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cheapbag214s · Posted: Mon 11:46, 19 Aug 2013 Post subject: org Made in a Sweatshop

org Made in a Sweatshop
It may say it's made - it may read that it's made in Italy, but,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in fact, it could have been made in China and the handle was attached in Italy or the buttons were sewed on in Italy, and, therefore, gets a made-in-Italy label. Or even - there are sweatshops in Italy now that are manned by Chinese immigrants or even illegal aliens who are paid a fraction of what Italian workers earn. Italian workers earn about $18 - $19 an hour, but the Chinese who work in these factories earn $2 and $3 an hour.
Back in the old days, we used to buy local. We knew our dressmaker. We went to our dressmaker or our tailor. We had the suit or the dress made on us. They sewed it on the sewing machines in the back, and, you know, and you knew these people. They were your friends; they were your neighbors. But now, we want to save money, we want to buy more, and we want - and the business owners want to make bigger profits. And so they farm out the production to the cheapest labor possible,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and to get cheap labor, you don't pay your workers very much and they have to work a lot.
Ms. LEVELLE: That's right. Most major brands do not produce locally anymore. I mean, you can tell it just by reading the labels. It say made in China,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], made in Hong Kong on a lot of labels. America has much stricter labeling rules than Europe for example. So if it says it was made in Italy, chances are it was made in Italy if you buy it in the United States; that's not the case if you buy it in Europe. If it says it was - but that's why you'll see - you have to look, but you'll see perhaps on a Ralph Lauren sweater or a Calvin Klein sweater that it was made in China or made in Hong Kong - Diane von Furstenberg graph dresses made in China. They have to say it when they're sold in the United States.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: Indeed, and we do work globally, in Latin America as well, really, wherever consumer products are being made. The way to think about this so-called social audit is that it's essentially a window into the workplace, and we think about it in terms of garments and factories and shoes. We should also think about it - about the workplace as places where computers are being assembled, as places where food is being grown - coffee and coco - and really any manner of things that ends up either on our table, on our shelves or in our stores. The window that we are looking through is essentially the frame for the window, if you will, is the company's commitment to operate according to some level of ethical considerations.
But then, like any window, whether or not you actually see problems depends on a variety of different things. It depends on when you are looking for example. If you're looking at a toy factory in southern China in the month leading up to the Christmas rush, you're going to see a lot of people working there, and they're probably going to be working a lot of long hours. If you look at that same factory, if you look at an agricultural workplace, a farmer plantation not during the harvest season, you're not going to see as many people. And so the timing of when we look affects quite significantly what we find.
And then another distinguishing characteristic about what we find and what we're looking for is, really, the question of how we're looking for these things. We, as a non-profit, as an NGO, and all the NGOs in this segment -those of us who are practically on the ground trying to explore conditions within four companies are making sure that we talk to workers themselves. And when we talk to workers, we're looking for some of the issues that are harder to find. We're looking for whether or not a woman worker has been harassed by a supervisor, whether there's been any physical abuse on the line as a way of supervision as it's so-called or discipline,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], whether workers are being paid, what they're intended to be paid, whether any worker has been fired for trying to join a trade union.
And then I would say - just add that in addition to talking to workers, we'll talk to management and look at records and payroll records and wander through the factory looking for locked exit doors and open containers of hazardous materials and textile clippings next to an open flame or a boiler, so there's a physical walk through as well. And all of those pieces of information are ultimately downloaded and gathered together and analyzed to such that we provide the companies with A good sense of what's actually happening.
Ms. THOMAS: Well, it's true. There are little - there are always loopholes, aren't there? And, in fact, when I was in Mauritius, for example, Mauritius is off the Coast of Madagascar. It's in a small French island in the Indian Ocean. I visited several factories there and they were spic-and-span and just beautiful. There were two kinds of workers - the local workers and then what they call expat workers who were Chinese girls who come in for two or three years on a visa - and there they're simply to work.
But the problem was that that companies would go and visit to see how the factories were doing and found that the fire exits had been closed or that they were employing children or that, you know, it was all sweatshop conditions and that's why they were getting cheaper labor, but it was American companies like Gap, and they said we can't produce this way. We - if anyone ever found out, we would be slaughtered in the press. So they pulled out of their new manufacturing out of Madagascar and Madagascar's burgeoning manufacturing center slowly, you know, petered out or quickly petered out because the big companies were pulling out because they were sweatshops.
Mr. KERNAGHAN: No, I don't think so. I don't think you can monitor your way out of the global sweatshop economy. Most American people don't realize that the corporations have demanded all sorts of enforceable laws to protect their corporate trademarks, their labels. You know, Mickey Mouse is protected; the (unintelligible) is protected; Barbie Doll is protected. If you imitate these garments,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], these products in your court, you're going to jail. You're going to pay fines for the rest of your life. They'll put you out of business.
So companies have demanded laws to protect their trademarks, which are backed up by enforceable sanctions - and stiff sanctions. But when we say to the companies, we understand that your label needs to be protected, but can't we also legally protect the rights of the 6-year-old girl in Bangladesh who made this garment?. The companies essentially say, no, that would be an impediment to free trade. So the American people really don't know this - they're unaware of it - but we're living in a society and an economy where the product is protected, the label is protected, but not the human being who makes it. So under these circumstances, you can't monitor your way out of the - these conditions.
We're looking at a factory in Jordan right now today. Colt(ph) Classic - a big factory, 3,000 workers, made clothing for Gap, made clothing for Wal-Mart. The workers are working seven days a week, 12 and a half to 14 hours a day. They're cheated of at least half their wages. They are slapped; they are hit if they fall behind their production goals. Two women were raped in the factory. These are guest workers who came in to Jordan from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal - 3,000 of them. Guest workers and two young Sri Lankan women were raped; after they were raped, they were forcibly deported back to Sri Lanka.
So, you know, the idea that you could monitor these factories. They're in these countries because there's lax labor law enforcement. There's no union. They can pay - you know, in China, you can pay 50 to 60 cents an hour; force people to work seven days a week, a 72-hour workweek would be minimum; labor law enforcement on the part of the government is weak or non-existent. So they're not there as religious organizations to help develop these countries and help develop poor people. They're there because they can avoid labor laws.
Mr. KERNAGHAN: Well, they're not earning two to $3 an hour. In China, the minimum wage in most places is 55 cents to 60 cents an hour and, often,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], workers are cheated of that wage. They have no rights; there's no independent unions; there's no freedom of the press. We're not saying that workers in a developing world to a living under really crushing circumstances of poverty. We're not saying they don't want these jobs, they do want the jobs very badly and they're grateful for the work. All the workers want to be is treated like human beings. They might not even know the laws of the country. They may not be educated. They might not know the clothings even come to the United States,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but they know they shouldn't be beaten, they know they shouldn't be raped,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], they know they shouldn't be cheated of their wages, they know they should be treated like human beings. So all they're asking is to treat them with respect, and every company could do that if they respected the local labor laws of the countries within which they produce along with the core, United Nations, internationally recognized worker rights standards of freedom of association, freedom to organize, no child labor,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], no forced labor.
And so now, here we are, a hundred years later with globalization, which is industrialization around the world in places where, not 20 years, they were agricultural in small community countries. And it says many of the same companies that, a hundred years ago, were doing this. And they're doing it again for the same reasons - profits for shareholders. And so they've now sought out those rules, those places where they can - they don't have to pay attention to the rules that they had in the United States. That's why labor got so expensive in the United States, so that's why labor got so expensive in Europe - because there are all these rules.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: I would say much closer to systemic exploitation. I think the important distinction to make, particularly if we're talking about - to consumers about whether they themselves can do, is that conditions aren't always exploited as in all situations equally across the globe. The problems in China relate to most largely to health and safety, the inability to join labor unions, the unpayment of overtime, incredibly long working hours - those situations aren't necessarily matched in exactly the same manifestation and,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in fact, in the Philippines, for example.
So it's important, I think, to distinguish between what the specific problems are, what the specific risks are, and what the specific resources are available to a particular company or a worker by country. So Charlie(ph) is absolutely right, there are abuses almost everywhere, and I think if the one thing consumers take away from this conversation is that they're enmeshed in an economic system that produces goods for their consumption that are produced under,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], at best, problematic conditions if they are produced in developing countries; that's a very important lesson.
So I think we have to - one of the things we have to do in addition to being very clear-eyed about the nature of conditions overseas is recognize and reflect on the steps that companies can take that are going to - result in more positive working conditions. And one of them, without a doubt, is looking at their own business practices, looking at their own decisions, their own ability to integrate social responsibility goals, which they all have,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], because they have codes of conduct, with their procurement and their buying goals. Generally, what happens in companies is that one person goes to the factory to buy and to negotiate the price and make sure it's as low as possible and the other person comes in and says, hey, by the way, you make sure you pay all the workers. And these two things are generally, mutually incompatible. And so we want to look at companies, and consumers ought to try and investigate companies that are,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], at least, admitting that that's a concern.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: ¦well respected national organization. And one of the things they do is gather information about companies and present it to their members and to the consuming public in general. I think one of the very valuable lessons they - or services they provide is to emphasize some of the smaller purveyors of goods and garments. We focus a lot in these conversations on the GAPs of the world and the Levi's and the major - and the Apple computers and the big names. There's a tremendous amount of consumption that happens without a major label attached to it. And some of it, particularly, if you're talking about small locally sourced goods is very positive. And some of it is completely under the radar and engages working conditions that are worst than any you'd find in a multinational factory.
Mr. KERNAGHAN: Well, it's actually - the legislation is called the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act. It was introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota into the Senate. It's been introduced in the House as well. It's based on legislation passed earlier by Congress called the Dog and Cat Fur Protection Act of 2000. This was a case where the Burlington Coat Company was making nice jackets in China with fur collars. And for some odd reason, they put a truthful content on the label. And when it came to the fur, it said dog and cat fur. So ¦
So this was a precedent where Congress had stood up to protect dogs and cats in China. So a lot of us got to be - we started thinking about this along with this Senator Dorgan and many others and came up with a legislation very similar. And essentially, what it says is if you - the companies for - on this point forward - when this legislation passes,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the companies will be held legally accountable to respect the local labor laws in the countries in which they produce. We're not setting minimum wages or doing anything like that. They just have to respect the labor laws in the country in which they produce along with the core international labor organizations, internationally recognized worker rights standards. It's very simple - no child labor, no forced labor, freedom of association, right to organize.
Once it's no longer monitoring, you know, which the companies have a right to do, and in some cases, it works. But once companies are held legally accountable to respect fundamental worker rights, they'll do it. And, in fact, they'll lay down the law because they known this legislation - was endorsed recently by Senator Hillary Clinton, by Senator Joe Biden, there's 18 co-sponsors in the Senate. There's - by the end of the year, there's going to be about a hundred eighty co-sponsors in the House. This thing's really moving, one of the fastest moving bills in the House. The companies will know that now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], they have to respect these laws. These factories will be - there'll be a huge change all over the world, and they'll be demanding of these factories that they meet these obligations.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: I think what we're talking about really is the limitation of voluntary efforts. And right now, what we have is a whole patchwork and some ways of voluntary efforts - some of them meaningful, some of them not; some of them purely smokescreens or sort of the labor equivalent of green washing. And what legislation does, it really levels the playing field and, at least, theoretically, it creates a kind of accountability that didn't exist before. I think it's - neither legislation nor any particular intervention, be it monitoring or training or anything, is going to solve all the problems. So if we do require better monitoring overseas, well, then we need to make sure that all the monitoring is up to standard. So there's a cascading series of things that we may need to take care of.
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