vegan athletic walking shoes made with fair labor?

[wow i'm a dog]

i'm having difficulty finding vegan athletic walking shoes that are made using fair labor. my favorite brand, new balance, does have vegan shoes, but they are made in china. any ideas?

[xrodolfox]

i'm having difficulty finding vegan athletic walking shoes that are made using fair labor. my favorite brand, new balance, does have vegan shoes, but they are made in china. any ideas?

Being made in China or the US doesn't guarantee "fair labor". It is more important that it was made in a Union shop.

That said, you can get New Balance running shoes free of leather that are made in the USA. You can also get "no sweat" apparel at: http://www.nosweatapparel.com/

Their no sweat Chuck Tylors (not Nike brand) are vegan friendly, as well as Union made. Here is a link: http://www.nosweatapparel.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NSS&Category_Code=NSS

I forgot to mention this store: http://www.justiceclothing.com/thereis/justice/
It is run by a friend of a friend. The people who started it are ex-Union Organizers from Detroit. I haven't taken a look at their site in a while, but I know that the person who runs this had/has vegan tendencies. At least that is what my friend said. So this store may have the perfect blend of cruelty free no sweat apparel.

One last thing. This is a good site that has a short list of companies use Union labor to make their clothes. http://swatch.igc.org/sweatfree/

They have a few leather free shoes as well as other clothes.
I hope this helps!

[remilard]

The US made, non leather New Balance are the way to go. If you have a New Balance store they can tell you which models meet the above criteria, otherwise email their customer service and they will give you a link. Most of the more expensive NB are the US made ones, department stores like JC Penny tend to sell the lower priced chinese made ones.

[wow i'm a dog]

i ended up with montrail shoes that are made in china (montrail's hardrock trainer), but i received the following good info from the folks at veganessentials.com (http://www.veganessentials.com/):


we just came back from the world's largest footwear tradeshow where we spent four days trying to find athletic footwear made in the usa, and despite talking with hundreds of manufacturers, not one who makes athletic footwear is using anything but chinese production as of this time. though, one thing to note is that montrail has a statement on their site regarding the labor in the facility that does their production, and they say the following in regard to it:

"lots of people ask us about the working conditions in our factories. we believe it is impossible to create high quality outdoor footwear in factories that employ sweatshop or forced labor. the factories we use are factories that our production staff find acceptable upon their personal visits. our production staff visit the factories regularly. without exception, we have found the factories to be well ventilated, properly lit, and with the appropriate safety measures in place. additionally, we have observed that the factory employees generally make a wage that is substantially higher than other industries in their communities."

we've spoken at length with various higher-ups at montrail and they take the labor issue very seriously and have given us repeated assurance that their facilities are some of the greatest in china. They have told us that their mission is to work to make a difference and provide a better option for labor in a country not normally known for providing fair-labor alternatives in the footwear industry. after we had initially spoken with them we did our own research and could not find any evidence to show that they were not being honest with us, so that pushed us to want to support their works and carry their footwear. We believe that being vegan means being human-friendly as well as animal-friendly, too!

many people believe that all chinese production is sweatshop, but there is a growing movement to get away from such labor practices and increase the standards where people work. we're in close contact with many different shoe companies, and as it goes, they've been telling us that the market for us and european made footwear is going downhill quickly and that if it is hard to find footwear made in these nations now, it will only be getting worse in time. companies like montrail would have to sell their shoes for over us $175 per pair if they were made here in the usa. as much as they've said they wish it were possible, we've been told that they'd inevitably go out of business because people wouldn't be willing to pay that much extra just because the shoes are made here when they'd be able to get similar quality shoes for half that much from other companies using overseas labor. it is a vicious cycle with how this whole thing works, but hopefully in time we'll be able to bring more footwear jobs back to the usa and get the currency exchange rate normalized so it isn't so difficult for us shops to carry more european made footwear.

also, their shoe was $8 less than zappos.com!

[Recycler]

It is erroneous to state that all athletic footwear is made in China these days. New Balance makes many vegan styles in the USA. Furthermore, companies such as Montrail offer generalities (which may sound good) about working conditions, etc. but they do not use certified factories. WHY NOT?? (I don't know.) As far as I know, New Balance is the only big-brand athletic shoe company to use 3rd party certification and monitoring of their Chinese factories (by Verite).