BOYCOTT WALMART!

1world communication has decided to launch Boycott International in recognition of the power of individuals in situations where governments have chosen to, or are unable to, influence companies that exploit children and/or violate basic human rights of their workers.
Global trade and lending organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund have made it harder for organizations in any one country, or even governments to protect the interests of their citizens from the greed of multinational corporations. The assets of some of the largest corporations exceed those of many nations. Only as a united global community can we stop them from destroying the environment, violating the most basic human rights of their workers, and exploiting children as a source of cheap labor.
The pages of Boycott International (BI) will serve as a clearinghouse of information. Occasionally BI will call for a boycott of a company not yet subject to an actual one but, due to it’s gross violations of human rights, we believe should not be patronized.
We have chosen Walmart as the target of our primary call for a boycott because of the company’s unfair labor practices around the world. Not only does this chain mistreat many employees that work for them, it also sells goods made by suppliers that grossly violate the rights of their workers around the world. Despite protests and a law suit they have refused to correct these problems.
The following articles will give you some examples of how Walmart does business.

Walmart
The Walmart Stores, Inc also owns and operates Sam's Club, and according to the financial business summary provided by the U.S. Business Reporter "The Company markets lines of merchandise under store brands including but not limited to "Sam's American Choice", "One Source", "Great Value", "Ol' Roy" and "Equate". The Company also markets lines of merchandise under licensed brands; some of which include "Faded Glory", "Kathie Lee", "White Stag", "Puritan", "Better Homes & Gardens", "Popular Mechanics", "Catalina", "McKids", "Basic Equipment" and "House Beautiful"".
CEO: David Glass
Headquarters: 702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AK 72716
Telephone: 501-273-4000

Table of Contents
Bangladesh
Honduras
Walmart: Words Versus Reality
Please Send A Letter to Walmart
What If Walmart, J.C. Penney and other U.S. Companies Were Actually Lowering Standards in China?
Links

Wal-Mart's Shirts of Misery - Walmart In Bangladesh
(The Following Information on Walmart was Obtained from the National Labor Committee Web-site)
When you purchase a shirt in Walmart, do you ever imagine young women in Bangladesh forced to work from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days a week, paid just 9 cents to 20 cents an hour, who are denied health care and maternity leave; screamed at to work faster; with monitored bathroom visits; and who will be fired for daring to complain or ask for their rights?
At the Beximco factory in the Dhaka Export Processing Zone in Bangladesh, there are 1,000 workers, at least 80 percent of them young women, sewing shirts and pants for Walmart and other retailers. Beximco is a sweatshop, where human rights are systematically violated.

Bangladesh
Sweatshop conditions Beximco/Walmart
Shame on Walmart
Greed in the Global Economy
U.S. Companies Import 732 million garments a year from Bangladesh
What Can We Do?
Support the National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh
Letter to Walmart

Sweatshop Conditions Beximco/Walmart
Beximco Factory, Dhaka Export Processing Zone (EPZ), Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Forced Overtime:
The regular daily work shift starts at 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days a week. Workers are at the factory 87 hours a week and paid for 80 hours (the hour lunch break is unpaid).
Workers are paid less than 1/3 of the legal overtime rate.
It is not uncommon to be forced to remain in the factory beyond 8:00 p.m., working a 24-hour shift right through the night. Days off are very rare
In December 1998, twenty workers were illegally fired at Beximco and denied their legal severance pay for refusing to work an all-night shift on top of their daily 12 1/2 hours of work. Among those illegally fired were: Md. Shahjahan, Emdadul Hague, Khalilur Raham, and Samima Akter.
Under Bangladesh's labor law the regular work week is set at 48 hours, with overtime limited to 12 hours a week, making 60 hours the maximum allowable work week. The Bangladesh labor code requires one full day off a week and overtime to be paid at double the standard hourly rate. Walmart and its contractor, Beximco, are systematically violating these laws.
Starvation Wages:
• 9 to 20 cents an hour
• 40% to 70% below the legal wage
• $4.28 to $9.52 a week
Under EPZ regulations in Bangladesh, sewing operators are to be paid 3360 taka a month for a 48-hour work week. In U.S. dollars, this amounts to $69.28 a month, $15.99 a week, and 33 cents an hour.
However, at the Beximco factory the women sewing Walmart garments are illegally paid just 2,000 TK per month, which means they are earning just $41.24 each month, $9.52 per week, and 20 cents an hour. These women are being cheated of over 40 percent of their legal wage.
Helpers, who assist the sewers by supplying the production line among other tasks, are paid just 9 cents an hour, less than 75 percent of the legal norm.
Overtime work, according to Bangladeshi law, must be paid at double the standard hourly wage of 33 cents an hour. The legal overtime rate, therefore, should be 66 cents an hour, but the Beximco workers earn just 20 cents.
Walmart Workers in Bangladesh Earn:
Sewing operators: 20 cents an hour/ $9.52 a week/ $69.28 a month/ $831.34 a year
Helpers: 9 cents an hour/ $4.28 a week/ $18.56 a month/ $222.68 a year
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Shame on Walmart
Walmart and its contractor Beximco do not pay the overtime premium. In fact, as we have seen, they do not even pay the legal hourly wage of 33 cents. They pay only 20 cents an hour and pay overtime at this same illegal 20-cent rate.
These workers are locked in poverty, being cheated out of over $20 a week in legal wages by the largest retailer in the world. The workers are being illegally paid just $16 for a full 80-hour workweek. For the forced 80-hour week, they should be earning at least $36.96. Surely Walmart, with $7.6 billion in annual operating profits, could afford this wage!
Some of the poorest people in the world are being illegally robbed of their wages, driving them deeper into misery. Even the 33-cent an hour wage does not come close to meeting basic subsistence needs.
This is why in Bangladesh there is no difference in the malnutrition rate of children whether their parents are unemployed or are working in factories sewing garments for the largest U.S. companies. Even the legal minimum wage is set too low to allow the workers to climb out of misery.
No maternity leave: At Beximco, legal maternity leave is denied and benefits are not paid.
Denied health care: By law, a factory the size of Beximco should have a health clinic, with a doctor present. Beximco has nothing. There is an empty first aid box for show. The women workers and their children have absolutely no health coverage or protection.
Access to bathrooms limited: The workers need a ticket and permission to use the bathrooms. Access is limited and bathroom breaks are timed.
Maltreatment/cursing/yelling: There is constant pressure to meet the high daily production goal; the workers are yelled at and cursed at to work faster.
Cheated of their tiny savings: In Bangladesh there is a government regulated savings system whereby a small deduction is made each pay period from the workers' wages and deposited in the Provident Fund, which the factory maintains. The workers can withdraw their savings from this fund when they leave the factory or are fired. It functions as a kind of severance pay, to act as a bridge or means of support while new work is sought. But most workers at Beximco, who have been forced to leave, report that they are cheated of their savings.
No worker has seen Walmart's Code of Conduct: Walmart says it has a corporate code of conduct which guarantees the human and worker rights of anyone sewing Walmart garments around the world. Even by industry standards, Walmart's code of conduct is very limited and extremely weak. Yet the workers at Beximco have never even seen this weak code of conduct. Walmart's code is not posted and it has never been explained to the workers. There has been no attempt to implement the code.
No right to organize: In Bangladesh's EPZs, unions and collective contracts are prohibited by law. The workers have no rights; the government authorities do nothing to implement labor law. The workers are fired for daring to protest forced 24-hour shifts. Denied their right to organize, the workers are isolated and vulnerable -- easily cheated of their legal wages and benefits.
Falling Real Wages
Devaluation and inflation have further eroded the real purchasing power of the Bangledeshi workers' wages.
The local currency, the taka, has lost 19% of its value against the U.S. dollar since 1995. (In 1995, there were TK 40.90 to $1.00. By October 1998, the taka had fallen to TK 48.50 to $1.00.)
There is a five to six percent inflation rate each year.
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Greed in the Global Economy
Walmart and its contractor pay no taxes to sew their garments in the Dhaka EPZ. All that they leave behind is the illegal 20-cent an hour wages and some small rent and fees.
In 1998, total government revenues in Bangladesh amounted to $3.872 billion (TK 187.8 billion), a sum far too low to even provide the most basic services to the over 125 million people in the country.
On the other hand, Walmart's sales in 1998 amounted to $137.6 billion, which means that Walmart's annual sales are 36 times greater than the total revenues of the Bangladeshi government. Yet Walmart does not pay a single cent in taxes or tariffs! Nothing!
Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world, is being forced to subsidize Walmart.
Due to an inadequate tax base and overall low government revenues, Bangladesh must rely upon foreign aid to meet more than one-half of its entire development budget.
In the United States, Walmart also seeks multi-million-dollar state, county and city subsidies as a condition for locating its stores. But there is another indirect subsidy as well: one half of Walmart's 720,000 employees, or "associates" as the company calls them, qualify for federal assistance under the food stamp program. Wages at Walmart, now the largest private sector employer in the U.S., start as low as $5.75 an hour.
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U.S. Companies Import 732 million garments a year from Bangladesh
There are 1.2 million garment workers in Bangladesh.
In 1998, U.S. companies imported $1.63 billion worth of apparel made in Bangladesh. This was a 12 percent increase from 1997.
In 1998, Bangladesh exported 732 million garments to the U.S., making Bangladesh the 5th largest exporter worldwide of apparel to the United States.
Apparel exports to the U.S. increased another 8 percent in the first three months of 1999; Bangladesh now sends the U.S. 67 million garments per month.
We, the American people, are in a unique position to effect change. American companies import, and we purchase, a tremendous amount of garments made in Bangladesh each year. We have the voice to demand that Walmart and other U.S. companies respect the human and worker rights of the people of Bangladesh.
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What Can We Do?
We can have an impact.
We do have a voice.
Walmart sells more clothing in North America than any other company in the United States or Canada. We purchase this clothing. That gives us a voice and the power to demand that Walmart respect human and worker rights in Bangladesh.
Write to or Call Walmart:
Mr. David Glass, President & CEO
Walmart
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
phone: (501) 273-4000
fax: (501) 273-4894
email: letters@Walmart.com
Urge Walmart to:
Respect all local labor laws in Bangladesh, including EPZ wage regulations;
Not cut and run, rather stay and work with Beximco management to bring the plant into compliance with local and international human and worker rights standards;
Immediately reinstate all illegally fired workers, with back pay;
Guarantee payment, at the very least, of all legal wage rates, overtime premiums, and benefits, especially maternity benefits and the savings fund;
End the seven day a week forced overtime; all overtime must be voluntary and paid at double the standard hourly rate; ensure that the workers have at least one full day off a week;
End the maltreatment and abuse of the workers and stop the monitoring of bathroom visits; and
Respect the workers right to organize -- the most fundamental of all internationally recognized labor rights.
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Support the National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh
The National Garment Workers Federation is struggling to defend the rights and dignity of the mostly young women workers in Bangladesh sewing garments for export to the U.S. and Canada. Workers in one of the poorest countries in the world are trying to defend themselves against the largest, most powerful multinationals in the world, like Walmart. If you can, write a letter to Walmart demanding respect for human and worker rights in Bangladesh; that is the most critical solidarity.
You can also help greatly by contributing to a Women's Empowerment Project so that the National Garment Workers Federation can continue to reach out to these most vulnerable workers who are stripped of their rights and locked in the EPZ sewing the clothing that we wear.
Even a dollar will help. Please be involved.
Yes! I want to contribute solidarity to the EPZ Women's Empowerment Project in Bangladesh.
___$5 ___$10 ___$25 ___$50 ___other
The National Labor Committee is a Non-Profit 501-(c)-(3). All donations are tax deductible. Every cent raised will go directly to the union in Bangladesh.
Please call us if you have any questions or ideas.
We are all in this together.
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Walmart should stop hiding its production around the world.
Walmart should trust the American people. If Walmart's policy is not to profit by exploiting illegal sweatshop conditions around the world then why should they be afraid of providing the American people with the names and addresses of the factories that make the Walmart goods we purchase? Surely that is not too much to ask. It's just a matter of transparency.
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National Labor Committee
IN SUPPORT OF WORKER AND HUMAN RIGHTS
275 Seventh Avenue, 15th Floor , New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212-242-3002 ~ Fax: 212-242-3821
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Letter to Walmart President
June 17, 1999
Mr. David Glass, President and CEO
Walmart
702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AK 72716
fax: 501-273-8980

Dear Mr. Glass:
I am very concerned by serious human and worker rights violations at a Walmart contractor's factory in Bangladesh. At the Beximco factory in Dhaka Export Processing Zone, young women sewing clothing for Walmart are paid just 20 cents an hour, while their helpers are paid just 9 cents an hour. These wages are far below the regulation wage set for the Export Processing Zones, which itself is already well below subsistence levels. The young workers are forced to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. The "regular" work week is at least 80 hours! Rest days are few and far between. Workers have been illegally fired for being unable to work a 24-hour shift! Women have been cheated of their proper maternity benefits. The tiny workers' savings in the Provident Fund have been misappropriated. Freedom of association -- the core International Labor Organization worker rights standard, is completely denied at Beximco. There are numerous other violations at the factory, including screaming at the workers and monitoring and limiting their access to the bathroom.
I want to be very clear that we do not want Walmart to pull out of the Beximco factory, but rather to stay and work with your contractor to guarantee that respect for human and worker rights is established at the factory. If Walmart cuts and runs, the real message you leave behind in Bangladesh is that whenever young women workers dare to speak up to defend their rights and dignity, they will be fired and dumped in the street -- of course, without a safety net, and with no savings since their wages are so inadequate. This would be the most irresponsible action Walmart could take. I urge you to stay and work to improve conditions at Beximco.
Will Walmart insist that at least the regulation wage of 33 cents an hour be paid, and that all overtime will be strictly voluntary and compensated at the legal double-time premium? Will Walmart insist on immediate reinstatement of the illegally fired workers, with back pay? Will Walmart guarantee that the freedom of association is protected in the factory; that the maltreatment of the workers be ended, and that maternity leave be properly paid?
Finally, I ask Walmart again, to trust the American people, who have the right to know in which factory and under what conditions the Walmart products we purchase are made. Surely, if Walmart is proud of the conditions under which your products are made, then there is nothing to hide. Will Walmart publicly disclose to the American people the names and addresses of the factories around the world where Walmart's goods are made? This would be the right thing to do, and it would show the world that Walmart is not trying to hide sweatshop abuses.
I am anxiously awaiting your response.
Sincerely,

Charles Kernaghan
Director
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Walmart Sweatshops in Honduras
(The Following Information on Walmart was Obtained from the National Labor Committee Web-site)
"Going into these factories is like entering prison, where you leave your life outside. The factory owners do not let--and don't want--the young workers to think for themselves. They want them to be stupid. The workers need permission to use the bathroom, and they are told when they can and cannot go.
"Young women enter these factories at 14, 15, 16 and 17 years old. They become a mechanism of production, working 9 hours a day plus two, three or four hours overtime, performing the exact same piece operation over and over, day after day. A woman in the pressing department is required to iron 1,200 shirts a day, standing on her feet, her hands and fingers swell up from the hot iron. These young workers rarely last more than six years in the maquila, when they leave exhausted. They leave without having learned any useful skills or developed intellectually. These young workers entered the maquila with a sixth grade education, with no understanding of the maquila, the companies whose clothing they sew or the forces shaping where they fit into the global economy. They soon feel impotent, seeing that the Ministry of Labor does nothing, or almost nothing, to help defend their rights.
Once the women start working in the maquila they often fall into debt. The wages are very low and no one can survive on them."
--A Jesuit Priest in Honduras
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Factory Conditions in Honduras Where Walmart Clothing is Sewn
Table of Contents:
Summary
Walmart Production in Honduras
Evergreen Factory, Rio Blanco Industrial Park
Ecotex factory, Choloma
Seolim Baracoa Factory, Omoa, Department of Cortes
Uniwear Embroiders Honduras SA, Rio Blanco Industrial Park
Forty-three Cents an Hour...The Base Wage in Honduras
Trying to Survive on 43¢ an Hour
Climbing Out of Misery on 79¢ an Hour!
Honduran Free Trade Zones are Booming
Walmart Squeezes Tiny Honduras for Tax Subsidy

SUMMARY
Forced overtime: In some factories workers have to work up to 14-hour daily shifts. On occasion there are mandatory 24-hour shifts, working right through the night, seven-day work weeks. If a worker cannot stay for the overtime, they are suspended without pay or fired.
Starvation wages: the 43-cent-an-hour base wage meets only 54 percent of the cost of survival. Workers sewing Walmart clothing cannot afford to purchase milk, juice, meat, fish, fruit, cereals, or vitamins for their children. Nor can they afford to buy new clothing. Christmas is just like every other day for these families. There is no money for a special meal or even the cheapest of toys to give as gifts to their children.
The majority of the workers are young women: some as young as 14, 15 or 16 years old. The women sit on hard wooden benches, without back rests, in long production lines of 60 or more sewers, for 12 hours a day or more, in a hot, windowless, dusty factory. They enter at 7 a.m. and leave at 7 p.m. when it is already dark. They are not allowed to talk, and they need permission to use the bathroom, which is monitored and limited. Everyone works by piece rate, repeating the same sewing operation 1,200 to 1,500 times a day. Often loud music is blasted in the factory, as if it will make the women work faster.
Humiliation: It is common for the supervisors to scream and yell at the workers to go faster, and even to throw the garments in the women's faces if they see so much as a loose thread.
Denial of sick days and health care: Permission to be absent is almost never given, even if there is a sick child at home that requires care. Though money is deducted from the workers' wages, they are rarely allowed to use the Social Security health clinic during working hours. Many factories simply cheat the workers by illegally pocketing their Social Security deductions. It is also common to be shortchanged of the legal vacation period.
There is absolutely no right to freedom of association: The right to organize is totally denied. Anyone even suspected of organizing a union is immediately, and illegally, fired. The workers do not even have the right to meet so they can learn their rights, let alone raise a grievance.
No worker in these factories ever heard of the Walmart Code of Conduct: Once again, the so-called Walmart human rights screening of contractors, their Code of Conduct and its implementation, in reality is completely phony. Once again, it is a failure.
If Walmart actually believed in human rights, and they were not trying to cover up serious abuses, they would provide the American people with the names and addresses of the factories they use in Honduras and other countries around the world.
Walmart must be made to comply with all local labor and human rights laws in Honduras.
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Walmart Production in Honduras
Evergreen Factory, Rio Blanco Industrial Park:
Korean-owned; 630 workers. Sews McKids Walmart's children's clothing. (Also sews Arizona for J.C. Penney.)
Forced overtime: Fourteen-hour shifts Monday through Friday, and nine-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. Working seven days a week, 88 hours a week.
In one four-month period, between March and July, 1998, there were constant, mandatory seven-day work weeks.
Monday through Friday: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. , Saturday, Sunday: 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
All overtime work is obligatory. Failure to work is punished with several days' suspension without pay, or by firing. Sometimes the workers were forced to put in 35-hour shifts, working from 7:00 a.m. right through the night and until 4:00 p.m. the next day.
Forty-three cents an hour: The base wage at the Evergreen factory is 46.80 lempiras a day, or $3.47, which comes to 43 cents an hour. (46.80 lempiras ÷ 13.5 lmp/$1 = $3.47; $3.47 ÷ 8 hours = 43 cents.) If a worker received the seventh day attendance bonus, the weekly wage would be $24.27.
Fire exits are blocked. As Evergreen does not own a warehouse, clothing materials and boxes are stacked everywhere, obstructing factory aisles and fire exits. The fire extinguishers are empty, and there is no first aid kit.
The factory is very hot, especially in the area of production lines #1 and #2.
Given the lack of adequate ventilation in parts of the factory, the air is heavy with lint from the cut clothing. This is especially the case in and near the cutting section. No protective respiratory masks are distributed to the workers.
The bathrooms are filthy, and the workers must ask permission to use them, which is limited. For all 630 workers there are only four bathrooms for the men and eight for the women. It is common for the water to be off two to three hours a day. The stench coming from the bathrooms is intolerable.
The workers are cheated of their Social Security health care. In Honduras, to qualify for the national Social Security health care system, four percent of the workers' wage is deducted. The company must then contribute an amount of money equal to eight percent of the workers' wages. This covers the worker and her children for medical exams, medicines and hospitalization. At Evergreen, the management stole the workers' Social Security deductions and pocketed the money. Of course, they did not pay their eight percent fee to the government either. Well over 80 percent of the workers at Evergreen were cheated like this, so they had no health care protection, even though they paid for it. (The amount of money involved is seemingly very small, though it is a life or death matter for the workers and their children. On average, perhaps $4.30 per month was stolen from the workers, while the company shortchanged the Social Security system by failing to contribute its $8.60 per month share for each worker. Given that around 567 workers were cheated, this saved the company over $7,300 per month.)
The Evergreen factory has not, and will not, allow a union to be formed. The workers know that anyone who even thinks of it will be immediately fired.
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Ecotex factory, Choloma:
Korean-owned; 250 to 300 workers.
The workers at Ecotex had sewn Walmart clothing, recognizing and pointing out the McKids, White Stag, In Design and Simply Basic labels. Current production is for J.C. Penney. (Walmart and other company labels pass in and out of these factories depending on the season, the style and the size of the run.)
Ecotex workers told us that there were "many minors working in the factory."
Forced overtime--11-hour shifts Monday through Friday, and either a 3 ½ or an 8 ½-hour shift on Saturday, which means the workers were at the factory 53 ½ to 57 ½ hours a week. All overtime was obligatory.
Sewers earned 46 cents an hour, which is well below subsistence levels.
The workers need permission to drink water. If they fail to get permission, they are punished.
The bathrooms are kept locked, and opened only two hours per shift. The workers need permission to use the bathroom, which is marked down and limited to one use per shift. There is no toilet paper.
The garments the workers are working on are sometimes grabbed by the supervisors and thrown in the workers' faces, while they are screamed at for any "mistake," such as a loose thread hanging out.
No absences are permitted. If a pregnant woman loses a day, or part of it, to go to the health clinic, she is docked two days' wages.
The Ecotex workers complained of back pain (from the hard wooden benches without backs) and of bronchial problems and allergies from constantly breathing in the dust from the fabric.
Here too, 1/3 of the workers were not subscribed into the Social Security health care system, although their wages were deducted. Factories' cheating workers of their Social Security deductions is a widespread practice in Honduras.
Workers reported being shortchanged on their legal vacation time and pay.
There is no right to freedom of association at the Ecotex factory. On August 1, the workers staged a spontaneous work stoppage for two or three hours, as a last resort to protest continuing maltreatments. Ecotex management responded by deducting four days' wages from the workers' pay checks. Following the work stoppage, four or five workers were illegally fired. The company suspected they were organizing a union.
No worker had heard of the Walmart Code of Conduct. Certainly no explanation was ever given to the workers regarding Walmart's "commitment to assuring respect for human and worker rights.
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Seolim Baracoa Factory, Omoa, Department of Cortes:
Korean-owned (Owner and general manager is Robert Wang); 300 workers. Seolim is currently sewing pants and shirts for Walmart carrying the White Stag and Faded Glory labels.
Forced overtime: 57-to-61-hour work weeks. Monday through Friday: 7:15 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. , Saturday: 7:15 a.m. to noon or 4:00 p.m.
43-cent-an-hour wages.
70 to 72 workers on a production line have a daily quota of 1,300 finished garments to complete.
For years there have been serious and widespread human and worker rights violations at the Seolim factory, including the hiring of minors, forced overtime, union busting through illegal firings and physical and verbal maltreatment.
Now, Robert Wang is trying to close the factory and flee Honduras without paying back wages or the severance he owes the workers. He is secretly selling off the sewing machines while cutting production from eight to three-and-a-half lines.
For over six months, there have been constant delays in payment of the workers' weekly wages. Nor have they received their 13th month's pay, a legal bonus which Seolim was supposed to pay at the beginning of the year.
In September, when in desperation, the workers went on strike to demand the wages owed them and to protest the ongoing maltreatment, Robert Wang tried to bring a terrorism charge against the young workers.
No worker has heard of, or was even aware of, the so-called Walmart Code of Conduct, which is supposed to guarantee the rights of these workers.
Walmart must intervene immediately to guarantee payment of all back wages owed the workers, and to end the ongoing human and worker rights violations. If the Seolim factory does close, Walmart must see to it that the workers receive their proper legal severance payments. The workers' lives depend on this, since there is no unemployment insurance in Honduras, and since the wages are so low--actually below subsistence levels--no worker has any savings. They are forced to live from day to day, from hand to mouth.
Walmart must not be allowed to walk away and abandon these workers who have sewn Walmart's clothing.
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Uniwear Embroiders Honduras SA, Rio Blanco Industrial Park:
Korean-owned. This is a small factory of 30 workers who do embroidery on McKids girls' blouses under subcontract for other factories in the park.
Forced overtime--74-hour, seven-day work week. Monday through Friday: 7:15 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday: 7:15 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
If a worker cannot stay for the mandatory overtime for any reason--for example, because there is a young child uncared for at home, or because the worker needs to attend night school to finish grammar or high school or because the worker is sick--they are suspended without pay for three days. The second time this happens the suspension is for five days, the third time for eight days and the fourth time, the worker is fired.
Every worker must embroider 400 garments per day.
The bathrooms are filthy; the workers are constantly screamed at; and there were the same irregularities with the workers' Social Security deductions.
There is no right to organize.
The workers never heard of any such thing as the Walmart Code of Conduct. When questioned about it, they had no idea what we were talking about.
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Forty-three Cents an Hour...The Base Wage in Honduras
* 43¢ an hour (5.85 lempiras)
* $3.47 per day (46.80 lempiras)
* $24.27 per week (326.60 lempiras, i.e. if the worker is paid the 7th day "attendance bonus.")
* $105.16 per month (1,419.60 lempiras)
* $1,261.87 per year (17,035.20 lempiras)
(There are 13.5 lempiras to $1 U.S.)
Note: Real wages continue to fall in Honduras, as inflation is expected to reach 16.3% for 1998, and 13.7% in 1999--further eating away at the purchasing power of the workers' wages.
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Trying to Survive on 43¢ an Hour
Can a worker sewing Walmart clothing in Honduras survive on the 43¢-an-hour wage? Just barely, with a lot of misery and scrambling to make ends meet.
Consider a worker's daily expenses.--Remember, she earns only $3.47 a day:
* Round trip bus to work costs... $ .37
* A small breakfast costs... $ .89
* A modest lunch of rice, tortillas, a scrap of chicken costs... $ 1.33
subtotal: $ 2.59
Just surviving and getting to and from work costs $2.59 a day, leaving only 80¢ out of your $3.47 daily pay. How can the worker and her family survive on only 80¢ a day?
Rent, for the cheapest one-room hovel in a dangerous neighborhood costs 350 lempiras a month, or $26, which come to--- daily cost for rent $ .86
If the worker pays the rent, there is nothing left over, in fact, she is in debt. What about food for the family, school costs, utilities, clothes, doctors bills, medicines?
Food--for a family of five, the most basic subsistence diet, surviving without meat, fish, vitamins, milk, cereals, fruit, cheese, juice--costs $22.74 per week (307 lempiras). This diet consists mostly of beans, rice, tortillas, potatoes, pasta, eggs and coffee.
If a worker were to purchase two pounds of meat it would cost $3.27, nearly an entire day's wages. A pound of cheese would cost 4 ½ hours work. Even to strictly ration out small portions of milk to three children for the week would cost five hours' wages. So the families must go without.
For a family just to survive, they would need to allocate $3.25 a day for food, which is just 65 cents per person per day. But on the wages the workers earn sewing Walmart garments, not even this can be afforded.
School: What if a family has a child in public school? When the school year opens in September, it costs 500 lempiras--a week and a half's wages--to purchase the required uniforms, shoes, notebooks and pencils and school books.
School lunches for each child cost between $3.70 and $4.44 per week, or 74¢ to 88¢ each day.
Day Care: The companies, by law, are supposed to provide day care for the workers' children. They do not. Safe but basic day care costs 200 lempiras a week--over four days' wages! Who can afford this?
So, these families are trapped in misery. Despite the fact that they sew Walmart clothing up to 14 hours a day, no worker we spoke with could afford to purchase new clothing. Everything they buy for themselves and their families is used clothing--returned from the U.S.
The women told us that Christmas is "just like every other day" for their families, since they "have no money for special foods or gifts." Even the smallest cardboard toys are out of reach.
Many women fall into debt, forced to live on credit. Interest on a loan is 20% per week.
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Even the United States government has been forced to conclude:
"The minimum wage [in Honduras] is considered insufficient to provide for a decent standard of living for a worker and family."
-- U.S. Commerce Department report, February 17, 1998
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Several private physicians who treat women from the maquila confirm that the workers' children are malnourished, suffering low body weight and repeated illnesses, especially respiratory and gastro-intestinal infections. Also, since there is no sufficient, affordable day care and the mothers are at work so many hours, the children are growing up deprived, with no motivation to develop.
These doctors also noted pronounced bronchial hyperactivity, asthma and bronchitis among the maquila workers, which they could only attribute to the cloth dust which permeates the factory air.
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Climbing Out of Misery on 79¢ an Hour!
The factory workers in Honduras told us they could survive, very poorly, but at least climb out of misery, if they earned 79¢ an hour, or $6.35 per day. This would amount to $44.44 a week.
Surely Walmart could afford this very, very easily. Walmart made $7.6 billion operating profit last year, and CEO David Glass pays himself $2,000 an hour--of course, not to mention the hundreds of millions in stock options he takes.
Nor would Honduras lose its low wage "competitive advantage" that the multinationals hunger for, since 79¢-an-hour wages are still less than 1/10th of U.S. apparel wages.
Walmart can and must pay the workers sewing their clothing a living wage--even if that is as low as 79 cents an hour in Honduras.
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Honduran Free Trade Zones are Booming
* Honduras is now the 4th largest exporter of apparel to the United States worldwide (following only China/Hong Kong, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.)
* In 1997, apparel exports from Honduras to the U.S. were up 36 percent over 1996, reaching $1.7 billion.
* In the first six months of 1998, apparel exports were up another 20 percent (20.14%).
* There are over 100,000 maquila workers in Honduras, mostly young women sewing clothing in 151 factories for export to the U.S.
* This year, Honduras will export 480 million garments to the United States, with a value of $2 billion.
* A new law has turned the entire country of Honduras into one giant free trade zone, where assembly factories--domestic and foreign--can set up anywhere tax free.
* The only thing that is not booming is respect for worker rights and a living wage.
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Walmart Squeezes Tiny Honduras for Tax Subsidy
Walmart clothing is produced in Honduras tax free. Walmart and its contractors use free trade zones, which are 100 percent tax free--no corporate taxes, no entry or exit tariffs, not even a sales tax can be collected. It is as if Walmart and the other multinationals force the Honduran government to subsidize their manufacturing operations there. If Walmart were not granted these tax breaks, they would move to another country.
All this despite the fact that Walmart's annual sales of $118 billion are 98 times greater than the entire national budget of the country of Honduras, which is $1.2 billion. At the same time, Honduras continues to stagger under a $4.3 billion foreign debt.
The only things Walmart leaves behind in Honduras are the below-subsistence 43-cent-an-hour wage and the factory rent--nothing else. This is easily demonstrated. There are very few backward linkages from these free trade zones to the local economy. In fact, 81 percent of the total value of the maquila export is composed of foreign inputs, and only 19 percent is value added in Honduras. In other words, Walmart and the other multinationals are simply chasing low wages and no labor rights regulations. This is no long range development strategy.
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Walmart: Words Versus Reality
(The Following Information on Walmart was Obtained from the National Labor Committee Web-site)
July 1999
Walmart says it has a Code of Conduct and monitoring program which guarantees respect for the human rights of any worker, anywhere in the world, who produces goods for sale in Walmart stores. But in Saipan the reality for the women sewing Walmart clothing is:
10-to-12-hour shifts, seven days a week
$3 an hour wages
Young women fired and deported for becoming pregnant, refusing to work overtime without pay, or complaining about working or living conditions.

Table of Contents
Walmart Says
Then why is Walmart being sued?
Walmart in Saipan
Here’s how the system operates
Walmart’s Zero Tolerance for Human Rights Violators
Walmart on Monitoring
Walmart Says Its Factories Are Just Too Good To Disclose Their Whereabouts
Gap, J. Crew, and The Limited all used the Mirage factory along with Walmart! What Secrecy? It is all a hoax!
Working for The Limited and Nordstrom in Saipan
Nor does Walmart support independent verification of factory conditions or payment of a living wage

Walmart says:
"Walmart is a success because its associates are considered partners and a strong level of teamwork has developed within the company. Walmart expects the spirit of its commitment to be reflected by its Vendor Partners with respect to their employees.”
(Walmart Stores, Inc. “Standards for Vendor Partners”)
“Walmart favors vendor partners who have a social and political commitment to basic principles of human rights.” (Ibid.)
“Walmart encourages industry standards to be continually improving.”
(Walmart’s “Standards for Vendor Partners,” June 1997)
“Walmart is proud of the numerous inroads and improvements our factory certification programs have brought to factories all over the world.”
(Walmart press release, March 18, 1998)
“We are diligent about the enforcement of those codes and the consequences of violating them.”
“A strong policy is the beginning. The key is our diligent enforcement of those policies.”
(Walmart’s “Standards for Vendor Partners,” June, 1997)
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Then why is Walmart being sued?
The reality is that Walmart is now being sued in a class action suit being brought by the law firm Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes and Lerach LLP for either knowingly or recklessly and negligently disregarding the systematic violation of human and worker rights at its contractor’s factory in the U.S. Commonwealth of Saipan. Walmart is being sued for conspiring to hold workers in conditions of peonage and indentured servitude.
Walmart and the other “Retailer Defendants who purchase and sell these garments (and, therefore, have the greatest control over the conduct of their contractors to correct such conduct as a precondition of doing business with them) are aware of or recklessly or negligently disregarding these conditions, even though many of these retailers either have offices in Saipan, visit the factories for quality control purposes and/or claim to have extensive monitoring programs in place, purportedly to prevent the very conditions that exist in garment industry of the CNMI (Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands). These Retailer Defendants profit from this system, participating in an unlawful enterprise with the garment factory owners, recruitment agencies and others to unlawfully evade laws prohibiting peonage, indentured servitude and violation of internationally recognized civil and human rights, and are therefore responsible to the class of workers sought to be represented for the violations of law described herein.”
(United States District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division, 1999)
Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes and Lerach, LLP
355 South Grand Avenue, Suite 4170
Los Angeles, CA 90071
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Walmart in Saipan
Between 1994 and 1998, Walmart imported 7.3 million pounds of clothing made in Saipan, with a retail value of at least $88 million.
Saipan is part of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. Commonwealth in the South Pacific. This allowed Walmart and the other retailers to say their clothing was “Made in the USA.”
Though Saipan is a U.S. Commonwealth and considered U.S. soil, it is not covered by U.S. minimum wage or immigration laws. This is how Walmart got away with paying $3-an-hour wages to contract workers brought in from China.
From Saipan, Walmart and the other retailers could export their clothing duty-free to the U.S., with absolutely no quota restrictions. Walmart and the others saved over $200 million a year by avoiding U.S. duties and tariffs. Such a system also allowed China to get around its quota restrictions by simply shifting production to Saipan and entering the U.S. through the back door.
Overall, about 85 percent of the $1 billion of clothing made in Saipan each year and sent to the U.S. was considered “sensitive apparel,” meaning that there were significant job loss and plant closings in the U.S. where this type of apparel was being made.
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Walmart’s clothing is made in Saipan at a factory called Mirage.
Here’s how the system operates:
Walmart Says: Buy American Policy
“Walmart has a strong commitment to buy as much merchandise made in the United States as feasible. Vendor Partners are encouraged to buy as many materials and components from the United States as possible. Further, Vendor Partners are encouraged to establish U.S. manufacturing operations.”
(Walmart Stores Inc. “Standards for Vendors”)
“Made Right Here, Walmart’s unprecedented commitment to purchase from American vendor-partners whenever pricing . . . is comparable to goods made offshore . . .” (“A Good Neighbor” 1998, Walmart web page. Emphasis added)
But the Reality is:
Fifteen thousand, mostly young women, were brought from China as contract workers to Saipan, where they were employed in sweatshops which are 70 percent foreign-owned, using foreign machinery, foreign textiles, and overseen by foreign managers, sewing clothing for export to the U.S.
Of all Walmart’s private label apparel, only 17% is made in the U.S.! 83% is made offshore.
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The women sewing U.S. garments in Saipan could be fired and deported if:
They fell in love;
Got married;
Became pregnant (terminate pregnancy or be deported);
Participated in political or religious activities;
Failed to meet their daily production quota;
Refused to work overtime, including unpaid “volunteer” hours;
Criticized working or living conditions;
Participated in any activities which lessened their energy for work;
Refused to lie to inspectors regarding safety conditions at work, the number of hours worked, the true number of women living in each barracks room;
Asked for a higher wage;
Tried to organize a union.
Remember, these are conditions at factories on U.S. soil making garments for Walmart and the other major retailers.
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Walmart’s Zero Tolerance for Human Rights Violators
“Since 1992, Walmart has required its vendor-partners to comply with stringent standards in their relationships with contractors and subcontractors.” (Jay Allen, Walmart Vice President for Corporate Affairs, March 23, 1998 letter)
“Walmart has zero-tolerance for forced...labor, as well as mental or physical disciplinary practices.” (Walmart “Standards for Vendor Partners,” June 1997)
“We favor Vendor Partners who utilize less than sixty-hour work weeks, and will not use suppliers who, on a regularly scheduled basis, require employees to work in excess of a sixty-hour week.”
“Walmart prefers work weeks limited to sixty hours per week with one day off per seven-day week.” (Walmart’s “Standards for Vendor Partners” June 1997)
“Employees should be permitted reasonable days off and leave privileges.” (Ibid.)
“Walmart favors Vendor Partners who have a social and political commitment to basic principles of human rights and who do not discriminate against their employees . . . on the basis of national origin, gender, religion . . . or political opinions.” (Ibid.)
“Factories working on Walmart merchandise shall provide adequate medical facilities, fire exits and safety equipment, well lit work stations, clean restrooms, and adequate living quarters when necessary.” (Walmart Stores, Inc. “Standards for Vendor Partners”)
“Walmart asks Vendors to provide safe, clean, and healthy working conditions for their employees.” (Walmart’s “Standards for Vendor Partners,” June 1997)
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While in Reality, Human Rights Were Completely Trampled
This is how the conspiracy to strip the workers of their rights was organized in Saipan.
Private employment agencies working with the Saipan contractors sent recruiters to China, where they told young women that they could get good, well-paying jobs in the U.S., working in clean and safe factories, all travel expenses paid. If they wanted to work, all they had to do was sign on the dotted line and everything would be taken care of for them.
However, they would have to pay a small recruitment fee to the agency, ranging from $2,000 to $7,000. For that, they would get a one-year work contract in Saipan.
Once in Saipan, they would be housed in dorms in the factory compound and fed. For this they would have to pay $200 a month, $100 for food and $100 for dorm expenses.
The women were given just a one-year work contact and they had to stay with the contractor they were delivered to.
They were paid just $3 an hour. Now, imagine if they worked a 45-hour week. This would mean they would earn $135 a week.
The average recruitment fee the Chinese women had to pay was $5,000. In addition, they would have to pay $2,400 for food and dorm expenses for the year ($200/mo food & dorm x 12 months = $2,400). That means that the women have to pay off $7,400 in expenses to the company during their one-year contract. But if they work 45 hours a week for the entire year, they will only earn $7,020 - which is even less than their expenses.
Two things are clear here. One, the women didn’t work 45-hour weeks. Two, they were being held under conditions of peonage, bound financially to the factory. As much as 90 percent of their wages went to pay off their expenses until their debt was cleared. These women were in the position of indentured servants.
In fact, the Federal-CNMI Initiative on Labor stated that the “[Clinton] Administration continues to be concerned about the CNMI’s heavy and unhealthy dependence upon an indentured alien worker program and on trade loopholes to expand its economy.” (Fourth Annual Report, Class Action Law Suit, page 68)
Forced, underpaid overtime
Unreachable quotas
84-hour work week
24-hour shifts
Factory temperature of 100 deg. F
Passports and Visas confiscated
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Walmart on Monitoring: The company runs a tight ship - or so they say
“Walmart is giving greater emphasis than ever to making sure our associates, manufacturers and others understand our strict standards and the consequences of non-compliance.” (Jay Allen, “Walmart Vice President for Corporate Affairs, Letter, November 4, 1998)
“The Company is proud of its factory inspection program and believes that much good has been accomplished through the program.”
“Each year, Walmart’s exclusive buying agent inspects every factory that produces goods for which Walmart is the importer of record.” (Walmart’s Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, June 6, 1997)
“Vendor Partners shall designate . . . one or more of its officers to inspect each of its facilities which produces merchandise sold to Walmart. Such inspections shall be done on at least a quarterly basis to insure compliance with the standards...” (Walmart Stores, Inc., “Standards for Vendor Partners)
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Factory Life in Saipan: 10 to 12 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week
The regular work week is 10 hours a day, seven days a week. However, on a regular basis the women would be paid for only 8 hours, being forced to work the extra hours for free. This was very common at Walmart’s contractors’ factory where the women were obligated to “volunteer” 12 to 14 hours a week to the company, unpaid. Across Saipan, workers are routinely and illegally underpaid overtime hours.
One way the factories sought to avoid paying legal overtime premiums was to set the daily production quota so high that no worker could possibly reach her quota in the regular eight hours. Then the workers were forced to stay until they fulfilled their goal. Or if they made “mistakes,” they were forced to remain without pay until all the repairs were completed.
Days off for rest were minimal. It was not uncommon to be forced to stay for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, put-ting in an 84-hour workweek. At some of the factories, they kept the women working right through the night, putting in a 24-hour work day, when shipments had to get out.
Temperatures in the factories could reach 100 degrees and little clean drinking water was available to the workers. It gets even worse - If you speak up to defend yourself you will be fired and deported.
Along with the one-year work contract, most workers also had to sign a “shadow contract” with their employer. At any rate, everyone knew what the reality was.
In some of the factories, management confiscated the passports and visas of the workers.
Everyone knew that if they violated factory “rules” they could be fired and deported, and could face arrest when they arrived in China. They would also be facing huge debts, having to immediately pay off the recruitment fee and return airfare to China. They and their families would be ruined. They had no money. So they could be jailed, or forced to live indefinitely in debt.
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These Are No College Dorms&ldots;
When they weren’t locked in the factory, typically 4 to 6 women would share one 10 by 25-foot, hot, often insect-infected room. The food would be poorly prepared and often inedible. In many of the barracks, water was turned on only 15 minutes a day for bathing. Even drinking water was not provided on a regular basis.
The dorms were guarded and surrounded by barbed wire. Even when they weren’t working, the women’s movements were severely restricted. They were given specific curfews. In some barracks, guards demanded that the women account for their whereabouts before they could leave.
Here is what the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) had to say about the barracks conditions endured by the workers in Saipan who were sewing garments for export to the U.S. According to the class action suit:
“During the first half of 1997, OSHA sent four inspection teams to the CNMI and found over 500 violations in the labor barracks alone. Inspectors confirmed the claims of Class members that barracks were unhealthy, with overcrowding, unsanitary facilities, dirty and inoperable toilets, dirty kitchens and electrical hazards. Further, federal investigators noted evidence of Class members being abused or fired for complaining about these poor facilities. During the most recent inspections carried out in February 1998, the OSHA Regional Administrator noted in an interview with a local news agency that working conditions in Saipan were worsening. In fact, since 1993, there have been over one thousand regulatory violations identified by OSHA inspectors in the CNMI garment factories with which the Retailer Defendants do business.” (Class Action Suit, pg. 69)
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Walmart Says Its Factories Are Just Too Good To Disclose Their Whereabouts
According to Walmart spokeswoman Betsy Reithemeyer : “If we find a very good factory we want to keep it to ourselves.” “This is very competitive,” she said. (Providence Journal Bulletin, June 19, 1998)
Jay Allen, Walmart’s Vice President of corporate affairs, also weighed in opposing public disclosure of the factory locations where Walmart goods are produced.
“The media has not been so quick to report on Walmart’s aggressive program to help prevent child labor and human rights abuses by manufacturers who produce apparel and other merchandise sold in our stores.” Mr. Allen continued, “We are outraged when we discover a manufacturer has violated our strict standards and produced merchandise under sweatshop conditions.”
Then why oppose transparency in the global economy? Why shouldn’t the American people be trusted? Why won’t Walmart take the simple step of disclosing the names and locations of the factories around the world that produce Walmart goods? This would be the most direct way to show that Walmart isn’t trying to hide sweatshop abuses from the American people.
Here’s what Mr. Allen has to say: “Recently, there have been requests for retailers to reveal the locations of the factories their suppliers use. As with many aspects of the apparel business, the factories used to produce merchandise provide a competitive advantage to retail suppliers. The industry standard and practice is not to reveal the factories or their locations, just as businesses do not talk about all of their sources. Walmart and our vendors adhere to these industry standards and practices.” (Jay Allen, Walmart Vice-President, November 4th, 1998 Letter)
No one would doubt that finding a factory making clothing carrying the “Made in the U.S.A.” label while paying the workers $2.15 below the U.S. minimum wage, forcing them to work 70 to 84 hours a week, cheating them of their overtime pay, and firing and deporting them if they fail to meet their excessively high daily production goal or dare criticize their working conditions, gives Walmart a “competitive advantage.”
That is exactly why the American people have the right to know where, in which factory, under what human rights conditions, and at what wages the products we purchase are made. Full public disclosure of factory locations brings desperately needed transparency to the global economy, so companies can be held accountable to respect human rights and pay a living wage. Trust but verify. Once the locations of the factories are known, independent respected local religious, human rights, and labor rights organizations can verify compliance with human and worker rights.
But independent verification is exactly what Walmart is afraid of. Why?
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Consider Walmart’s production in Saipan. Is this what they are trying to hide?
In the Mirage factory in Saipan, young women from China sew Walmart clothing 70 hours a week for $3 an hour.
Here’s how one of the woman plaintiffs in the class action suit describes conditions at Mirage (to prevent serious retaliation she is referred to as “Doe I”): Page 8 Class Action Lawsuit
“Doe I fears that if her true identity is revealed, she will face actual physical violence, deportation to China, an acceleration of the debt she incurred for her recruitment fees, other retribution reflecting her ability to earn sufficient funds for subsistence, and similar threats of economic and physical retaliation to her family in China. During the time of her employment, Doe I was threatened by managers and supervisors of defendant Mirage Inc. with being deported if she complained about imposed involuntary time, as she and other workers were required to provide 12-14 voluntary hours per week for which they were not paid. Doe I was told by fellow workers that employees that become pregnant while in Saipan had to either terminate the pregnancy or would be deported. Doe I was told by her supervisor to work with an injured finger, as well as to remove safety guards after any inspectors left the garment factory to speed up production. Little water was provided to her in the factory, she received poor, often inedible food, and the factory only had two restrooms and six unkempt toilets for 250 women.”
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Trade Secret? Hardly, since every other retailer knows which factories the other companies are using. In fact, in any given factory, several retailers’ labels are being sewn side by side.
There is another problem with Walmart’s claim that it must keep its “very good” factories secret for rear of competition. The problem is that the competition is also using the Mirage factory in Saipan and their labels are being sewn simultaneously alongside Walmart’s clothing.
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Gap, J. Crew, and The Limited all used the Mirage factory along with Walmart! What Secrecy? It is all a hoax!
Recently the National Labor Committee asked a buyer for major U.S. retailers about the secrecy of factory locations. Her response was: “What secrecy? Why do you need disclosure? Everyone already knows what factories the companies are using. It is no secret, nothing is being hidden.”
In other words, everyone in the industry already knows what factories the companies are using. The only people who don’t know are the American people. And Walmart wants to keep it like that.
When we pressed the buyer further, she explained that: “no company wants to give up its new styles. For example, if The Gap had a new tank top going into production, they would not want the details of the style being broadcast publicly before the garment was well into production and ready for shipping into the U.S.”
But we don’t care about the style of the garment, and we have never asked for it. All we want to know is which factories Walmart is using around the world to produce the goods we purchase in their stores.
There is no legal justification for keeping factory locations secret. Mere factory location does not constitute trade secret. Further, there are no exclusive contracts. As we have seen, the various labels of several different retailers are commonly produced side by side in any factory.
What conclusions can there be, other than that Walmart opposes full public disclosure in order to continue to hide its sweatshop production around the world.
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Working for The Limited in Saipan
Limited garments are sewn at the American Pacific factory in Saipan. The Class Action plaintiff is here referred to as Doe VI, for fear that if her real identity is revealed she could face actual physical violence and deportation to China.
Page 12 of the Class Action suit:
“Upon arriving at defendant American Pacific’s facilities in China, Doe VI’s passport and visa were confiscated by defendant’s management and she was threatened with deportation if she did not meet her quotas or complained about working conditions. Doe VI reported witnessing workers being whipped with rags by American Pacific manager if they did not meet their quota and using obscenities such as the workers “needed to be treated like dogs” to get them to work. Doe VI’s living quarters were insect and rat-infested, and she shared 20 square meters of space with three other women. When Doe VI recently requested to leave the CNMI to return to China, one American Pacific manager began to beat her and pull her hair, cutting her hands in the process and leaving her arms severely bruised.”
Working For Nordstrom In Saipan
Nordstrom clothing is sewn at the Global Manufacturing Inc. plant in Saipan. The class action plaintiff is referred to as Doe V, for fear of retaliation should her identity be known.
Page 11 of the class action suit:
“Upon arriving at defendant Global Manufacturing facilities from China, Doe V’s passport and visa were confiscated by Global management and, during a new employee meeting, she was threatened with deportation if she did not meet her quotas, complained about working or living conditions, became pregnant, attended church services, or otherwise used energy that should be devoted to work. Doe V was denied medical care despite requesting to see a doctor. Doe V’s housing quarters were insect and rat-infested and surrounded by a fence, and she shared a 10 square meter space with one other woman. Doe V personally witnessed a warning by Global Manufacturing Inc. management that a worker who was pregnant would be sent home to China, and therefore unable to pay the debt incurred for the recruiting fee, if she did not terminate her pregnancy.”
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Nor does Walmart support independent verification of factory conditions or payment of a living wage
Walmart’s position is:
“Walmart believes that it is extremely impractical for a retailer to monitor community wages on a global basis. It is also impractical for Walmart, or any other retailer, to monitor purchasing power on a global basis, especially when the company has no direct contractor relationship with the suppliers.”
“The shareholder resolution also asks Walmart to take steps that are too broad. For example, the proponents want Walmart to force vendors to raise wages beyond legally required minimum wages and to pay outside corporations with little or no factory inspection experience to conduct inspections. The company believes that these portions of the proposal could be very costly, placing the company at a competitive advantage, while having little real impact.”
(Shareholder resolution brought by the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Pension and Health Benefits/ Walmart’s Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, June 6, 1997.)
In other words, Walmart refuses to open its factories to respected religious and human rights organizations - who are not on Walmart’s payroll - to independently verify compliance with respect for human rights. This way Walmart can continue to hide its sweatshop production around the world, including1000 factories in China alone! For anyone who would actually care enough to look, it is clear that minimum wages around the developing world are often set well below subsistence levels, as poor nations are locked into a desperate competition to attract multinational investment and jobs. Take El Salvador, for example, where Walmart sources production. The minimum wage is just 60 cents an hour. No one can survive on that wage. To climb out of misery and into poverty, a worker would need to earn about $1.18 an hour. Would that be too much for Walmart to afford, given its $7.6 billion a year in operating profits?
If Walmart did the right thing they could have a huge impact on the global economy. Walmart’s annual sales of 137.6 billion are larger than the GDP - the entire economic output - of 155 countries, and there are only 192! Imagine if Walmart acted responsibly!
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For more information on the Saipan Class Action Lawsuit, go to the Milberg, Weiss law firm’s website at: www.milberg.com. Search on “Walmart.”
For more information about Walmart’s practices around the world or to request a copy of the Saipan Class Action suit, contact the National Labor Committee.
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Please Send A Letter to Walmart
(sample letter provided by the National Labor Committee)

It is always best to individualize these letters and to put them on your organization's letterhead--but please do write. We need to swamp Walmart with solid letters so they feel the pressure of the decency of the American people.
We know it is a pain, but it helps immensely for the National Labor Committee/People of Faith Network to receive a copy of your letter. This way we can spread the word.
Model Letter:

[Date]
Mr. David Glass, President & CEO
Walmart
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
fax: (501) 273-4894

Dear Mr. Glass:
My family and I do not want to purchase products made by children or in sweatshops where teenaged girls are forced to work 12-hour shifts under armed guard, or by exploited workers paid just pennies an hour and whose families are forced to live in misery. It is wrong that their children are raised on coffee and sugar water because these families cannot afford to even purchase milk.
I urge Walmart to be a true industry leader in taking a stand for human rights by releasing to the American people the names and addresses of the factories around the world that make the products sold in Walmart's stores. This would set a clear standard of accountability, demonstrating that Walmart has nothing to hide from the American people. It would show the world that Walmart does not, and will not, manufacture its goods in factories hidden behind locked metal gates, barbed wire and armed guards.
For the American people to shop with a conscience, it is our right to know in which countries and factories, under what human rights conditions, and at what wages, the products we purchase are made.
There is no reason that this could not be done immediately. It is common for Walmart, Kmart, May Co., J.C. Penney and other retailers' private label goods to be made side by side in the same factories. In fact, just a handful of the same manufacturers dominate production for all the retailers. Nor am I aware of any exclusive contracts that Walmart has with specific factories. It is also common sense--we are not speaking about advanced spy satellites, but rather women's undergarments, t-shirts, stuffed animals, sneakers and jeans. Surely Walmart can trust the American people with a list of these factories.
I intend to share this information in my community with local religious, labor, student and other interested organizations, including the media. I am anxious to hear from you, so that together with Walmart we can begin to finally eradicate the scourge of child labor and sweatshop abuses. Thank you.
Sincerely,
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What If Walmart, J.C. Penney and other U.S. Companies Were Actually Lowering Standards in China?
(The Following Information on Walmart was Obtained from the National Labor Committe Web-site)
American companies actually lowering working and living conditions and human rights standards in a developing country as poor as China? It does not sound possible. Yet that is exactly what is happening, as American companies shift their production from larger publicly-owned factories in the north of China, to booming foreign privately-owned sweatshops in the south. Work is being removed from factories in northern provinces such as Tianjin, and relocated hundreds of miles south to Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces near the port of Shanghai, and to Guangdong province right above Hong Kong.
In the north, in the publicly-owned factories, wages may average 50 cents an hour, while in the foreign, privately-owned factories in the south, wages are as low as 13 cents an hour. In the larger northern factories workers must receive health and social security benefits, worker compensation, pension insurance, child care, sick days and continuing education. In the new privately-owned factories in the south the workers receive little or no benefits. In the state-owned enterprises in the north, excessive overtime is prohibited, while in the south work shifts of 12 to 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, are not uncommon. In the north the overtime rate is paid, in the south it is not. In the north part-time work is prohibited, as is subcontracting. It is the opposite in the privately-owned factories in the south, which are tied into a vast subcontracting network, and where the majority of workers are hired on a contingency basis. When there is work, you get paid, and when there is no work you do not get paid. In the south, the housing for migrant workers is poorer, as is the food, and there is less concern for health and safety protections. In the north the factories are regulated, in the southern provinces along the coast above Hong Kong they are unregulated. Depending on local incentives, taxes in the south are also lower.
With little red tape or regulations in the way, foreign factory managers in the south often deny employees their legal work contracts, and nothing stands in the way of widespread arbitrary firings. As the majority of workers are young women from the countryside, with little formal education, often unaware of their legal rights, and who have never heard of U.S. Corporate Codes of Conduct, they are more easily intimated.
Where do you think the U.S. companies are headed? They are going south. Walmart, for example, is now in the process of pulling its last production orders out of Tianjin in the north and relocating its work to the lower-wage, unregulated factories in the south. Sears is doing the same.
The American companies will probably respond in the abstract, that this is how the free market operates, and that they have to seek out lower costs and greater flexibility to be able to meet their customers changing demands. What they will not explain, in the concrete, is how they are doing this in China through slashing wages and benefits, undermining social safety nets, subcontracting, excessive overtime and the systematic denial of fundamental worker and human rights.
This means that today there are far more garments entering the U.S. which were manufactured in China under unregulated sweatshop conditions with sub-subsistence wages and excessive forced overtime.
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Address & Links to Organizations
Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, 3120 W. Ashby, San Antonio, TX 78228 Phone: (210) 732-8957 ~ E-mail: cjm@igc.apc.org
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), 19 W. 21st Street, #502 New York, NY 10010, Phone: (212) 229-1290 ~ E-mail: cispesnatl@igc.apc.org ~ URL: http://www.cispes.org
Committee for Labor Rights Phone: (541)344-5410 E-mail: clr@igc.apc.org
50 Years Is Enough, 1247 E Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003 Phone: 202-IMF-BANK (202-463-2265) ~ Fax: 202-544-9359 ~ http://www.50years@igc.org
Global Exchange, 2017 Mission Street, suite 303, San Francisco, CA 94110 Phone: (415)255-7296 ~ Fax: (415)255-7498 ~ E-mail: sweatshops@globalexchange.org ~ URL: www.globalexchange.org
International Federation of Commercial, Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees Phone: +41 22 979-0311 ~ Fax: +41 22 796-5321 ~ E-mail: hqinfo@fiet.org ~ http://www.fiet.ch/commerce/wal_mart_campaign_index_page.htm
International Labor Rights Fund, 733 15th Street, NW Suite 920, Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202)347-4100 ~ Fax: (202)347-4885 ~ E-mail: ilrf@erols.com ~ URL: http://www.laborrights.org/
Labor Defense Network (part of the Latin America Emergency Response Network), Coordinator, Soren Ambrose, 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 ~ Phone: (202) 544-9355 ~ E-mail: ern@igc.apc.org
National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, 1607 W. Howard, Suite 218, Chicago, IL 60626, Phone: 773-381-2832, E-mail: nicwj@igc.org, ~ URL: http://www.contilaw.com/flashes/flash1.html
National Labor Committee, 275 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001 Phone: (212) 242-3002, E-mail: nlc@nlcnet.org ~ URL: http://www.nlcnet.org
PCUN: Northwest Union of Farmworkers and Treeplanters, 300 Young Street, Woodburn, OR 97071 Phone: 503-982-0243 ~ E-mail: FarmworkerUnion@pcun.org ~ URL: www.pcun.org
Press for Change, Coordinator, Jeff Ballinger, P.O. Box 230, Bayonne, NJ 07002 Phone: 201-768-8120 / 202-638-1515
Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers, Craftsmen Hall, 3909 Centre Street, #210, San Diego, CA 92103 Phone: 619-542-0826 ~ E-mail: scmw@juno.com
UNITE (the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees), Staffperson, Ginny Coughlin, 232 W. 40th Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10018 Phone: (212) 819-0959 ~ Fax: (212) 819-0885 ~ E-mail: gcough@uniteunion.org ~ URL: http://www.uniteunion.org/index.html
United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, 2400 Oliver Building, 535 Smithfield Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Phone: (412) 471-8919 ~ E-mail: ueintl@igc.apc.org
United Farm Workers (UFW), P.O. Box 62, La Paz, Keene, CA 93531 Phone: 408-763-4820 E-mail: UFWofarmer@aol.com ~ URL: http://www.ufw.org
United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), 1413 K St. NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20005 Phone: 202-NO-SWEAT (202-667-9328) ~ Fax: 202-393-5886 ~ E-mail: usas.contact@umich.edu ~ URL: http://www.umich.edu/~sole/usas/
U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project (U.S./GLEP), Executive Director, Stephen Coats, P.O. Box 268-290, Chicago, IL 60626 Phone: (312) 262-6502 ~ Fax: (312) 262-6602 ~ E-mail: usglep@igc.apc.org
Witness for Peace, 110 Maryland Ave. NE, Suite 304, Washington, DC 20002-5622 Phone: (202) 544-0781 ~ E-mail: witness@w4peace.org ~ URL: http://www.w4peace.org/
Al Norman's home page www.sprawl-busters.com author of Slamdunking Walmart (available by calling 877-dun-kwal) and publisher of the monthly Sprawl-Busters Alert.
END

posted by Joshua P. Angell  @ 18.1.05

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