|
|
|
Newsletter #6
May-June 1997 Newsletter -- Web Edition
Apparel Task Force Agreement
[includes text from a press release issued by Global Exchange and
6 cosignatories]
[T]he code is so littered with loopholes its impact will probably
be limited unless public and press attention remains fixed on the
problems of sweatshop workers. -- New York Times editorial, April
16
· Certainly only continued public pressure on this issue can
make the commission's efforts succeed. -- Washington Post editorial,
April 16
· [The agreement] leaves the foxes even more firmly in control
of the proverbial hen house, which now carries the label "Fox
Free." -- Greg Smith, San Francisco
· The worst part of this agreement is that it will allow companies
who absolutely do NOT deserve it to label their goods "sweatshop
free." Millions of U.S. customers, who polls show have resoundingly
rejected the use of abusive labor, will be tricked into purchasing
products they wouldn't otherwise. -- Stan Yasaitis, President
of AFSCME local 82, Milwaukee, WI
· If this task force is serious about eliminating sweatshops,
it must call on companies to pay a living wage, not just the minimum
they can get away with. -- Lora Jo Foo, Asia Law Caucus
On April 14, a task force with representatives from human rights
groups, labor and apparel giants such as Nike and Liz Claiborne
announced an agreement setting standards for labor practices in
the industry. Does this agreement spell the end for sweatshops?
Not at all, say several labor rights advocates. The agreement produced
by the task force demonstrates all too clearly that we cannot leave
the fate of the world's apparel workers in the hands of presidential
commissions. It is imperative that grassroots activists continue
to mobilize public opinion until workers at home and abroad are
paid a living wage and treated with dignity. This is no time to
let up the pressure.
On August 2nd, President Clinton and then-Secretary of Labor Robert
Reich announced the formation of a task force charged with producing
standards for a "no sweat" clothing label within 6 months.
That the task force took nearly 8 1/2 months to produce a report
was due to the intransigence of industry representatives, who resisted
any significant change from the status quo. The good-faith efforts
of the human rights and labor representatives on the task force
were not matched by representatives of the apparel industry.
Analysis of the Agreement:
· Companies shall pay the local minimum wage or prevailing
industry wage.
It is widely acknowledged that many countries set the minimum
wage well below what workers need to meet their most basic needs.
They do so to encourage investment by foreign capital. It is the
garment industry and not truly the countries themselves which set
legal minimum wages so low -- because governments understand that
industry locates its production in the lowest wage havens. And now,
the industry promises to "comply" with the low-wage standard
that its own practices have created.
· The agreement accepts a 60-hour work week as the norm (48
hours plus 12 hours mandatory overtime, unless local law sets a
lower maximum). Except in extraordinary business circumstances,
workers will not be forced to work more than that.
Anything could qualify as an "extraordinary circumstance,"
making even the commitment to an outrageous 60-hour week meaningless.
Moreover, the agreement addresses only mandatory overtime. Garment
industry workers put in endless hours of supposedly "voluntary"
overtime. There should be NO mandatory overtime. If workers were
paid a living wage for an 8-hour day, excessive "voluntary"
overtime would cease.
· Employees shall be compensated for overtime hours at the
legal rate or, where none exists, at a rate at least equal to their
regular hourly compensation rate.
Labor unions the world over call for overtime to be paid at a
higher rate than the regular hourly wage. The task force agreement
should call for at least time-and-a-half for overtime.
· Companies shall use external monitors.
Opinion differs on whether this provision, as it now stands,
will result in truly independent monitoring. What is not in dispute
is that our allies on the task force count on sustained pressure
from grassroots activists to force the apparel industry to agree
to monitoring with teeth.
· The agreement guarantees the right of free association (union
activity).
Considering that the apparel industry seeks out repressive countries
which violently repress union activity, this will prove a hollow
promise -- UNLESS there is a credible monitoring process to verify
whether workers are allowed to organize for their own rights.
Unless grassroots activists increase their pressure on the apparel
industry, the result of this agreement will be that companies can
continue to pay their workers 20 cents an hour for "regular"
60-hour work weeks, push them to do unlimited hours of "voluntary"
overtime beyond that, monitor conditions via accounting firms which
have no connections to the workers AND be rewarded for this behavior
with a "no sweatshop" seal of approval.
Many will be confused by the agreement, believing the sweatshop
crisis to be all but over. As grassroots activists, we have our
work cut out for us. Our allies on the task force are counting on
us to keep up the pressure on the apparel industry to make good
on its promises in the agreement. We also need to continue our campaigns
focused on specific companies - now more than ever.
Write To The President
Please sign this letter and return it to Campaign for Labor Rights,
1470 Irving Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010. We will bundle your
letters together and forward them to President Clinton, with a cover
letter from CLR.
Bill Clinton
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Clinton:
Although the agreement by the Presidential task force on sweatshop
issues has been hailed as an important first step, I remain skeptical
whether the apparel industry intends to make significant changes
in a sweatshop status quo which its own practices have created.
The apparel industry situates its production in countries where
the minimum wage is widely acknowledged to be set below a rate sufficient
to meet the basic needs of workers and their families. In most cases,
the legal minimum wage is barely half of what workers truly require.
If the industry representatives on the task force wish to demonstrate
that they are earnest about improving the lives of those whose labors
enrich them, they should swiftly and publicly commit themselves
to paying at least double the legal minimum in the countries where
they produce (based on an 8-hour day). The White House press
conference announcing the task force agreement provided a public
relations bonanza for the apparel industry. I hope that your administration
is willing to pressure the industry to effect meaningful policy
changes in return for that favor.
Sincerely,
__________________________________name signed
_________________________________name printed
_________________________________street address
__________________________________city state zip
GUESS who's still in trouble?
from materials provided by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial
and Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Asia Monitor Resource
Center
After revelations last year that Guess clothing was being produced
in sweatshops and illegal industrial homework operations, Guess
was put on probation by the U.S. Department of Labor. Then, five
Guess sewing firms, including the #1 violator in the country, were
cited in a Labor Department report on minimum wage and overtime
violations in the garment industry for the 4th quarter of 1996.
The top violator, a Los Angeles firm called Pride Jeans and a major
producer of Guess jeans, owed its workers over $100,000 in back
wages. In January, the Labor Department removed Guess from its "Trendsetter"
list indefinitely.
In March, 1997, another key Guess contractor, Jeans Plus, was indicted
by the National Labor Relations Board for the illegal discharge,
intimidation and surveillance of workers who spoke out against sweatshop
conditions.
In October, Guess filed a libel suit against Common Threads, a Los
Angeles women's group, after they held a poetry reading about the
struggle of garment workers. Guess later withdrew the lawsuit, thereby
avoiding the court's scrutiny of the company's labor practices.
Two film makers have joined college students protesting Guess' sweatshops
at each stop in a Guess Independent Film Tour. Guess is the corporate
sponsor of screenings of "Girls Town" and "Hype"
at universities acorss the U.S. But the directors of those two films
are speaking out against Guess for using sweatshops.
On March 8, International Women's Day, a sewing machine operator
at V.T. Fashion Image Inc in the Philippines, died 11 days after
collapsing in exhaustion at her job. Co-workers denounced the system
of quotas set by the factory, which produces clothing for Guess,
the GAP, Liz Claiborne and other major brands. (Lis Claiborne is
a member of the Presidential task force on sweatshop issues.)
For a Guess campaign action packet, contact UNITE at (212) 265-7000
x 821, gcough@uniteunion.org,
1710 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Oregon Farm Worker Boycott Makes Gain
The Oregon union of farmworkers and tree planters (PCUN) has been
making headway in their primary and secondary boycotts to pressure
the giant NORPAC grower cooperative to bargain with them on basic
wage and worker rights issues. According to the most recent tally,
as reported by organizer Erik Nicholson, there are now some 41 stores
in 11 states that have pulled FLAV-R-PAC and Gardenburger from their
shelves and are committed to keeping them off until the end of the
boycott.
In Seattle, PCUN supporters have been meeting with union representatives.
In the works is a possible removal of Gardenburgers from cafeterias
feeding approximately 85, 000 Boeing machinists.
At the University of Oregon -- whose president stands to get $40,000
a year from Nike after defending the shoe company from its critics
-- the school has not pulled Gardenburger from its menu. However,
students supportive of the farm workers have cut sales by 2/3. The
growers have launched a counteroffensive and rumor has it that state
funding may be at risk, should the university join the FLAV-R-PAC/Gardenburger
boycott.
FLAV-R-PAC, the subject of the primary boycott, is the brand name
of frozen and canned foods marketed by NORPAC, the giant Oregon
agribusiness cooperative which vertically integrates operations
from growing to processing to marketing and distribution of foods.
Gardenburger, and other products of Wholesome & Hearty Foods,
is the subject of the secondary boycott because of the company's
refusal to use any alternative to NORPAC as its distributor, even
though alternatives do exist. NORPAC Food Sales is able to underwrite
the aggressive marketing of its own FLAV-R-PAC line of products
in part due to the economic support they get from distributing Wholesome
& Hearty Foods.
The NORPAC cooperative has refused to take responsibility for the
behavior of its member growers when they violate the rights of farm
workers. Oregon growers have been an effective lobby in the state
legislature for gutting whatever weak protection still is afforded
to farm workers. The grower lobby currently is pushing hard to exempt
farm workers from a recentl-passed statewide voter initiative to
raise the minimum wage slightly above Federal standards.
Local activists across the country are urged to go to food stores
and ask them to pull the two brands and then to let PCUN know of
any victories. PCUN has a product replacement list available to
give to store managers. For more information and an action packet,
contact PCUN at (503) 982-0243, 300 Young St., Woodburn, OR 97071.
Phillips-Van Heusen Victory
excerpted from
the U.S. Guatemala Labor Education Project (US/GLEP) newsletter
On March 17, Phillips-Van Heusen CEO Bruce Klatsky met with P-VH
union leaders in Guatemala City to tell them of the company's decision
to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. It will be the only
contract in Guatemala's clothing export sector, which primarily
produces for brand-name U.S. companies. P-VH has agreed to use the
union's contract proposal as a starting point for negotiations.
Key contract demands for the union are a 20% increase in pay, establishment
of a grievance procedure, ending discrimination against union members
and for workers to be treated with respect.
Victory for the union came a day before official release of a long-awaited
Human Rights Watch report, which found that the union had (just
as it claimed) met the 25% threshold of publicly-declared support
from the factory workforce, legally obligating the company to negotiate.
The report documented a pattern of anti-union discrimination and
cited reports of intimidation against union members by company officials
in Guatemala.
Forum On Independent Monitoring
a report by Katherine Hoyt
A key point of contention on the Presidential task force concerned
standards for factory monitoring. Recently, the National Labor Committee
organized a conference of grassroots activists to discuss what constitutes
truly independent monitoring.
A campaign organized by the National Labor Committee targeted GAP
stores in the U.S. during most of 1995 because of labor rights violations
at one of the GAP's contractors, the Mandarin factory in El Salvador.
Finally, the GAP agreed to a code of conduct and independent monitoring
by Salvadoran human rights and religious groups. Nearly 100 people
gathered in Manhattan on April 4 to discuss issues surrounding independent
monitoring in assembly plants around the world.
Selected comments from the conference:
Dr. Benjamin Cuellar, of the Human Rights Department at the University
of Central America in San Salvador: The parties to the GAP agreement
negotiated a peaceful solution which is proving effective and which
could even serve as a model of conflict resolution on a national
level. Companies don't act as monitors. My institution has demonstrated
its independence. All the groups in the Mandarin affair can attest
to that.
Stan Gacek, of the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department: Religious
and human rights organizations are the most qualified to monitor
corporate codes of conduct.
Jay Mazur, President of UNITE: The best situation for labor is 1)
a good union and 2) good laws enforced by a good government. When
1 and 2 are not present, monitoring by human rights organizations
on the ground is essential.
Romeo Fuentes, of the Frederick Ebert Foundation in Guatemala: Retailers
here and contractors in our countries hire accountants as monitors,
who lack knowledge of labor issues. Independent monitoring is necessary
but not a substitute for unions. We live in a world of the desirable
and the possible: Unions are desirable but often it is independent
monitoring which is possible.
Yannick (who uses only her first name to avoid reprisals) of Bataye
Ouvriye in Haiti: Independent monitoring by local organizations
works only if there are organizations which are not corrupt and
which have the confidence of the people.
Susan Jason, of the business ethics department of the giant accounting
firm KPMG Peat Marwick, with operations in 180 countries: We help
clients write codes of conduct and strengthen internal monitoring.
We try to demonstrate the value of working with credible nongovernmental
organizations but corporations balk at that suggestion.
Pharis Harvey, of the International Labor Rights Fund: The monitoring
that Peat Marwick does is internal, not independent. For accounting,
there is a legal framework set up which does not yet exist for labor
monitoring. We should work toward a system of accountability, that
would make firms doing labor monitoring legally responsible to the
community as they are when they do an external audit.
Media Benjamin, of Global Exchange and a member of the Working Group
on Nike: In Indonesia, where Nike makes many of its shoes, there
is a vibrant civil society ready to participate in monitoring. In
Vietnam, labor unions and some in the government are concerned with
the issue. But in these and other countries the already-stretched
budgets of human rights groups cannot assume the extra burden of
labor monitoring. Funding will be needed if human rights organizations
are going to participate.
Stephen Coats, of the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project: The
concept of codes of conduct comes from the global North and can
be seen as a threat or not understood in the global South. Union
organizing guarantees must be included in trade agreements and must
be a demand in our corporate campaigns.
Later, there was informal discussion among those attending of Andrew
Young's monitoring for Nike. Most were skeptical about any positive
result from the Young mission. ]
Witness For Peace Labor Rights Delegation to Nicaragua
New Date: June 18-28, 1997
Witness firsthand the impact of free-trade policies on workers in
Nicaragua. Meet with farm workers, public sector employees and union
organizers from the free trade zone. Stay with Nicaraguan families.
Contact: Tom Ricker, 6409 Winston St., Bethesda, MD 20817 301-263-0021,
bildrick@erols.com
Salvadoran Voters to Ruling Party: "It's the Political
Economy, Stupid"
Big Gains for Unions & fmln in El Salvador
by Mike Prokosch, Committee in Solidarity
with the People of El Salvador (cispes)
Editor's note: Recent election results in El Salvador have profound
implications for labor rights. Besides the issue of sweatshops,
CISPES is working on privatization, which is the top priority for
the strongest unions in El Salvador's labor movement.
El Salvador's structural adjustment policies [economic policies
mandated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund] were
the big losers in El Salvador's recent election, and telecommunication
workers expect to be among the big winners.
An ever narrower faction of the ruling ARENA Party has been running
the Salvadoran economy in its own interest since 1989. Banking and
commerce are flourishing on a low-tariff, high-credit diet, while
traditional industry and agriculture starve. The landowning elite
-- a key ARENA constituency -- no longer receives its customary
subsidies and bailouts whenever the harvest fails or world coffee
prices drop. Small farmers, as well, have suffered tremendously
from the loss of agricultural credit.
A prominent cattle rancher and ARENA Party founder went public with
his dissatisfaction and led other party founders, dozens of mayors,
and much of the party's local structure out of ARENA and into the
old right-wing National Conciliation Party (PCN).
A multi-class referendum on the economy
On election day this March, ARENA and the PCN split the right-wing
vote. The socialist FMLN drove through the middle to capture almost
a third of the legislature. The vote destroyed the monopoly ARENA
has enjoyed for the past eight years. The FMLN and a few small center-left
parties can now block budget votes and constitutional changes. In
municipal races, the FMLN captured most of the country's big cities,
including San Salvador and five other departmental capitals. 45%
of the Salvadoran people live in the cities and towns that the FMLN
will be governing.
For the first time in its history, El Salvador has a competitive
political system, and the poor majority are likely to benefit. With
presidential elections just two years away, all the major parties
are climbing onto the FMLN's popular platform of tax relief for
the majority, debt forgiveness for farmers, and major changes in
the privatization of public services. This is bad news for El Salvador's
Modernization Commissioner, Alfredo Mena Lagos.
US Backs Welfare for the Rich
After the 1994 presidential election, Mena Lagos was given the responsibility
for privatizing electricity, telephones, pension funds, and other
public services -- a process notorious for graft in El Salvador
and countries where the International Monetary Fund has used its
debt leverage to force privatization. Although the process is not
debt-driven in El Salvador, the boondoggle falling to local elites
due to privatization has won their support for selling off valuable
state assets.
ANTEL, El Salvador's state-owned telecommunications company, is
on the chopping block. The phone company brings in $80 million in
annual profits to the government, which uses the money for rural
health and eduction. Those profits would be lost to the public and
captured by private capital if ANTEL is privatized. The current
plan also could hike rates for individual customers and clearly
is intended to destroy one of El Salvador and Central America's
strongest unions.
The unions demonstrated their strength, in the months leading up
to the elections, through escalating strikes and large public protests.
Now ARENA Party dissidents are blaming Mena Lagos for their election
losses and calling for his resignation. ARENA's legislative leaders
have told telephone workers they are willing to reopen the privatization
law and consider changes the unions want.
A US campaign is targeting State Department support for Mena Lagos.
US AID was the original author of El Salvador's privatization drive,
and the US Embassy has continued to push the process despite mounting
evidence of corruption. Distancing the Embassy from Mena Lagos will
open space for workers and the public interest. To find out how
to participate in the El Salvador labor rights campaign, contact
CISPES at (212) 229-1290, cispesnatl@igc.apc.org, 19 W 21st Street,
room 502, New York, NY 10010. ]
Starbucks Campaign Resumes
excerpted from the US/GLEP newsletter
The U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project is resuming the Starbucks
campaign because the company has failed to take credible steps to
implement its code of conduct in Guatemala. The goal of the campaign
is to persuade Starbucks to fulfill the promises it made in 1995
and take the initial steps necessary to implement its code: identify
the growers of its Guatemalan coffee, survey conditions on their
farms and put in place a plan to achieve the company's stated goal
of buying coffee from growers who respect worker rights.
Reneging on its earlier commitment, Starbucks now says that sees
no need to identify the growers of its coffee nor to set up a system
to monitor conditions on coffee plantations from which it buys.
Obviously, it is impossible for Starbucks to hold coffee growers
to any minimum labor standards unless it monitors conditions on
the farms from which the company buys.
Over the past two years, Starbucks has consistently cited obstacles
to implementing its own code. First, Starbucks said it can't identify
its growers since the company buys primarily through export houses.
But Guatemalan coffee export houses are required by law to know
the farms of origin. Starbucks has not responded to a US/GLEP proposal
that the company require the export houses to reveal the producers
of coffee purchased by Starbucks.
Then, Starbucks said it doesn't have the capacity to monitor the
hundreds if not thousands of farms from which its coffee comes.
But the Catholic Church has offered to work with Starbucks and to
use its extensive network to develop a pilot monitoring system.
Starbucks has failed to pursue this offer.
Leafleting at Starbucks outlets will begin in May. For a Starbucks
action packet (cost: $5), contact US/GLEP at (773) 262-6502, usglep@igc.apc.org,
P.O. Box 268-290, Chicago, IL 60626.
Working With Youth On Labor Rights Issues
a report by Michael Gitelson
The Edenwald-Gun Hill Neighborhood Center is a small settlement
house in the northeast section of the Bronx. We serve the neighborhood
that we are located in rather then provide a city-wide service.
For a long time we had been concerned about the fact that many of
the young people in our neighborhood wear Nike sneakers. The sneakers
are obviously over-priced and the financial strain on many of the
parents we see here also is obvious.
When we found out about Nike's labor practices in places like Indonesia
and Vietnam, we took this information to the children in our after-school
program. They drew pictures or wrote letters expressing how they
felt about Nike. Many of their statements were angry. Some asked
why Nike did not care about children in other countries. One of
the statements that echoed through everything was that our children
were not going to buy Nike sneakers until something changed. We
packaged up about seventy pictures and letters and sent them to
Philip Knight, and Michael Jordan. So far we have not heard from
either of them, but we are still waiting.
Some of the children wanted to do more. we are working on having
a demonstration at Nike town in Manhattan where the children will
be retuning their Nikes to tell them that they are not happy with
how the company treats people both here in New York City and in
other parts of the world. Now that the children have experienced
activism with our campaign against Nike we are thinking of starting
another, taking on Guess or maybe Disney.
Activists Organize around Hyundai Issue
a report by Anne Dutcher
[In the previous issue of the newsletter, we reported on Maclovio
Rojas, a community on the outskirts of Tijuana, which has organized
to protect its labor and land rights against activities of a Hyundai
trailer truck factory bordering the community on two sides. We also
reported that citizens of Eugene, Oregon have opposed a huge new
Hyundai computer chip factory in their community due to concerns
about environmental damage and because Hyundai received $27 million
in tax write-offs without any public hearings process. As that newsletter
was going to press, Eugene activists were exploring how they might
support the rights of Maclovio Rojas.
A coalition made up of activists from a variety of groups has formed
around issues regarding human and labor rights abuses involving
the Hyundai plant in Tijuana and the community of Maclovio Rojas.
Representatives from Committee in Solidarity with the Central American
People (CISCAP), Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF), Citizens
for Public Accountability (CPA), Lane County Labor Council, and
the Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN) are planning to
meet with officials of the Eugene Hyundai plant in an information-gathering
meeting and to show cross-border solidarity with Maclovio Rojas.
Our plans thus far are nonconfrontational. We plan to bring a message
of concern over what is happening in Tijuana, as well as a demand
that Hyundai be accountable to the communities in which it operates
its plants. ]
back to top
|
|
|
|
