Posts Tagged ‘sweatshop factories’
Black Friday Price Tags: The other side of Sweatshop factories
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 28, 2016
The Other Side of Black Friday Price Tags
Throughout the Global South, underpaid workers face wage theft and injury to meet Western consumers’ demands.
By Michelle ChenTwitter. November 25, 2015<!–2 Comments–>
When the glass doors fly open this Friday, riotous crowds will spill into a tide of mass consumption at Walmarts nationwide.
But amidst the frenzy, the bleak undertow of global commerce will wash up against the rock-bottom prices: For workers on a distant shore, Black Friday caps another cycle of the round-the-clock drudgery driving the biggest shopping day of the year.
China Labor Watch’s (CLW) report on China’s toy industry is a seasonal reminder of how American families’ appetite for cheap toys is fed by not-so-fun factory jobs, in which workers struggle to sustain their own families on pennies an hour.
The advocacy group reports:
In workshops that are hazardous to their health, millions of workers toil under cruel management, 11 hours a day, six days per week. Over the course of a year, a toy worker may only be able to see her parents and children one time.
In low-wage factories that bring Star Wars and Frozen toys to big-box shelves, field researchers reported observing up to 80-hour workweeks, widespread wage theft, and apparent violations of both corporate ethical sourcing codes and Chinese labor law—including age-discriminatory hiring, nonpayment of mandatory social insurance, and inadequate safety training.
For example, at two suppliers, Winson and Jetta, employers reportedly “diverted” overtime hours to discount weekend work.
As a result, CLW claims, “employing up to 11,000 workers, the two companies may be cheating workers out of $1 to 2 million a year.”
The true price of toys, according to CLW, is measured in the everyday suffering of workers in Chinese cities, who might spend all-day shifts contorting their bodies to mold doll heads or inhaling toxic toy paint fumes.
For the Mattel Rock’ Em Sock’ Em Robots, sold on Amazon for $30, CLW reports: “each Winson worker earns only 0.05% the market value of the Rock ’Em Sock ’Em toy. Workers produce nonstop. Young workers sacrifice their youth and health….
Despite such sacrifice, a worker earns only 1/2000 the value of a toy she produces.”
As a brand and sales outlet, Walmart shapes working conditions in both Asia’s manfacturing hubs and the United States’ low-wage retail and logistics industries. While American Walmart associates are staging scattered Black Friday protests, more volatile labor dynamics are erupting in China.
CLW details a recent uprising at a Mattel supplier factory, in which workers protested a months-long lag in wages and benefit payments during a lull in production. Riot police and K-9 units cracked down “to suppress the workers’ action and compel them to accept partial compensation.”
Another uprising in July at the Jingyu toy factory in Shenzhen reportedly resulted in a strike being similarly squelched by police. Yet in response to CLW’s investigation, the toy industry’s corporate-monitoring organization ICTI-CARE took issue with the findings, commenting that the Jingyu dispute had been successfully resolved and stemmed partially from “poor communications” and “misunderstanding” between employees and management.
In a statement to The Nation, ICTI-CARE argues that in contrast to CLW’s report, the group has observed “a different pattern of continued progress across the 1,100 factories we work with,” and that “[d]riving lasting improvements on labor standards requires commitment from both the top and bottom of the supply chain.”
One thing Western brands seem committed to is showing zero tolerance for labor disruptions overseas, or for any taint on a company’s facade of social responsibility. So establishment-supported auditing firms have produced regular reports showing purported improvements in labor conditions. Still, CLW’s report shows that despite voluminous ethical sourcing protocols and proclamations about acting as good global corporate citizens, the reality on Chinese assembly lines vanishes behind slick media packaging and irresistible prices.
“Pressure on toy producers has actually not been sufficient,” CLW Program Coordinator Kevin Slaten says via e-mail. “What is required is an even more successful awareness campaign which can produce enough reaction that the toy companies put more resources into improving working conditions in their supply chains.”
Another area where consumer awareness is a key blind spot is the fashion sector, though anti-sweatshop campaigns are pressuring some brands to take some action on unsafe conditions and exploitation in Global South factories.
The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) is campaigning on the third anniversary of the Tazreen factory fire, which killed more than 100 garment workers in a Bangladesh “death trap” plant linked to Walmart and other Western brands. Public pressure has already spurred image-polishing corporate social responsibility campaigns, with brands funneling aid to the victims and recently establishing a new charity, the Tazreen Trust Fund, to issue payouts to workers’ families. So far, Walmart has donated primarily through a corporate-funded philanthropic outfit called BRAC USA.
A company spokesperson stated that “through BRAC, we have donated to a medical fund for Rana Plaza and Tazreen survivors and just recently to the newly established Tazreen Victim’s Trust Fund.” This apparently corresponds with a new BRAC Trust Fund donation of $250,000—equivalent to a sliver of 1 percent of Walmart’s profits last year.
But the real debt Walmart owes doesn’t just stem from workers’ injuries: it stems from the impunity with which the company has managed to evade liability. Walmart claimed the factory was not an “authorized” supplier, shifting the blame to shady subcontractors lower on the production chain. In a comment to The Nation, Walmart stated that it was “committed to helping our suppliers make factories safer for all and preventing tragedies like Tazreen,” stopping short of calling its charity “compensation” for victims. But advocates nonetheless condemn Walmart for failing to protect safety for all workers in its manufacturing network.
“Had Walmart put into place fire safety renovations after its inspections to remediate the high risk violations that it uncovered, it could have saved 112 lives,” says ILRF Director of Organizing Liana Foxvog via e-mail. “Instead, Walmart didn’t take any meaningful action to protect workers…and then distanced itself as much as it could after the horrific fire.”
Transnational supply chains trade on the political and social distance between the Global North and South to extract maximum profits. At the same time, the global economic forces girding Walmart’s commercial empire are also helping globalize messages of economic injustice and social unrest. It’s up to American consumers to respond by politically leveraging their purchasing power.
Because while multinationals eagerly claim credit for delivering the best Black Friday deals, only the savviest shoppers will link Western brands to the exploitation underwriting those unbeatable prices.
Note: This article has been updated to correct a reference to the ICTI-CARE’s comment on the Jingyu factory protest in Shenzhen—not the protest at the Mattel supplier Ever Force, as originally stated.
‘This Is What A Feminist Looks Like’: Sweatshop factories producing Feminist £45 T-shirts
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 4, 2014
‘This Is What A Feminist Looks Like’: Sweatshop factories producing £45 T-shirts
This repost is not meant to side with a British political party, but to refocus on the miseries of the sweatshop factories
A Mail on Sunday investigation revealed:
Feminist T-shirts proudly worn by Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman are made in ‘sweatshop’ conditions by migrant women paid just 62p an hour.
The women machinists on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius sleep 16 to a room – and earn much less than the average wage on the island.
The £45 T-shirts carry the defiant slogan ‘This is what a feminist looks like’. But one of the thousands of machinists declared: ‘We do not see ourselves as feminists. We see ourselves as trapped.’
Ben Ellery for The Mail on Sunday Published November 1, 2014
The T-shirts are designed to make a political statement about women’s rights – but the female workers making them are paid just 62p an hour in an Indian Ocean ‘sweatshop’.
Between shifts women making garments emblazoned with the slogan ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ sleep in spartan dormitories, 16 to a room.
Scroll down for video

The workers paid just 62p an hour: Machinists at the CMT factory in Mauritius with one of the ‘feminist’ shirts it would take nearly two weeks’ of their wages to buy
And critics say the low wages and long hours at the Mauritian factories amount to exploitation.
The shirts have been worn by Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman, all keen to display their feminist credentials – even though the Deputy Prime Minister last night admitted he had ‘no idea’ where the garments were made.
But The Mail on Sunday has toured a factory producing the T-shirts, where workers earn just 6,000 rupees a month – equivalent to £120.
The figure is just a quarter of the country’s average monthly wage, and around half of what a waiter earns.
Each ‘feminist’ T-shirt costs just £9 to make, but high street chain Whistles sells them for £45 each – a figure it would take the women a week and a half to earn.
The retailer promised an urgent investigation last night in the wake of the Mail on Sunday exposé.
At one factory visited by The Mail on Sunday, a female worker told us: ‘How can this T-shirt be a symbol of feminism when we do not see ourselves as feminists? We see ourselves as trapped.’
An official from factory owner Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile (CMT) told us he ‘would not be happy’ if the women left the work camp during the week in case they turned up for work ‘hungover’.
Whistles, whose customers include the Duchess of Cambridge, is selling the T-shirts in aid of women’s activism group The Fawcett Society – which receives all profits. The campaign is backed by fashion magazine Elle.

Deputy Labour Leader Harriet Harman wore a shirt carrying the slogan on the front bench of the Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions last week, while the Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders proudly posed for photographs in Elle’s ‘feminism issue’ in the T-shirts.
Fayzal Ally Beegun, president of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Union said: ‘The workers in this factory are treated very poorly and the fact that politicians in England are making a statement using these sweatshop T-shirts is appalling.
‘It would take a woman working in the factory nearly two weeks just to buy one shirt. What is feminist about that? These women have nothing in this world. They are paid a pittance and any money they do receive they send back home.
‘They work very long hours and have no lives other than their work. They are on four-year contracts that mean they don’t get to see their families in that time. What kind of existence is it when you are sharing your bedroom with 15 other women?

Slogan: Ed Miliband (left) and Nick Clegg (right) posed in the ‘This Is What A Feminist Looks Like’ T-shirt

‘The women have no careers or even the most basic of opportunities. This is not what feminism is supposed to be.’
Celebrities pictured wearing the feminist T-shirt in Elle magazine include Benedict Cumberbatch, Tinie Tempah, Eddie Izzard, Richard E Grant and Simon Pegg.
Yesterday a reporter and a photographer from The Mail on Sunday were given a guided tour of CMT’s factory in La Tour Koenig, north Mauritius.
As managing director Francois Woo showed us around the sleeping quarters he said:
‘All of our dormitories are identical. There are 16 beds in each room. They are based on university dormitories in China. They don’t need a lot of room because they only use them for sleep.’
He told us that the plant is one of six across the island where living conditions and wages are identical.
He could not say at which factory the Whistles T-shirts were made, but confirmed they made 300 at a cost of £9. ‘The machinists at our factories made the feminist T-shirt for Whistles’ he said, adding: ‘All the machinists earn 6,000 rupees.’
Mr Woo instructed workers to smile as our photographer took pictures of them on the shop floor.
The tour was delayed when we asked to view the women’s accommodation block. Staff made several phone calls and 30 minutes later we were allowed to view the bedrooms.
The 20ft square rooms are home to eight sets of bunk beds, each with a thin mattress and a pillow. Shelving on the far wall houses the workers’ meagre belongings.

The women – who we could not talk to – work 45 hours a week basic and can earn more if they work overtime.
After the tour and without the company’s senior staff, we visited another of the company’s factories, in Curepipe.
Outside we spoke to one 30-year-old worker. She told us: ‘I have worked here for four years and I have not been able to see my son or husband in Bangladesh during all that time. We work very hard, sometimes 12 hour days, for not much money. I send all my money home and could not afford to fly back and see my family.
‘It is awful but we have no choice. In my country, the rupees I earn here are worth three times as much as they are in Mauritius.
‘How can this T-shirt be a symbol of feminism?
‘These politicians say that they support equality for all, but we are not equal.’
CMT has an annual turnover of £125 million. It produces 40 million T-shirts a year for clients including Topshop, Next and Urban Outfitters.
It employs 13,000 staff at its factories and about 4,500, all foreign, are housed on site. Migrants come from countries including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Vietnam.
There are around 2,800 female machinists. Workers are expected to produce around 50 shirts a day and face discipline if they do not reach their target.
Mr Woo said: ‘The Mauritian government has set out a minimum wage that we must pay and we abide by their rules.
‘I am like a parent to the workers. They are free to come and go as they please but if they go out on a weeknight I will not be happy because then they will turn up for work the next day hungover.
If people didn’t want to work for us then they don’t have to, nobody is forcing them. If they have the chance to earn more somewhere else then they should go elsewhere.

‘If they didn’t like it, then we would not have existed as a company for 28 years.’
The factory was the focus of an exposé in 2007 when it was revealed that workers were being paid just £4 a day to make clothes for Sir Philip Green’s Kate Moss range at Topshop.
At the time, the factory employed agents who promised migrant workers good wages but when they moved to Mauritius they were told they would earn a pittance. The factory was also criticised for paying workers of different nationalities different wages.
Mr Woo added: ‘A lot has changed since then. The workers know exactly how much they will make when they start working here and people are paid the same, regardless of their race or sex.’
Last night Dr Eva Neitzert, deputy chief executive at the Fawcett Society said: ‘As a charity that campaigns on women’s rights in the labour market, we take ethical standards very seriously. We have been assured by Whistles that the “This is what a feminist T-shirt looks like” range has been produced to ethical standards.’
Dr Neitzert said they had originally been assured the garments would be produced ethically in the UK, and when they received samples in early October they noted they had in fact been made in Mauritius.
They were assured by Whistles that the factory was ‘a fully audited, socially and ethical compliant factory’ and decided to continue with the collaboration.
‘We have been very disappointed to hear the allegations that conditions in the Mauritius factory may not adhere to the ethical standards that we, as the Fawcett Society, would require of any product that bears our name,’ she said.
‘At this stage, we require evidence to back up the claims being made by a journalist at the Mail on Sunday. However, as a charity that campaigns on issues of women’s economic equality, we take these allegations extremely seriously and will do our utmost to investigate them.
‘If any concrete and verifiable evidence of mistreatment of the garment producers emerges, we will require Whistles to withdraw the range with immediate effect and donate part of the profits to an ethical trading campaigning body.
‘Whilst we wish to apologise to all those concerned who may have experienced adverse conditions, we remain confident that we took every practicable and reasonable step to ensure that the range would be ethically produced and await a fuller understanding of the circumstances under which the garments were produced.’

Factory: The factory was the focus of an exposé in 2007 when it was revealed that workers were being paid just £4 a day to make clothes for Sir Philip Green’s Kate Moss range at Topshop
Whistles refused to say how many of the T-shirts had been made, or indeed where
The chain initially said they did not feel they had been given adequate time to respond to our questions about the T-shirts.
But a spokesman later promised: ‘We place a high priority on environmental, social and ethical issues. The allegations regarding the production of T-shirts in the CMT factory in Mauritius are extremely serious and we are investigating them as a matter of urgency.
‘CMT has Oekotex accreditation, [an independent certificate for the supply chain] which fully conforms to the highest standards in quality and environmental policy, while having world-class policies for sustainable development, social, ethical and environmental compliance.
‘We carry out regular audits of our suppliers in line with our high corporate social responsibility standards and can share the following information regarding the CMT factory in Mauritius.’
However the company acknowledged: ‘We will require time to thoroughly investigate the allegations with the factory and our lawyers in great detail. CMT is one of the largest suppliers to many high street brands, including the Arcadia group [owner of Topshop and Burton].
When she founded Whistles, former Topshop executive Jane Shepherdson vowed: ‘Customers cannot keep buying cheap clothes and not ask where they come from’ – as ‘someone somewhere down the line is paying’.
Last night, a spokesman for Nick Clegg said the Deputy Prime Minister had not known where the shirts were made. He said: ‘Nick Clegg had no idea where these T-shirts were being made and can only assume that the Fawcett Society were unaware of the origins, or they would not have asked him to wear it. He remains entirely supportive of efforts to ensure all women are treated as equals in this country and the world over.’
A spokesman for Labour Leader Ed Miliband and Deputy Leader Harriet Harman would only say: ‘This was a campaign run by Elle and the Fawcett Society to promote feminism and we were happy to support it.’
Hot posts this week (Jan. 29/2013)
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 6, 2013
Hot posts this week (Jan. 29/2013)
“Action Alerts” analysis from US Political Scientists: All wrong?
- Focusing on “Ideas in action”, “What we need Is..”: TEDxBeirut 2012
- Like to join me visiting the Prison of Roumieh in Lebanon?
- Alice “The Siren”
- Does foreign aid work? How aid is defined?
- Living conditions of Palestinian refugees: This Struggle to survive
- Stolen Identity by Stealing the Books: What Did Israel Do with Palestinians’ Literary Heritage?
- Not until you learn to sew: Will you learn what are sweatshop factories…
Not until you learn to sew: Will you learn what are sweatshop factories…
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 22, 2013
Not until you learn to sew: Will you learn what are sweatshop factories…
How to break the cycle of consumerism through awareness of sweatshop practice?
“Being able to sew means that when I see a piece of ready-to-wear clothing, I can see the hours of hard work that went into it.
And I get aware of how unrealistically low the prices are, and we expect to be able to pay for a throwaway dress or top.
I can see how $5 for a firsthand t-shirt that would have taken even a pro-seamstress over an hour to make cannot be a fair price, even without the costs of material and shipping. ..”
Layla Totah, of ‘The Old Fashioned Way’ sewing initiative, posted in NOW on Dec.10, 2012 under “Sewing against the stream”
“Cheap and fast fashion has changed the way most of us dress and shop.
Nowadays, trends in fashion move quickly. Necklines swoop and turn turtle, hems come in high and then make their way down to maxi lengths, all in a short space of time.
In this environment, shopping on a weekly basis becomes a necessity for those intent on keeping up.
This boom in shopping has altered the way we consider clothes.
Not long ago, an average of 64 new items of clothing a year (the number that Elizabeth Cline cites as today’s average in her recent book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Price of Cheap Fashion) would have seemed unthinkable, and non affordable to most.
This high number of garments is in exchange for a lower percentage of our household incomes than ever (3% as compared to 15% in 1900.)
Now, less money can go much further, and so we shop without pause, leaving no time to consider where our clothes are coming from and, equally importantly, where they will go once we have stopped wearing them.
Countless high street stores have been exposed for using inhumanely cheap sweatshop labor, paying barely live-able wages for excruciatingly long hours in cramped conditions.
Most of us are aware of the existence of cheap labor, yet struggle to connect its wrongs with the dresses and t-shirts and jeans that we buy. It has become increasingly difficult to disentangle finished garments from the fabrics and fingers that went into making them.
I consider myself lucky: my mum taught me the very nearly lost art of sewing when I was growing up. Making my own clothes not only brings me a lot of pleasure – being able to make clothes that fit how I want them to fit, in fabrics I choose from the shops of Bourj Hammoud (an Armenian quarter) in east Beirut– but also allows me to opt out of this consumerist cycle which is at least in part fueled by unjust practices.
While fashion used to be much more about self-expression, now it seems that it is driven foremost by ritual consuming – socializing on a Saturday has for many become synonymous with shopping.
I’m not standing in judgment on this – until I learnt to sew I too struggled to connect the clothes I saw in shops with the efforts that had gone into making them.
Making clothes isn’t easy or quick. Perhaps sparing a thought for that might help us to understand the knock-on cost of our fashion habits for those behind the sewing machines.
Note 1: Layla Totah is a sewing teacher in Beirut. Originally from London, she now runs ‘The Old Fashioned Way’ sewing initiative from her Sanayeh studio.
Note 2: On sweatshop factories in Cambodia https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/part-1-fashion-industry-clothing-industry-who-is-being-sacrificed-background-of-mass-fainting/