Thursday, November 24, 2011

OccupySupply – What We Need | Firedoglake #ows

OccupySupply – What We Need | Firedoglake:

OccupySupply – What We Need

It’s not easy finding “American made” anything these days, let alone made by union workers. We simply don’t manufacture anything any more. God help us all if the Chinese decide to cut us off. We’ll all be sitting in the dark, on the floor and bare-assed.

OccupySupply has had good luck finding really well made union made hats, socks, scarves, blankets and polar fleece items. But I thought I would put up the list of things we haven’t had much luck sourcing, in case anyone out there has a line on suppliers:

Gloves — The bane of my existence. As I told greenharper today, we’ve only been able to identify two union glove makers in the US: North Star Gloves and The Knoxville Glove Company. Both manufacture very sturdy and well-made work gloves, but they’re not really what we need to keep people warm. We finally went with a family owned glove making company to buy polypropylene self-wicking gloves (similar to the polypropylene base layer clothing we have been supplying to the occupations, our #1 most requested item). They’re designed for people who need to keep their hands warm and dry during activities, however, more than extreme cold protection. So we still need a heavy duty union made cold weather glove.

Boots — We have a dual problem with boots. There are many great USA bootmakers, and many of them have union facilities: Red Wing, Danner, Belleville, Matterhorn and Weinbrenner among others. There is a plentiful