to the prevailing San Francisco politics, our hopes are never high.

What is it with Newsom? First, promoting homosexual weddings. Now, worrying about sweatshops in foreign countries?

“For the first year, the measure is limited to city uniforms and other clothing, which account for $6 million of the city’s annual $600 million in purchasing. The ordinance creates an advisory committee, made up largely of local anti-sweatshop activists, that would be able to widen the scope to other products.”

Two words: Grab bag.

These clauses would be “very difficult to enforce,” admitted Tom Hayden, a former state senator from Los Angeles, who appeared at Monday’s rally and who was a major backer of the ordinance.

“The key to whether this succeeds will be if other cities and states can pool their resources,” Hayden said.

Well, if Tom Hayden says so, we’ve got something: It’s called “California Dreamin’”

And what does the apparel industry have to say?

“Promoting legislation that paints an industry with a tar brush may make noise in the media and further political agendas,” said Randy Harris, executive director of San Francisco Fashion Industries, an industry lobbying group that includes firms such as Levi Strauss & Co., Byer California and Gymboree Corp. “But the mayor and Supervisor Ammiano should have done their homework before slapping our industry across the face. Rather than promote legislation of this type, if they truly cared, they should be meeting with industry leaders and learning about our industry, its history and challenges and the good work that we have done for decades.”

Good deeds are irrelevant. Activists want revolution.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2005 at 10:24 am and is filed under Capitalism, Economy, Liberals, San Francisco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.