The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "textiles" ...
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Dateline NBC: Clothes Line
The authors investigated the true cost of the global trade in clothing, focusing on the price international communities pay so that U.S. consumers can continue to pay bargain prices for their clothes. The investigation traced the life of a pair of pants from Wal-mart to the company in Bangladesh that makes them. The authors followed the life of a worker in that factory and explored the violations of domestic law and international corporate codes of conduct by the company owners.
Tags: Garment; textiles; international trade; Wal-mart; Bangladesh; labor laws; corporate codes of conduct; retailers
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The Leaders Who Lost PillowTex
"When Charlotte-area textile giant Pillowtex collapsed in 2003, it wiped out 7,650 jobs, including 4,800 jobs in North Carolina -- the largest mass layoff in state history and a significant blow to the local economy." This investigation examines the company's last three years and how various issues (like a rapidly changing board of directors and critical miscalculations) led to its collapse.
Tags: unemployment; mills; FOIA; CAR
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Labor's front lines
The story tells the struggles of workers in Chicago -many of them Latinos-, a struggle to become unionized and have access to better salaries and working conditions. Franklin explains the unions have lost a great part of the power and influence they had in the 1950's. In the struggle to gain power and influence back, Chicago is a key city because it is "an old-time labor town." In the story, Franklin introduces several leaders of the new union movement, Margarita Klein, Joe Romano, Kina McAfee, Joe Isobaker and Javier Ramirez.
Tags: Jewish Workers Committee; National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; DePaul University Students Against Sweatshops; Union of Needle and Textile Employees; National Production Workers Union Food and Commercial Workers Union; United Steelworkers of America; American Federation of Labor; U.S. Justice Department; Chicago and North Illinois District Council of Carpenters; Northwestern University; University of Illinois; Service Employees International Union
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Workers in Bondage
"'It's the fastest-growing criminal market in the world, ' says a U.N. exec" of the situation in the European Union (EU) where illegal immigrants are forced to work long hours under deplorable conditions to pay off their exhorbant price of passage. " The collapse of the ex-Soviet-bloc economies and the rapid growth of international crime rings specializing in the trafficking of human beings have also created an expanding supply of illegal immmigrant laborers vulnerable to abuse."
Tags: illegal immigration; sweatshop; labor; EU; Interpol; slavery; textile; organized crime; syndicates
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1996 IRE TV Award Winners and Finalist Tape.
The 1996 IRE TV Award Winners and Finalist tape is a compilation of 5 broadcast stories. 1.) "All in the Family" and "Mousetrap," Dateline, NBC News. A two-part story about a secretive group called the Irish Travelers, based in South Carolina, where members engage in organized crime ranging from swindling the elderly to an attempted mulitmillion dollar scam at Disney World. See # 14078 and # 13803. 2.) "Toy Story," Dateline, NBC News. Dateline's hidden cameras infiltrated the toy factories and textile mills in Indonesia and China and showed how children were being exploited so that American companies could sell toys at an incredible markup, violating the very ethics toy manufactures espoused. See # 13857. 3.) "Insurance Industry Investigation," Inside Edition. United Insurance, which sells low-value life and fire insurance door-to-door exploits the poor and minorities. A hidden camera catches a salesman using a coat hanger to take money out of a young child's piggy bank. See # 13767. 4.) "Airport Security: Behind the Scenes," WCPO, Cincinnati. Major lapses in security at a Cincinnati airport and a major subcontractor performed inadequate background checks and did little if any screening. See # 13883. 5.) "Overcrowding and Inhumane Treatment in Missouri County Jails," KOMU, Columbia, Missouri. An impressive presentation by a beginning journalist showed how a majority of jails are overcrowded and inadequate. Inside access to the old jails vividly showed how the jails have harmed the prisoners as well as sheriff officers and prison guards. See # 13667
Tags: TAPE; crime; court; foia; ire; car; cult; child labor; sweatshop; police; prison.
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Toy Story: Part I and II
Dateline "illustrates that at the heart of the hand wringing over child labor, hazardous working conditions and exploited laborers is a serious question of corporate ethics. By targeting the strictest consumer-regulated industry in retail, the toy industry, Dateline makes the point that multinational manufacturers such as Disney and Mattel (whose buyers visit the factories on a regular basis to (ensure) quality control) know that abuses exist. ... Dateline posed as BANDIT TOYS, and went undercover into toy factories and textile mills in Indonesia and China and found a host of violations of (Toy Manufacturers Association)'s code of conduct and more importantly, local law."
Tags: VIDEOCLIP TAPE TRANSCRIPT Labor; child labor; Asia; Mattel retail imports human rights business practices
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No title (id: 12803)
The State reveals the David-and-Goliath struggle between two of the nation's wealthiest men and the tiny community of African-American residents who struggle to stop those businessmen from developing their ancestral home. During the past decade textile billionaire Roger Milliken and wood-products magnate E. Craig Wall Jr. have quietly bought nearly all of Sandy Island's developable high ground. (Feb. 19, 1995)
Tags: Paulsen The quiet battle for Bull Creek Contest entry Real estate FOIA 24 pgs.
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No title (id: 9248)
Associated Press (Washington, D.C.) details the U.S. Department of Agriculture's market promotions conducted in foreign countries, which include subsidies for the advertising budgets of McDonald's and Campbell Soup; covers USDA subsidies for advertising for foreign textile and clothing companies; federal funds are used to promote the sale of tobacco in foreign countries, February 1992.
Tags: Dixon
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No title (id: 2525)
Daily News Record/Fairchild Publications (New York) runs series on the politics, tradeoffs and conflicting interests that the occupational disease byssinosis ("brown lung" disease, caused by the inhalation of cotton dust) has created in the U.S. textile industry, 1978. Byrne textiles brown lung
Tags: None
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No title (id: 1161)
New Hampshire Sunday News (Manchester) reconstructs the history of the Amatex textile mill and documents the company's negligence concerning the town and workers' cancer rates, Aug. 11, 1985.
Tags: NH Amatex