Labor Alerts: a service of Campaign for Labor Rights

INDONESIA: GAP UNION MEMBERS FIRED

[ Prepared jointly by Global Exchange: (415) 255-7296, sweatshops@globalexchange.org; and Campaign for Labor Rights: (202) 232-5002, clr@clrlabor.org ]

GAP UNION MEMBERS FIRED IN INDONESIA

The Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), reports that 835 of its members have been fired by PT Aneka Garmentama, a clothing manufacturer in North Jakarta which produces for The Gap and other major U.S. brands. The SBSI is Indonesia's first successful independent trade union. It represents 835 of the more than 900 workers at the factory.

The workers were dismissed on August 12 after a one-month strike for fair compensation and after initiating grievance proceedings at the Department of Manpower. The company notified the workers of the dismissals by fax, saying that it would rather pay severance to the workers than follow the legal course of the Manpower proceedings. Although the workers were forced by economic necessity to accept severance payments, they would much prefer to have their jobs back and to have their claims addressed.

Prior to their dismissal the workers were seeking:

1. Pay increases, adjusted to the new legal minimum wage
2. Transportation and meal allowances, as mandated by Department of Manpower standards
3. Freedom of association and collective bargaining (The company had refused to meet with SBSI mediators.)

The parent company of PT Aneka Garmentama is the Karwel group, which owns 12 factories in Jakarta. Although the factory is wholly Indonesian owned, its buyers are international clothing labels. They include The Gap, Donna Karen, Eddie Bauer, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.

The international department of SBSI has contacted Global Exchange and Campaign for Labor Rights and requests that we mobilize solidarity in support of the fired workers, with the goal of having them rehired and getting the factory to address their original demands.

The Gap already is the focus of a major campaign organized by Global Exchange in response to outrageous sweatshop practices on Saipan by Gap and other major U.S. clothing companies. Mobilizing support for the fired Gap workers in Indonesia will become part of the ongoing Gap campaign. Meanwhile, labor rights advocates also will contact PT Aneka Garmentama's other major U.S. buyers and urge them to investigate the labor practices of the factory.

ACTION REQUEST

Please fill in and return the following information (not this entire alert!) to Campaign for Labor Rights clr@clrlabor.org so that you can be included in the sign-on letter to Donald Fisher, Chairman of The Gap. This letter will be sent on the letterhead of Campaign for Labor Rights, with the original going to Donald Fisher and cc's to the director of PT Aneka Garmentama and the Minister of Manpower in Indonesia. We will accept signatures for the sign-on letter up through September 14.

Please fill in for Gap sign-on letter:
YOUR NAME:
YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS:
ORGANIZATIONAL AFFILIATION (mark with an asterisk * if for identification
purposes only):

Other options: We welcome individually drafted letters. You can adapt and mail this letter to Donald Fisher, or you can fax a letter to The Gap from Global Exchange's web site: www.globalexchange.org/economy/corporations/gap/.

Donald Fisher, Chairman
The Gap, Inc.
One Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94105

Dear Mr. Fisher:

I am writing to ask you to intervene on behalf of 835 workers fired on August 12 from the PT Aneka Garmentama factory in Jakarta, Indonesia. All of the fired workers are members of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI). They were fired after a one-month strike in which they sought:

1. Pay increases, adjusted to the new legal minimum wage
2. Transportation and meal allowances, as mandated by Department of Manpower standards
3. Freedom of association and collective bargaining (The company had refused to meet with SBSI mediators.)

It hardly seems consistent with The Gap's code of conduct that workers in Indonesia who produce clothing for your company are being cheated out of legally mandated wages and benefits. Moreover, The Gap's code promises that "Workers are free to choose whether or not to lawfully organize and join associations. The factory does not threaten, penalize, restrict or interfere with workers' lawful efforts to join associations of their choosing."

Your company is to be commended for committing itself to such principles. I would like to see you make good on them. Management is trying to break the union at PT Aneka Garmentama by firing every union member in the factory - nearly the entire workforce! Do not cut and run from this situation. Instead, use your company's considerable economic leverage with the management of PT Aneka Garmentama. I hope to learn from human rights advocates who are following the situation that The Gap's intervention has resulted in the reinstatement of these workers and the implementation of their just claims.

Sincerely,

cc: Edy Sulaeman, Director, PT Aneka Garmentama; Jakarta, Indonesia
Fahmi Idris, Minister of Manpower; Jakarta, Indonesia

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