The Cats' spectacular drive to the NCAA championship game was more than a cause for celebration in Tucson. But for all the media attention the team received in the Old Pueblo, it's a safe bet that workers at the Kukdong factory in the Mexican state of Puebla didn't share in the Wildcat fever. Earlier this year, a work stoppage at the Korean-owned factory, which makes UA sweatshirts for Nike, ended with a violent assault by local authorities. Since then, the Kukdong factory has been in the international spotlight as student activists, multinational corporations and labor monitors have descended on Puebla. Like most of Mexico, Puebla is no worker's paradise.
Most citizens struggle to get by every day.
Family farms are failing and sometimes the best-paid jobs are in the apparel factories that dot the region. Rachel Wilson, a UA grad student who serves as spokesperson for the local chapter of Students Against Sweatshops, says the situation is ripe for exploitation by companies like Nike. Basically, they seek out the most desperate people who are least likely to unionize and put their factories there. After a two-day work stoppage, riot police stormed the Kukdong factory. Built in 1999 in the town of Atlixco, the Kukdong shop was featured last year in a Nike tour of exemplary factories.