Graham Cassidy

[Clif]

hey Buzzy,

maybe you should take the comments with a grain of salt considering journalists misquoting, generalising and editing commentary from people is pretty rife. to take what was written as what was actually said by the commentator isn't a good idea. sometimes those who make the comments are just as surprised as you at what is published and what is not.

[Beanpole]

yeah, but you gotta remember that the world, for the average SMH scribe, starts at Darlo, runs via Paddo, and heads to Bondi for a dip. That's it. That's their universe.

Read yesterday in the Sunherald predictions for 06 that Manly is the new Bondi
Enjoy

[Lucky Al]

cheap labour is a polite way of saying slaves and we surfers are liars and fools, as cruel and dirty as any invading army, with our constant driving and flying to surf spots around the world and our beloved boards which scorch the earth. for too long our magazines have been filled with pictures of pretty boys turning tricks and the words of blinking, lily-livered dunderheads urging us to be charitable and to wonder at our luck. charity and luck are lies: our nice society was founded on and continues to depend daily for its existence on slavery, sack and slaughter. i say, let us glory in the slaughter. let us read in our magazines each month of our slaves' toil and hardship, let us build in our palaces of consumption great altars where the strongest and clearest-eyed among them may be burned in sacrifice to the gods of profit and profligacy, let us feast on their flesh in flagrant delight, and let quiksilver, billabong and volcom be the first to splatter their blood on our boardshorts this summer.

[Beanpole]

Thats quite a new years resolution there Big Al

[Laurie McGinness]

Love your work Al, but you know no-one wants to know the truth. The "abolition" of slavery was simply a move to greater economic efficiency. You have to feed and care for slaves as they cost a lot of money. Disposable labour in a distant country is much cheaper.

We had a thread about labour exploitation by the surfing industry a while ago and the strange thing was that we couldn't really find any.......I mean we could have been fooled but, from what I could find out, they seem to have behaved with remarkable decency.

If you have evidence to suggest otherwise I'd like to hear it. If it has happened we should know about it!

[Johnno]

Laurie, you have to remember that the surf industry at large is still in it's infancy as far as the corporate world is concerned, having started out 30 years ago where as the the big players have been around 150 odd years.

But just like Nike, Ford and so on their first and only objective and motivation is profit for it's shareholders, so exploitation is the only way they are going to survive and grow.

If it hasn't happened yet, it will, for the the sake of a return to it's shareholders with little disregard for it's offshore workers.

[Nick Carroll]

So I take it you blokes aren't believers in Adam Smith's theory of unintended good spilling from self-interested acts?

[Lucky Al]

smith was not always so wrong. he correctly pointed out that merchants and manufacturers generally have an interest in deceiving and even oppressing the public. when the merchants and manufacturers of our boardshorts withdraw advertising from a surfing magazine in response to its editorial policy or activity they oppress us by violating our right to freedom of opinion and expression, which includes the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. for this and their many other offenses the fat bastards should go up against the wall.

[Lucky Al]

laurie, after a look can't find thread you mention but be interested to hear exactly how you came to conclusion that surf industry behaves with decency. seems to me that relocation of production to southern china - where garment workers routinely work twelve-hour days and hundred-hour weeks without written contracts and are commonly denied medical insurance, pensions, maternity leave and right to organize unions - is both indecent in itself and indicative of intention to behave indecently in systematic and long-term fashion.

okay i have no data on production of surfwear but plan to pop over to guangdong this august do a bit of investigating into the matter in between checking out couple of points i've heard crank during some typhoons, unfortunately you won't get to read the article because rather than sell it to the pimps, pushers and slave drivers who finance surfing magazines i'll get wasted in the streets of chinese factory town and piss the words up against a wall for the stray cats of a strange neighbourhood to read if they're quick.

for now might like to consider this, that in quiksilver inc. financial reports you'll read on and on about profits, losses, assets and acquisitions until figures come out your ears, but only references to employment-related matters you'll find in form of celebration of low number of unionized employees and warning to potential investors that 'there can be no assurance that we will not experience work stoppages or other labor problems in the future with our unionized and non-unionized employees or that we will be able to renew the collective bargaining agreements on similar or more favorable terms.' think you'll agree that more favourable terms for quikilver inc. probably mean less favourable terms for garment workers.

anyway, no australian surfers would agree to work under the conditions under which china's garment workers currently work. the practice of employing others under conditions under which we ourselves would not work is wrong and must stop. but how to stop it?

no point in talking to captains of industry all high on the profits they've been injecting into their veins non-stop, if things are to change our surfing heroes must participate in the push - and here companies may be particularly vulnerable. for example, in their financial reports quiksilver inc. warn potential investors that their inability to obtain endorsements from professional athletes could adversely affect their ability to market and sell their products, resulting in loss of revenues and loss of profitability. slater, ai, parko, rasta, ozzie, rob machado, dorian, donovan and other surfers with smarts and heart not to mention tremendous influence ought to make most of this vulnerability by threatening to withhold endorsement if companies whose products they endorse do not first make public the conditions under which their employees work and second improve conditions where necessary.

thus after a struggle or two new era of decency and peace on earth might be ushered in.

[Clif]

too much to expect surfers who endorse products to do this. too much responsibility on just them and they have to pay their loans.

perhaps the answer lies at the consumption level of things. organised boycotts of products? or purchasing those from those companies that can PROVE their IR conditions are up to scratch. the onus should be on them to demonstrate responsibility, not on us to identify irresponsibility.

could instigate advertising against them. using their own tactics. hehe (evil laugh)

i was told that surf companies are doing those workers a favour. hell, 'they wouldn't have jobs otherwise' i was told. so this is an issue.

MAYBE the workers producing the surf paraphanalia need to be asked what they want first. and no-one has done this.

talk to any retail assistant here in aus. and they will have a list of iresponsible acts against them, things are about to get even worse too with new IR laws.

[Nick Carroll]

too much to expect surfers who endorse products to do this. too much responsibility on just them and they have to pay their loans.

perhaps the answer lies at the consumption level of things. organised boycotts of products? or purchasing those from those companies that can PROVE their IR conditions are up to scratch. the onus should be on them to demonstrate responsibility, not on us to identify irresponsibility.

could instigate advertising against them. using their own tactics. hehe (evil laugh)

i was told that surf companies are doing those workers a favour. hell, 'they wouldn't have jobs otherwise' i was told. so this is an issue.

MAYBE the workers producing the surf paraphanalia need to be asked what they want first. and no-one has done this.

talk to any retail assistant here in aus. and they will have a list of iresponsible acts against them, things are about to get even worse too with new IR laws.

Hope this doesn't sound too cynical ... but trying to force corporations (and individuals for that matter) to behave "decently" ... it's got a pretty poor track record.

Behave decently yourself and it might just rub off ... but doubt you can count on much more than that.

Re Adam Smith, it always amuses me when some economic primitive -- usually someone who's doing quite well out of things at the moment, thanks very much -- begins quoting him on "unintended good". What about the intended bad?

[Beanpole]

"I've got a revolutionary idea!
Lets form a peoples army and take control of the government."
Rik from the Young Ones
I didn't realise Graham Cassidy was responsible for all these evils of surf culture

[Clif]

oh poor naive beanpole. of course cassidy is the Darth Vader of surfdom. where you been young jedi?

[chrisb]

slater, ai, parko, rasta, ozzie, rob machado, dorian, donovan and other surfers with smarts and heart not to mention tremendous influence ought to make most of this vulnerability by threatening to withhold endorsement if companies whose products they endorse do not first make public the conditions under which their employees work and second improve conditions where necessary.

thus after a struggle or two new era of decency and peace on earth might be ushered in.

There are precedents of a sort. In the 1980's a certain T Carroll proved that pro surfers can be political and still eat and win world titles.

Remember the year he boycotted the three ASP events in South Africa?

We watched TC win the world title as SA's aparthied policy slowly disintegrated.

Pro surfers are highly influential. Threatened boycott actions by them are sure to pressure any unethical surf companies into adopting more ethical workplace practices.

[Laurie McGinness]

Adam Smith, Nick? Wasn't he that goofy foot from Torquay? As was clear from the previous time we took this one for a walk around the block I have no sympathy for the surf industry and if they were guilty of exploitative labour practices I would be shouting it from the roof tops but until there is actually some evidence that they're guilty, I'll hold my tongue.

......my real beef with them at the moment is boardshorts! Who makes a pair that doesn't bind at the knee? My six year old red bongalongs are starting to look seriously daggy, but I'm stuck with them until I find a pair that don't catch my knee when I jump up. If you think this is some sort of weird personal problem, watch next time you're surfing at how often it happens.....I thought the idea was to make clothes for surfers! How naiive of me.

[Nick Carroll]

slater, ai, parko, rasta, ozzie, rob machado, dorian, donovan and other surfers with smarts and heart not to mention tremendous influence ought to make most of this vulnerability by threatening to withhold endorsement if companies whose products they endorse do not first make public the conditions under which their employees work and second improve conditions where necessary.

thus after a struggle or two new era of decency and peace on earth might be ushered in.

There are precedents of a sort. In the 1980's a certain T Carroll proved that pro surfers can be political and still eat and win world titles.

Remember the year he boycotted the three ASP events in South Africa?

We watched TC win the world title as SA's aparthied policy slowly disintegrated.

Pro surfers are highly influential. Threatened boycott actions by them are sure to pressure any unethical surf companies into adopting more ethical workplace practices.

Yes and little Tomsy's was an act of personal decency, based on considerable first hand knowledge of what Sth Af was like at the time. I guess that's what I meant about doing it yourself and hoping it might rub off. (Tom had in fact just won his last world title the week he made his boycott announcement - he never won another. Along with several lost or permanently dented friendships, I wonder sometimes if that was a price he paid for his stand.)

The other surfers listed above almost certainly know nothing at all about Chinese labour practices or how those practices may or may not contribute to the massive paycheques cashed by surf stars every month. Not being rude, mind you, but they're not all the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you know what I mean.

[kreepykrawly]

I was going to say something and then i lost my thought pattern.

[Lucky Al]

apologies for inattentiveness and for long-windedness on topics already discussed! get back to you later in year from guangdong, where provincial tourism authority reports that coastline is over three thousand kilometres long, typhoons occur frequently from may to november and 'a super special economic zone is in shape.'