There has been a lot of controversy about the pro-life television commercial that Florida quarterback Tim Tebow will appear in during Sunday’s Super Bowl. Here is one Peyton Manning should do–thank to our friends at the National Labor Committee:

NFL jerseys have been sewn under illegal sweatshop conditions at the Chi Fung factory in El Salvador for at least the last four years, according to a new report by the National Labor Committee.  Often forced to work 12-hour shifts, workers were at the factory 61 to 65 hours a week, including 12 to 15 hours of obligatory overtime, which was unpaid.  The workers were paid a below-subsistence wage of just 72 cents an hour, which meets less than a quarter of a family’s basic subsistence needs for food, housing, healthcare and clothing.

 

An assembly line of 28 workers had a mandatory production goal of completing 2,300 NFL jerseys in the regular nine-hour shift, from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The production goal was 255 jerseys per hour, which meant that each of the 28 workers in effect had to sew nine jerseys per hour, or one jersey every 6.6 minutes. The workers were paid just 10 cents for each $80 Peyton Manning NFL jersey they sewed. This means that their wages amounted to just a little more than one-tenth of one percent of the jersey’s retail price.

   People can get all over Tebow for speaking out for something you don’t agree with. But, frankly, it’s nice to see any sports figure being willing to take a stand about something and not be concerned about hurting their endorsement chances. When we think of the massive amount of money Manning will likely reap at the end of this year–in new endorsements and what is likely to be a record new contract–he could finance his own commercial on behalf of these workers.

   And the chances of that happening are?