sweatshops value added around the world
Jon Ford
jonmfordster@hotmail.com
Sun, 28 Oct 2001 18:46:54 -0800
The following article popped up on my screen when I did a search on
"sweatshops/Costa Rica." Thought Bob might be interested!
Jon
>Life on the line
It makes no difference whether you’re in San Antonio, Texas or
Tehuacán, Mexico –
if you’re a migrant and a woman who stitches jeans for a living you can
be sure of a mean deal.
Miriam Ching Louie reports on the seamy underside of a nasty
business.
Beneath the roller coaster of global styles and markets
lies a seismic shift, shaking the lives of the women who
stitch jeans together. Women in the developing world, and
migrants to the First World, increasingly find themselves
working on what feminists have dubbed the ‘global assembly
line’. Constant restructuring and global integration mean
that a ripple at one end of the line can slap women workers
like a tsunami tidal wave at the other. The experience of
Mexican immigrants working for Levi Strauss & Co in San
Antonio, Texas, and indigenous migrants in Tehuacán,
Mexico, reveals the perils of life and labor along the
global denim line.
Fuerza Unida – ‘United Force’ – is a women-workers fightback
organization baptized when Levi Strauss & Co closed down
its Zarzamora Street plant in San Antonio, Texas, in 1990 and
relocated operations to Costa Rica. The plant was Levi’s
largest in the US and was not unionized. As the biggest in San
Antonio’s history, the closure wrought havoc in the
community.
Of the 1,150 workers who suddenly found themselves out on
the street, 86 per cent were female and 92 per cent Latinos.
Many received less than 24-hours notice. Denied useful
retraining and other assistance, they lost not only their
jobs but their peace of mind.
Viola Casares, a co-coordinator for Fuerza Unida, recalls:
‘As long as I live I’ll never forget how the white man in the
suit said they had to shut us down to stay competitive.’
Petra Mata, also a co-coordinator, remembers: ‘People
screamed, cried, fainted. When you lose your job you feel
like nothing but trash, a remnant, a machine to be thrown
out. They take away your dig-nity. You get scared. How are
you going to pay for the car, the house, the kids to eat and
go to school? Hijole! After so many years of working for
Levi’s, overnight we had nothing.’
Viola, Petra and their co-workers were not the first – or
the last – victims of Levi Strauss & Co. Between 1981 and 1990
the company closed 58 plants and put 10,400 people out of
work. It shifted about half of its production overseas,
where the best-paid seamstresses made about a tenth of the
wages of their US counterparts. By 1990 Levi’s had 600
subsidiaries and contractors in developing countries
around the world, including Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala,
the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Philippines, South Korea,
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Thailand, Malaysia,
Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and
Indonesia.
Late in 1991 a Levi’s contractor in the US Pacific territory of
Saipan was accused of keeping imported Chinese women in
virtual slavery, confiscating their passports and forcing
them to work 84-hour weeks at sub-minimum wages. A
contractor in Indonesia who had been given a clean bill of
health by a Levi’s inspector was found to be strip-searching
female workers to determine whether they were
menstruating as they claimed and thus were entitled to a
day off with pay in accordance with Muslim law. Employees
of a former Levi’s contractor in Mexico said that at least
ten children aged under 14 worked at the plant; workers
were laid off for a few days if they went to the toilet ‘too
often’, and rain-water poured through the roof, collecting
in puddles and causing electric shocks.
After cutting 1,000 white-collar jobs in February, in
November 1997 Levi’s announced plans to close 11 of its US
plants in Arizona, New Mexico, Tennessee and Texas,
employing 6,395 workers – a third of its total manufacturing
workforce in the US and Canada. Media reports said the
announcement followed a year-long Levi’s evaluation of its
US plants, yet workers and local public officials were
taken completely by surprise. There were union
demonstrations in front of Levi’s Europe headquarters in
Brussels when Carl von Buskirk, CEO of Levi’s Europe, said
that ‘measures – including closures – could be announced in
1998 concerning certain facilities’.
Sylvia Alvarado, a Saint Mary’s University student in San
Antonio, called her mother to find out how her relatives
were taking the closure of the Levi’s plants in El Paso.
Alvarado said: ‘The [plant] nurse told my mother the tears
haven’t stopped falling. There are problems between
husband and wife. People have devoted more than 20 years of
their lives to their work, only to realize that their jobs
are over.’
Petra Mata says:‘This is the same strategy Levi’s use
on us – to work you and then throw you away like trash.
They have no respect for workers’ rights as human beings.’
Fuerza Unida built a workers’ center. In addition to waging
an eight-year campaign for justice, the group runs a sewing
co-operative, food bank and drop-in crisis-and-support
center. With the new round of layoffs they have been
flooded with calls from Levi’s workers from other plants.
Down below the southern states of the US, the Mexican side
of the border is now peppered with maquila factories
producing manufactured goods for export. Once confined
to Mexico’s northern border with the US, they are popping
up deeper inside the country’s interior.
Tehuacán, in the state of Puebla south-east of Mexico City,
was known principally for its mineral waters until the
1970s, when it began to attract shops that produced
garments primarily for the domestic market. But with the
passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
in 1994 business began flowing in from the US. The local
Human Rights Commission estimates that there are now 60
registered maquilas that pay taxes – and up to 500
‘underground’ shops. Maquilas range in size from a handful
of workers to over 1,000. Sixty per cent of the industry is
denim, with the material usually produced and cut in the
US, then shipped to Tehuacán for sewing.
US-based companies, like Guess? Inc, the VF Corporation (Lee
and Wrangler), Calvin Klein, Sun Apparel, Ditt and Kellwood
contract with local plants to sew their jeans. Sun Apparel
produces such labels as Arizona and Hunt Club for JC
Penny’s, Polo for Ralph Lauren, Fila, Sasson, XXX, Faded
Glory, Code Bleu, Real Pro, Todd Oldham and Ellememo, and
contracts with several plants in Tehuacán.
Maria and Areceli (not their real names) live in a tiny,
single-room shack that is home to nine people. The dirt
floor is carefully damped down. Like the many shanty
towns of migrant maquila workers that have mushroomed
on the edges of the city, this colonia (neighborhood) has no
electricity, running water or sewage system.
The description of their working conditions that Maria and
Areceli give to local human-rights workers and a US
delegation organized by the National Interfaith Committee
for Worker Justice and Highlander Center, adds up to a
litany of violations of Mexican labor law. Each shift runs
from 8.30am to 8.30pm, but employees must stay longer
without pay if they do not finish set production goals. They
work straight through Saturdays from 8.00am to 5.00pm
without a lunch break. Pay runs from $30 to $50 a week. Girls
as young as 12 and 13 work in the factories. Workers are
searched when they leave for lunch and at the end of the
day to check that they aren’t stealing materials. Women are
given urine tests when hired and those found to be
pregnant are promptly fired.
Recounting management’s abusive treatment, Maria
suddenly blushes – rather than repeat the curse-words the
foreman calls the workers. She says: ‘Even if you were
dying, the company would never give you permission to
leave work.’ A week earlier, a worker who had to take half a
day off when he got sick had been docked a week’s pay.
Arriving 15 minutes late costs three days’ work without
pay.
Areceli is a fast stitcher who handles several-hundred
pairs of pants a day. She complains about the back-wages
owed to workers, and increased levels of stress from high
production quotas. She describes the injuries women suffer
from working with the heavy denim material, getting
punctured by needles and pins, and adds: ‘We work without
safety glasses and equipment and sometimes the needles
break and fly up in our faces.’
When asked what they would do if they had the power to
change their working conditions, Maria says wistfully: ‘I
would work shorter hours.’ She would also like to be able
just to do her work without being screamed at. Araceli says
that she would like to study and wants her children to go
to school: ‘We are producing high-quality exports, which
demand a high skills level. We deserve more money.’ When
asked what would happen if they requested improvements,
Maria shudders: ‘They would get rid of you. They’d say: “If
you don’t like it here, get out! Vete a la chingada! (Go fuck
yourself!).”’
Many of Tehuacán’s maquila workers are members of the
Nahautl, Mixteco, Mazateco and Popoloca indigenous
peoples. Recruiters comb the rural regions of Puebla,
Veracruz and Oaxaca for people seeking relief from hunger,
drought and greedy landlords. The punitive measures that
employers use to discipline workers are meant to mold
Tehuacán’s new industrial workforce. Corporate behaviour
reveals the historic racism used against indigenous peoples
in the Americas.
Human-rights activist Alberta ‘Beti’ Carino Trujillo works
with Omar Esparza Zarate teaching night school for women
workers and their children. She says that in addition to
exploitation at the workplace, women in the colonias
suffer from toxic-waste dumping and water contamination
by the maquilas, lack of childcare and educational
opportunities for their children while they work, domestic
and street violence, unwanted pregnancies and high stress
levels, especially among single mothers. Beti’s own family
migrated to Tehuacán from Oaxaca. She says that many of
the indigenous people from her region have started to
migrate to the US in search of work. She, her mother and
siblings spent many years fending for themselves when her
father labored as a migrant farmworker harvesting
oranges in California.
Father Anastacio ‘Tacho’ Hidalgo Miramon focuses on the
problems of indigenous migrant workers in Tehuacán, and
participates in the new Congreso Nacional Indígena
(Indigenous National Congress). He explains: ‘When people
think about repression against indigenous people they only
think about Chiapas. But there are over 56 indigenous
peoples in Mexico that are being driven from the land, which
served as the basis of the social fabric of our communities
for centuries. What is happening in Chiapas is happening
right here in the Sierra Negra, and in indigenous
communities across Mexico.’ He warns: ‘The Government sees
indigenous people as very dangerous. They see Chiapas
everywhere. They are using every pretext to build their
military bases and paramilitary white guards in our
communities. In 1968 it was dangerous to be a student. Now it
is dangerous to be an indigenous person.’
Indeed, when some of these human-rights workers visited
maquilas a few days before our delegation, armed guards
put guns to their heads. Workers were petrified their
bosses would find out who had talked to us.
About ten years ago maquila workers organized an
independent union which collapsed after one of the leaders
was assassinated. But Beti remains hopeful. She says:
‘Although our people are exploited shamelessly, we have a
lot of ganas (desire), corazon (heart), fuerza (strength) and
esfuerzo (courage) to struggle. The maquilas treat us bad,
but we are here to stay.’
The hip image promoted by the multi-billion-dollar jeans
industry belies the treatment of these women.
Restructuring and globalization bring injury and layoffs
for one set of women workers, militaristic exploitation and
the denial of basic human rights to another. But the
situation is not hopeless. We know about the dirty
underside of the jeans industry because of the courage of
women who dare to speak out. They deserve smart shopping
sense from consumers and solidarity with their struggle
for social justice.
Miriam Ching Louie co-ordinates the Women’s Education in the Global
Economy Project of the Women of Color Resource Center in Berkeley,
California, and also media for Fuerza Unida.
Fuerza Unida,
710 New Laredo Hwy,
San Antonio, TX 78211,
USA;
Tel: +1 210 927 2294,
Fax: +1 210 927 2295,
e-mail: fuerzaunid@aol.com
Web page:
http://www.igc.org/fuerzaunida
– calls for supporters to
boycott Levi’s, Dockers and
Slates labels and let CEO Bob
Haas know how they feel.
Write to Bob Haas,
CEO, Levi Strauss & Co,
1155 Battery St,
San Francisco, CA 94111,
USA;
Fax: +1 415 501 8938.
The Human Rights Commission in
Tehuacán,
c/o National Interfaith
Committee for Workers Justice,
1607 W Howard, Suite 218,
Chicago, IL 60626,
USA;
Tel: +1 773 381 2832,
Fax: +1 773 381 3345,
e-mail: nicwj@igc.org,
Web page:
http://www.igc.org/nicwj
– urges supporters to pressure jeans companies to follow
Mexican labor law and improve conditions; to pressure your
governments not to develop trade agreements without
strong labor and environmental protection, and to stop all
military aid to Mexico.
Greater Texas Finishing
Corporation Workers
Committee,
c/o La Mujer Obrera,
PO Box 3975,
El Paso, TX 79923,
USA;
Tel: +1 915 533 9710,
Fax: +1 915 544 3730,
e-mail:
lamujer@igc.apc.org
UNITE!,
1209 E 14th St,
Los Angeles,
CA 90021,
USA;
Tel: +1 213 380 8930,
e-mail:
gcough@uniteunion.org
Web page:
www.UNITEunion.org
International Textile,
Garment and Leather
Workers’ Federation,
rue Joseph Stevens 8,
8-1000 Brussels,
Belgium;
Tel: +32 2 512 26 06,
e-mail:
101320.3046@compuserve.com
International Labour
Organization,
4, Route des Morillons,
CH-1211 Geneva 22,
Switzerland.
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