Fair Labor

He worked at various, part-time jobs while traveling across the world, learning about governments and businesses which were unfair to their citizens and to their workers. Eventually, he was able to turn his passion for social justice into a full-time, paid employment which led to significant laws improving working conditions in the US and in countries where US corporations manufactured their products. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

CK was the second born of four children. His father worked in construction, specializing in acoustical tiles. His mother was a homemaker who later volunteered with a child welfare agency. Together, CK’s parents helped raise more than 20 foster children (over the years, not all at the same time.) His parents instilled in all their children, a strong sense of social justice, strongly recommending that as adults, each should engage in community-focused careers. (CK’s sister eventually worked for a nonprofit while his brother became a Jesuit priest.)

CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER

While still in high school, CK learned that his church planned to install an (expensive) air conditioning system. CK thought the church’s money would be better spent to care for the sick and poor among their congregation and within the neighborhood, so he started a petition for others to sign, opposing the air conditioning project. CK’s parents, while members of the same church, supported CK’s petition. (The outcome of the petition is unknown, but the point remains: CK was socially aware as a teenager and motivated to help others regardless of the opposition.)

EDUCATION

Following high school graduation, CK studied psychology, obtaining a college degree, followed by a Master’s degree in the same subject, from a school specializing in social research. 

FIRST ADULT JOB IS NEVER A BINDING COMMITMENT

With his college and post-graduate degrees, CK found employment as a university professor, but he didn’t stay in the academic field for long, resigning to take extended trips through Europe and the Middle East, working to support himself as, (consecutively, not concurrently), a carpenter, a steward, a stevedore (loads and unloads ships at docks) and a cab driver in New York City, with a hatchet on his dashboard to dissuade robbers. 

EARLY PASSION BECOMES A CAREER FOCUS

It is obvious to many observers, that CK’s wanderings and different, part-time employments meant that he had not yet found an interesting career to pursue. But all the while, CK continued his interest in social Justice by photographing what he believed were examples of social Injustice. In El Salvador, he joined a peace march to protest government-sanctioned violence against priests and labor leaders. He used his photographic equipment to record images which later appeared in major U.S. newspapers, including the NY Times. 

During this trip, CK encountered members of the ‘National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights’ in El Salvador, a tiny New York based organization that operated out of office space provided by a garment workers union. Through it (now known as The Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights), he became active in the movement to expose America’s role in supporting right-wing violence in Central America, and he eventually joined the committee’s staff, becoming its Director a decade later. 

(Editor’s note – By the definition of ‘Career’ within this collection of stories, being paid for your advocacy work qualifies as a career. If you are a passionate advocate for a cause but cannot find a way to earn a living in that same field, hopefully you can earn a living doing other work and then, in your spare time (evenings, weekends, vacations and after retirement from employment), pursue your advocacy. The third alternative way to pursue advocacy – other than as a full-time employment or while employed in another line of work – is to either be personally wealthy or be financially supported by someone else’s earnings or wealth. Regardless of how you cover your living expenses, your advocacy – either part-time or full-time – to improve the lives of others, will be helpful to civilized society in ways you will recognize and in some ways you may not see during your lifetime.)

CAREER SATISFACTION

As the long-time Director of an underfunded (‘shoestring’) organization called the National Labor Committee, CK was among the first activists to show that the seemingly magical drop in prices for a wide range of consumer goods in the 1980s and 1990s was a result of American business’ shift of production to ‘developing’ countries, where workers often toiled in dangerous conditions for literally pennies an hour wage. 

After several months of investigation, CK arranged to bring a 15-year-old female, clothing factory worker, for a tour of 14 US cities to tell her story. In another investigation, he found that Kathie Lee Gifford, a tv show host, was earning $9,000,000 a year, licensing her name to a brand sold at Walmart and boasting that part of the proceeds went to charity. But he found that girls as young as 15, working in Central American factories, were earning 31 cents an hour, working 75 hours a week. Initially, Ms. Gifford called the news of CK’s investigation ‘a vicious attack’ adding that she was unaware of the conditions and earnings of the workers. Garment industry companies initially opposed the efforts of CK and his allies. But ultimately, Ms. Gifford joined the cause for social justice by speaking out against ‘sweatshops’ across the world and the U.S. Congress adopted laws for workplace reforms involving US companies at home and aboard, including improved wages, better ventilation, access to bathrooms and allowing monitors to ensure safe conditions.