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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Sweatshops at Home |
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by Nick Berveiler
Email: naberve (nospam) ilstu.edu (unverified!) |
09 Jun 2001
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When a sweatshop is investigated in the USA, 1 out of 3 multinational corporations care. |
Published in the June/July 2001 issue of the Bloomington Normal Post Amerikan
Sweatshops at Home:
When a sweatshop is investigated in the USA, 1 out of 3 multinational corporations care.
For nearly two years Daewoosa Samoa Ltd., a Korean owned factory in American Samoa, made clothing for JC Penny, Target and Sears that was labeled “Made in USA.” The clothing was made using 251 Vietnamese “guest workers” that had obtained work visas from their government to work in the United States.
According to the National Immigration Forum, an employment-based immigration system allows immigrants who have skills and talents needed in the United States to be admitted to work. Under some circumstances, The U.S. Department of Labor must certify that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, qualified, and willing to perform the work.
The situation in American Samoa at the Daewoosa factory clearly fits these requisites. U.S. citizens do not want to work in a sweatshop and have their basic human rights taken away. The National Labor Committee, an independent, non-profit human rights organization focused on the protection of worker rights, has released the details of worker complaints and human rights violations in American Samoa as well as updates when news breaks.
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE USA
Why is clothing for JC Penny, Target and Sears being made by Vietnamese women on U.S. territory and labeled “Made in USA”? This distortion of reality is made worse by the human rights violations that took place at the Daewoosa Factory. The National Labor Committee reports that the workers have been held as indentured servants, locked in the factory behind barbed wire, cheated on wages, worked twelve to eighteen-hour shifts, beaten, lived in rat infested barracks, malnourished, and suffered from substandard living and working conditions, as well as sexual harassment.
Detailed reports about these violations can be found on the National Labor Committee’s website. These facts also come from reports by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
OSHA cited Daewoosa in 1999 because:
“The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to: (a)Cafeteria/Dining Room: Migrant workers were not fed or served with food on March 28, 1999, exposing these employees to hunger and starvation. Among other methods, one feasible and acceptable abatement method to correct this hazard is to provide sustenance for the employees.\"
The Department of Labor reports that “Numerous workers are suffering serious health problems from the malnutrition. Some are walking skeletons. Almost all the others have either blood in stools, pruritis, continual headaches, irregular menstruation, hives, and constipation.” The Department of Labor concluded:
“This is an employer who has not been persuaded by DOL enforcement nor the orders of Samoan High Court to comply with basic minimum standards of safety and health and payment of wages. He ignores court orders and Wage and Hour [DOL] orders to pay his employees, intentionally creates a facade of payment, and has paid virtually no penalties assessed by the DOL. And somehow he happens to have $60,000 in a paper bag to flaunt in front of his investigators. This employer provides substandard food and housing, and again, flagrantly ignores court orders to correct these problems.”
DAEWOOSA FACTORY CLOSED DOWN, OWNER ARRESTED
In March 2001, The FBI arrested Daewoosa’s Korean owner, Mr. Kil Soo Lee with charges of involuntary servitude and forced labor. The FBI complaint also charges that Kil Soo Lee \"defrauded, failed to pay and at times deprived of food, beat and physically restrained these workers to force them to work.” Mr. Kil Soo Lee and the Daewoosa factory failed to pay into Social Security for his employees, despite the fact that this money was deducted from their wages. This has left beaten and injured workers without workers’ compensation.
After two investigations in 1999 and 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor assessed the Daewoosa factory $604,225 in back wages and penalties. The minimum wage in American Samoa is just $2.60 an hour. However, the women were not even paid the already very low $2.60 an hour minimum wage in Samoa.
After the DOL embargoed Daewoosa’s goods, blocking shipment under the hot goods act, Kil Soo Lee withdrew all the funds, leaving the factory bankrupt. Right now the Vietnamese workers are suing Daewoosa for payment of all back wages, which amounts to approximately one million dollars, and they are likely to win. However, this may be an empty victory, since Daewoosa’s owner, Mr. Lee, has bankrupt the factory.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Clearly, Kil Soo Lee and the Daewoosa management are to blame for the horrible treatment of their workers. The corporations who received clothing from Daewoosa do not want you to know that they are involved in this kind of business. The New York Times wrote an article about this issue on Feburary 6th, 2001 following a response by JC Penny. The Department of Labor and the National Labor Committee sent letters to JC Penny expressing concern and JC Penny has agreed to pay the workers for the clothing they made. The New York Times failed to name other corporations receiving clothing from Daewoosa, specifically the corporations who are not paying back the workers. The New York Times does not want you to know that Target and Sears are involved and are not doing anything.
If the U.S. multinational companies do not immediately intervene to pay all back wages, damages and debts, then the Vietnamese workers will be left stranded and penniless. If this happens, the National Labor Committee along with Sweatshop Watch and others will immediately launch a campaign to raise funds for these workers. Illinois State University’s United Students Against Sweatshops is planning a campaign to raise awareness about this issue next fall and will be putting pressure on Target, who has been involved in other sweatshop issues. We are asking for Target to publicly respond and apologize to the Daewoosa factory workers, give back wages to the workers, and make a commitment to end sweatshop abuse by full disclosure and independent monitoring.
The full National Labor Committee report on Daewoosa is at http://www.nlcnet.org/samoa
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