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Posted: Thu 23:45, 22 Aug 2013 Post subject: org Made in a Sweatshop-spun2 |
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org Produced in a Sweatshop
It may say it's made - it may read it's made in Italy, but, actually, it could happen to be produced in China and also the handle was attached in Italy or even the buttons were sewed on in Italy, and, therefore, receives a made-in-Italy label. As well as - you will find sweatshops in Italy now that are manned by Chinese immigrants or even illegal aliens who are paid a small 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 or so.
Back in the old days, we used to buy local. We knew our dressmaker. We visited our dressmaker or our tailor. We'd the suit or the dress made on us. They sewed it about the sewing machines in the back, and, you know, and also you knew these folks. They were your friends; they were other people. However, you want to cut costs, you want to buy more, and we want - and also the business people want to make bigger profits. And they also farm the production towards the cheapest labor possible,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and also to get reduced labor, you don't pay your workers very much and they have to work a lot.
Ms. LEVELLE: You heard right. Most major brands don't produce locally anymore. I mean, you are able to tell it simply by reading the labels. It say produced in China, made in Hong Kong on a large amount of labels. America has much stricter labeling rules than Europe for example. So if it says it had been produced in Italy, odds are it had been produced in Italy if you buy it in the usa; that isn't the situation if you purchase it in Europe. Whether it says it was - but that's why you will see - you have to look, but you'll see perhaps on a Ralph Lauren sweater or a Calvin Klein sweater 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 america.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: Indeed, and that we do work globally, in Latin America as well, really, wherever consumer products are being made. The best way to consider this so-called social audit is the fact that it's essentially a window into the workplace, and that we think about it when it comes to garments and factories and shoes. We should also think about this - concerning the workplace as places where computers are now being assembled, as places where food is being grown - coffee and coco - and extremely any types of things that eventually ends up either on our table, on our shelves or perhaps in our stores. The window that people are looking through is essentially the frame for the window, for a moment, is the company's commitment to operate based on some degree of ethical considerations.
But then, like every window,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], whether you actually see problems depends on a number of different things. It depends on when you're searching for example. If you're searching at a toy factory in southern China in the month prior to the Christmas rush, you're going to visit a large amount of people working there, and they're probably going to work a lot of long hours. Should you see that same factory, if you take a look at an agricultural workplace, a farmer plantation not during the harvest season, you're not going to see as numerous people. So the timing of whenever 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 searching for these things. We, as a non-profit, being an NGO, and all sorts of the NGOs within this segment -those of us who're practically on the floor attempting to explore conditions within four companies are earning certain we talk to workers themselves. So when we speak with workers, we're searching for some of the problems that are harder to find. We're searching for whether a lady worker continues to be harassed with a supervisor, whether there is any physical abuse at risk as a means of supervision as it is so-called or discipline, whether workers are being paid, what they're supposed to have been paid, whether any worker has been fired for attempting to join a trade union.
And then I would say - just add that along with talking to workers, we'll speak with management and look at records and payroll records and wander with the factory looking for locked exit doors and open containers of hazardous materials and textile clippings alongside an open flame or a boiler, so there is a physical walk-through as well. And all of those bits of information are ultimately downloaded and gathered together and analyzed to such that we offer the businesses with A good a feeling of what's actually happening.
Ms. THOMAS: Well, it's correct. There are little - there will always be loopholes, aren't there? And, in fact, after i was in Mauritius, for example, Mauritius is off the Coast of Madagascar. It's in a small French island within the Indian Ocean. I visited several factories there and they were spic-and-span and just beautiful. There were 2 kinds of workers - the local workers and then what they call expat workers who have been Chinese girls who are available in for two or 3 years on the visa - there they're simply to work.
The main problem was that that companies would visit to see the way the factories used to do and located that the fire exits have been closed or that they were employing children or that, you realize, it was all sweatshop conditions and that's why they were getting cheaper labor, however it was American the likes of Gap, and they said we can not produce by doing this. We - if anyone ever found out, we'd be slaughtered in the press. So they brought out of their new manufacturing from Madagascar and Madagascar's burgeoning manufacturing center slowly, you know,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], petered out or quickly petered out because the big companies were taking out simply because they were sweatshops.
Mr. KERNAGHAN: No, I don't think so. I don't think you are able to monitor your way out of the global sweatshop economy. Most American people don't understand the corporations have demanded a variety of enforceable laws to protect their corporate trademarks,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], their labels. You realize, Mickey Mouse remains safe and secure; the (unintelligible) remains safe and secure; Barbie Doll remains safe and secure. Should you imitate these garments, these products inside your court, you're going to jail. You're going to pay fines throughout your life. They'll place you out of business.
So companies have demanded laws to protect their trademarks, which are supported by enforceable sanctions - and stiff sanctions. But when we say towards the companies, we realize that your label must be protected, but can't we also legally protect the rights from the 6-year-old girl in Bangladesh who chose to make this garment?. The companies essentially say, no, that would be an impediment to free trade. So the United states citizens really do not know this - they're unacquainted with it - but we're residing in a society and an economy where the product is protected, the label remains safe and secure, but not a persons being who causes it to be. So under these circumstances, you cannot monitor your way from 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 7 days a week, 12 and a half to 14 hours a day. They're cheated with a minimum of half their wages. They are slapped; they're hit when they get behind their production goals. Two women were raped within the factory. They are guest workers who arrived to Jordan from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal - 3,000 of them. Guest workers and two young Sri Lankan women were raped; once they were raped, they were forcibly deported back to Sri Lanka.
So, you know, the idea that you could monitor these factories. They're during these countries due to there being lax labor police force. There's no union. They can pay - you realize, in China,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], you can pay 50 to 60 cents an hour or so; force individuals to work 7 days a week, a 72-hour workweek could be minimum; labor police force on the part of the federal 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 or so. In China, the minimum wage in most places is 55 cents to 60 cents an hour and, often, personnel are cheated of this wage. They've no rights; there's no independent unions; there is no freedom of the press. We aren't stating that workers in a third world to a living under really crushing circumstances of poverty. We're not saying they do not want these jobs, they do want the jobs very badly and they are grateful for the work. All of the workers want to be is treated like people. They might not even know the laws of the country. They might not be educated. They might not know the clothings even arrived at america, but they know they shouldn't be beaten, they know they really should not be raped, they know they shouldn't be cheated of the wages, they know they must be treated like people. So all they're asking is to treat all of them with respect, and each company could do that when they respected the neighborhood labor laws from the countries within which they produce along with the core, Un, internationally recognized worker rights standards of freedom of association, freedom to organize, no child labor, no forced labor.
And thus now, here i am, a hundred years later with globalization, that is industrialization around the world in places where, not Two decades, they were agricultural in small community countries. Also it says many of the same firms that, 100 years ago, were doing this. And they're doing it again for the similar reasons - profits for shareholders. And thus they've now searched for those rules, those places where they can - they don't have to pay attention to the rules that they in the usa. That's why labor got so expensive in the United States,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], so this is exactly why labor got so expensive in Europe - since there are each one of these rules.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: I'd say much closer to systemic exploitation. I think the key distinction to create, particularly if we're talking about - to consumers about whether or not they themselves can do, is the fact that conditions aren't always exploited as with every situation equally around the world. The issues in China relate to most largely to health and safety, not being able to join labor unions, the unpayment of overtime,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], incredibly long working hours - those situations aren't necessarily matched in the identical manifestation and, actually, in the Philippines, for example.
So it's important, I think, to tell apart between exactly what the specific problems are, exactly what the specific risks are, and what the specific resources are available to a specific company or a worker based on country. So Charlie(ph) is absolutely right, there are abuses just about everywhere, and i believe when the one thing consumers take away from this conversation is that they're enmeshed within an economic system that produces goods for his or her consumption that are produced under, at best, problematic conditions if they are manufactured in developing countries; that's a extremely important lesson.
And so i think we must - one of the things that 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 will - lead to more positive working conditions. And something of these, certainly, looks at their very own business practices, taking a look at their own decisions, their very own capability to integrate social responsibility goals, which they all have, because they have codes of conduct, using their procurement as well as their buying goals. Generally, what happens in companies is that one individual goes to the factory to buy and also to negotiate the price and make sure it's to a minimum and also the body else is available in and says, hey, incidentally, you are making sure you pay all the workers. And these two things are usually, mutually incompatible. And so we want to look at companies, and consumers ought to try to investigate companies that are, a minimum of,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], admitting that this is a concern.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: ¦well respected national organization. And one of the things they are doing is gather information about companies and present it to their members and also to the consuming public generally. I think one of the very valuable lessons they - or services they offer is to emphasize a few of the smaller purveyors of products and garments. We focus a great deal during these conversations on the GAPs of the world and also the Levi's and the major - and the Apple computers and also the big names. There's a considerable amount of consumption that occurs without a major label mounted on it. And some from it, particularly, if you are talking about small locally sourced goods is extremely positive. Plus some from it is completely individually distinct and engages working conditions that are worst than any you'd get in a multinational factory.
Mr. KERNAGHAN: Well, that it is - the legislation is called the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act. It had been created by Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota in to the Senate. It has been introduced in the home too. It's based on legislation passed earlier by Congress known as the Cat and dog Fur Protection Act of 2000. This was a case where the Burlington Coat Company was making nice jackets in China with fur collars. As well as for some odd reason, installed a truthful content about the label. So when it came to the fur, it said cat and dog fur. So ¦
So this would be 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 doing this along with this Senator Dorgan and many others and created a legislation much the same. And essentially,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], what it really says is that if you - the companies for - on this point forward - if this legislation passes, the companies will be held legally accountable to respect the neighborhood labor laws in the countries in which they produce. We're not setting minimum wages or doing anything like this. They simply need to respect the labor laws in the country by which they produce combined with the core international labor organizations, internationally recognized worker rights standards. It is extremely simple - no child labor, no forced labor, freedom of association, right to organize.
Once it's no longer monitoring, you know,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], that the companies have a to do, and perhaps, it really works. But once companies are held legally accountable to respect fundamental worker rights, they'll do it. And, in fact, they'll lay down what the law states simply 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 - towards the end of the year, there's going to be about a hundred eighty co-sponsors in the House. This thing's really moving, among the fastest moving bills in the House. The businesses will know that now, they have to respect these laws. These factories will be - there will be an enormous change all over the world, and they're going to be demanding of those factories that they meet these obligations.
Mr. VIEDERMAN: I believe what we're talking about is really the limitation of voluntary efforts. And right now, what we should have is really a whole patchwork plus some ways of voluntary efforts - some of them meaningful, a number of them not; a number of them purely smokescreens or kind of the labor equivalent of green washing. And what legislation does, it really levels the playing field and, at least, theoretically, it makes a kind of accountability that did not exist before. I think it's - neither legislation nor any particular intervention, whether it is monitoring or training or anything, will solve all the problems. Therefore if we do require better monitoring overseas, well, then we need to make sure that the monitoring can be standard. So there is a cascading number of things that we might need to take proper care of.
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