"People in developing countries and at home are being lifted from squalor because Wal-Mart seeks out the great, low-cost products they offer."
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Max Borders, Tech Central Station
I saw the movie "The Corporation" last night on DVD, I'll probably write about it in relation to Wal-Mart soon. However, it reminded me of the first Wal-Mart sweatshop controversy involving Kathi Lee Gifford. So I surfed on over to the website of the National Labor Committee and confirmed what the film claimed: Kathi Lee's name is still going on sweatshop-made products made at Wal-Mart. Of course, since this is the "New Wal-Mart," the sweatshop is in China rather than El Salvador. The report is from 2003, describing conditions slightly earlier, but still after Kathi Lee Gifford promised to change these matters:
The daily work shift at the Qin Shi Factory is 12 to 14 hours, seven days a week, 30 days a month. At the end of the day the workers return "home" to a cramped dorm room sharing metal bunk beds with 16 other people. At most, workers are allowed outside of the factory for just one and one half hours a day. Otherwise they are locked in.
Working up to 98 hours a week, it is not easy to find the time to go out. But the workers have another fear as well. Before entering the Qin Shi factory, management confiscates the identification documents of each worker. When someone goes outside, the company also takes away their factory I.D. tag, leaving them with no identification at all. If you are stopped by the local security police you could be detained and deported back to your rural province as an illegal migrant.
When you need to use the bathroom the company again confiscates your factory I.D. and monitors the time you spend. If you are away from your workstation for more than eight minutes you will receive a severe fine.
All new employees are illegally charged a deposit of 80 rmb ($9.64 U.S.) for a three year work contract, along with another 32 rmb ($3.86) for the first 10 days living expenses, which includes two dismal meals a day.
Further deductions from the workers' wages are made for the temporary residency and work permits the workers need, which the factory management intentionally delays applying for for several months. This also leaves the workers trapped and afraid to leave the factory grounds, since without these legal permits they can be deported at any minute.
Qin Shi management also illegally withholds the workers first month's wages, so it is only at the end of the second month that the workers receive, or may receive, their first pay. Because of all of the deductions and fines, many workers earn nothing at all after two months work, and instead, are actually in debt to the company.
Fines for violating any of the strict company rules are severe, a practice made even worse by the fact that armed company security guards can keep 30 percent of any fines they levy against the workers.
The workers making Wal-Mart Kathie Lee handbags report being subjected to body searches, as well as physical and verbal abuse by security guards and quality control supervisors.
The workers are charged 560 rmb ($67.47 U.S.) for dorm and living expenses, which is an enormous amount given that the highest take home wage our researchers found in the factory was just 10 cents an hour. There were others who earned just 36 cents for more than a month's work, earning just 8/100th of a cent an hour. Many workers earned nothing at all and owed money to the company.
Seventy percent of the workers said they lacked money for even the most basic expenses, and were forced, for example, to go without even bread and tea for breakfast.
Lacking money and with constraints on their freedom of movement the Qin Shi workers making Kathie Lee handbags were being held in conditions resembling indentured servitude.
In a vicious trap, they did not even have enough money to travel to look for other work.
In good news, the Olsen twins recently pledged to help enforce human rights at factories making their private label clothing exclusively for Wal-Mart:
Mary-Kate and Ashley have signed the pledge guaranteeing that any woman sewing their garments in Bangladesh will receive their legal right to three months maternity leave with full pay. Mary-Kate and Ashley are also taking another critical step forward in calling for public disclosure of the names and addresses of factories used in Bangladesh to sew their garments. Hopefully, this will soon also include factories in China and Vietnam.
Disclosure is necessary for independent verification that the rights of the young teenage women garment are they respected. By taking this step towards transparency, the Olsen twins are delivering a very clear message that they are committed to defending the rights of other young women across the developing world who sew their garments. The Olsen twins will be the first celebrities to make this commitment.
...Wal-Mart has not signed the pledge, and has refused to do so for the last seven months, despite the fact that 19 of America's largest apparel companies have done so.
Our concern is that the very positive steps the Olsen twins have taken to guarantee respect for the right of the young women sewing their garments across the developing world will be mocked by Wal-Mart.
[emphasis added]
Notice how Wal-Mart comes out looking bad in both the cheers and jeers here? They get jeers all around.
JR