Bangladesh: The Role of U.S. Universities and Student Solidarity

Bangladesh THE ROLE ROLE OF OF U.S. U.S. UNIVERSITIES UNIVERSITIES AND AND STUDENT STUDENT SOLIDARITY SOLIDARITY THE

Ending the Race To the Bottom A R E P O R T B Y T H E N AT I O N A L L A B O R C O M M I T T E E

An Appeal for Help From the Workers in Bangladesh In the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, and with the growing recession in the United States, 700 to 1,000 garment factories in Bangladesh have been shut down, throwing hundreds of thousands of young women workers into the streets without severance pay, without savings, without unemployment insurance and with no safety net whatsoever. These women and their families now face desperate conditions.

Many of these young workers sewed garments for universities across America. For years—as the orders from the U.S. rolled in—they were forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day (and sometimes even 20 hours), seven days a week, for below-subsistence wages of 13 to 18 cents an hour. When these workers tried to defend their most basic rights, they were attacked, fired and blacklisted.

But now that orders from the U.S. have slowed, these women are suddenly expendable.

Multinational corporations want to turn the people in Bangladesh and across the developing world into the ultimate contingency workforce, which can be shed at a moment’s notice. And, unlike even slavery or indentured servitude, the multinationals do not have to worry about maintaining these people or keeping them alive.

We owe the people of Bangladesh more than this. We cannot allow our companies and universities to just walk away.

The workers of Bangladesh are now appealing for our solidarity. Imagine if university students on campuses across the United States and Canada stood up in solidarity with these workers and launched a national campaign to keep their universities’ production in Bangladesh. Now is not the time for universities to cut and run. Rather than pulling their production from Bangladesh, they should stay in Bangladesh and work with their licensees and contractors to clean up these factories, improve conditions and guarantee that the human and worker rights of these women are finally respected.

This would send a message of enormous hope throughout Bangladesh. And the students would be establishing an entirely new paradigm for the anti-sweatshop movement—fighting to keep jobs in the developing world.

The very thought that a solidarity campaign like this could happen has already excited labor rights NGOs in the United Kingdom, such as War on Want, and the student movement there. They have already begun their own discussions on launching a similar campaign.

Especially at this moment, when as a nation we are affirming our commitment to social and economic justice and genuine development in the Muslim world, we must not lose this campaign to keep jobs with justice in Bangladesh.

The people of Bangladesh are not alone, nor will the student movement be left alone to carry the entire burden of this campaign. They will receive the full support of the growing anti-sweatshop coalition of labor, religious and solidarity organizations across America. After September 11, the struggle to protect human and worker rights in the global economy is more important than ever before.

LIM'S BANGLADESH LTD. FACTORY CHITTAGONG BANGLADESH • OBLIGATORY OVERTIME: Up to 30 hours of overtime required a week, resulting in a standard 13-hour shift, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Seven-day workweeks with just every other Friday off. Workers at the factory up to 91 hours a week.

• PAID BELOW THE LEGAL MINIMUM WAGE: Sewers paid just 12 to 18 cents an hour. Some workers cheated of 44 percent of the legal wage owed them. Helpers earn just 8 cents an hour, and 67 cents a day. Paid less than one half of what they are legally owed.

• CHEATED ON OVERTIME PAY: Workers are routinely paid only one half of the overtime hours actually worked.

Forced to work up to 15 overtime hours a week without pay.

Wilson; Headmaster Inc.

(major university licensee); 20 Universities including

Columbia, Cornell, Illinois State, Miami of Ohio, Northwestern, Purdue, Tulane, University of California, University of Connecticut, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, University of Wisconsin LIM’S BANGLADESH LTD. FACTORY

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BANGLADESH

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• WORKERS CHEATED ON $8.03 A WEEK

IN LEGAL MINIMUM REGULAR AND OVERTIME PAY, an amount which would nearly double their regular weekly wage.

• WORKERS PAID JUST 1.5 CENTS FOR EVERY UNIVERSITY HAT THEY SEW! Their wages amount to less than 1/10th of one percent of the $18.99 retail price.

• THE UNIVERSITY CAPS' $18.99 RETAIL

PRICE REPRESENTS AN OVER 1,400 PERCENT MARK-UP over the caps' total landed U.S. Customs value of $1.23.

• IF WORKERS WERE PAID A “LIVING

WAGE” OF 34 CENTS AN HOUR, THERE WOULD STILL JUST BE 3 CENTS OF LABOR IN EACH UNIVERSITY CAP—which is a little more than 1/10th of one percent of the retail price!

• DUE TO THE LONG HOURS, RAPID PACE

AND CONSTANT PRESSURE, THE WORKERS REPORT SUFFERING FROM NEAR CONSTANT HEADACHES AND VOMITING. Almost no one lasts past the age of 30, when the factory replaces them with another crop of young girls.

• WORKERS NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE TOILET. Access is limited. Visits are monitored and timed.

• THE FACTORY REFUSES TO PAY LEGAL

• TALKING DURING WORKING HOURS IS

STRICTLY PROHIBITED. • NO DAY CARE CENTER. • NO SICK DAYS. • UNIVERSITY CODES OF CONDUCT TOTALLY UNKNOWN AND MEANINGLESS: Workers have never even heard of the Codes, let alone seen them. However, workers are instructed to lie to foreign buyers, stating that factory conditions are excellent.

• TOTAL REPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: The workers have absolutely no right to organize. All attempts will be met with mass firings. Expressing a common feeling, one worker states: “We feel imprisoned in our workplace as we do not have any freedom at all.”

• TRAPPED IN MISERY: Paid just one half of what it would cost to climb out of misery and into poverty. Few workers can even afford to marry. It is common for four to five workers to be forced to share one tiny room in a slum area.

Workers cannot even afford the most basic food needs. Workers report their lives lack any dignity and decency.

• NO TOOLS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES: No worker knew where or by whom their hats were purchased. They knew nothing of the U.S. companies or the universities. They had no idea what the hats sold for.

SEVERANCE. LIM’S BANGLADESH LTD. FACTORY

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Lim's Bangladesh Ltd. 55-6 (West Portion) South Halishahar Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ) Chittagong, Bangladesh Telephone: 031-741082 General Manager: M.D. Faiz Mohammed Number of workers: 900 (Eighty-nine percent are women, 84 percent are between 18 to 25 years of age. Almost no one lasts past 30).

Production: Hats and caps Labels: The workers provided us labels for Wilson and Headmaster (which is a major university licensee).

Lim’s produces for the following 20 universities: • Arizona State University • Central Michigan University • Columbia University • Cornell University • De Paul University • Illinois State University • Miami University of Ohio • Northern Illinois University • Northwestern University • Purdue University • Tulane University • University of Arizona • University of California, at Santa Barbara • University of Connecticut • University of Michigan • University of Minnesota • University of New Hampshire • University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill • University of Washington

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BANGLADESH

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• University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Stevens Point

Hours: Obligatory overtime. Up to 30 hours overtime required each week, resulting in standard 13hour shift from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sevenday workweek with every other Friday off. At the factory up to 91 hours a week.

The standard shift at Lim’s is 13 hours a day, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The workweek is seven days, with every other Friday off, or just two days off a month. This makes the average workweek 6.5 days.

On average, the workers are required to put in 120 hours of overtime each month, which translates into 27.69 to 30 hours a week. At the extreme, workers could be at the factory up to 91 hours a week, but the average week would be 84.5 hours. Actual hours paid would range from 75.69 to 78 hours a week.

All overtime is obligatory.

Wages: Paid less than the legal minimum wage. Sewers are paid just 12 to 18 cents an hour. Some workers are being shortchanged of 44 percent of the legal wage owed them. Helpers earn only 8 cents an hour and 67 cents a day—paid less than one half of the legal minimum wage.

A senior operator at Lim’s, with more than five or six years’ experience as a sewer, earns 2,200 taka per month, or $38.33, which comes to 18 cents an hour. This is less than the legal minimum wage set for the Export Processing Zones, which is $45 per month, or 22 cents an hour. Senior operators are being shortchanged of 15 percent of the legal wages owed them.

Senior operator’s wage: • 18 cents an hour (.1842669) • $1.47 a day (8 hours) • $8.84 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $38.33 a month • $459.93 a year Junior sewing operators, with less than five years’ experience, earn between 1,400 and 1,500 taka a month, or $24.39 to $26.13, which comes to between 12 and 13 cents an hour. The average junior operator’s wage is just 12 cents an hour, and 97 cents a day, which means they are being paid only 56 percent of the legal EPZ minimum wage. They are being shortchanged 44 percent of their legal wages each week.

Average junior operator’s wage: (1,450 taka) • 12 cents an hour (.1214486) • 97 cents a day (8 hours) • $5.83 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $25.26 a month • $303.14 a year By law, as noted earlier, sewing operators in the

export processing zones should be earning at least $45 a month. This minimum wage is set by the government’s Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority.

Legal EPZ minimum wage for sewing operators: (semi-skilled category) • 22 cents an hour (.2163461) • $1.73 a day (8 hours) • $10.38 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $45 a month • $540 a year So senior and junior sewing operators at the Lim’s Factory are being systematically shortchanged of $6.67 to $19.74 each month on wages legally due them.

Helpers, typically young teenage women who supply the assembly lines with fabric, and then clean the finished garments by cutting off loose threads, are paid just 1,000 taka a month, or $17.42, which comes to only 8 cents an hour, and 67 cents a day. These workers are being paid less than one half of the legal minimum wage established for “unskilled workers” in the EPZs. They are being cheated out of $20.58 rightfully due them each month, which is an enormous amount of

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money for people being—illegally—paid only $17.42 a month.

Helper’s wage: • 8 cents an hour (.0837577) • 67 cents a day (8 hours) • $4.02 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $17.42 a month • $209.06 a year

While the workers sewing university caps go hungry, the company does quite well. If on average, the Lim’s factory cheated the workers of $8.03 a week in regular and overtime pay, then for all 900 workers, this would come to $7,227 a week, and $375,804 a year.

All wages at the Lim’s factory are paid one week late, meaning that pay for the month of September is not received until October 7.

The legal minimum wage set by the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority is $38 a month for “unskilled workers”, such as helpers.

Workers paid just 1.5 cents for every university cap they sew. Wages come to less than 1/10th of one percent of the $18.99 retail price!

Legal EPZ helper’s wage: • 18 cents an hour (.1826923) • $1.46 a day (8 hours) • $8.77 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $38 a month • $456 a year

There are 12 assembly lines in the Lim’s factory, each made up of 30 sewing operators. Management sets a mandatory production goal for each line of 375 completed hats in one hour. Even if we take the highest senior operator’s wage, of 18 cents an hour, then the total hourly payroll for the 30-member assembly line is still just $5.53 (.1842669 x 30 = 5.53). Given that these same 30 workers must produce 375 university caps an hour, this means that the actual direct labor cost to sew each cap is less than 1.5 cents (5.53 ÷375 = .014741352)! For a university cap retailing for $18.99, this means that the workers’ wages amount to a stunning less than 1/10th of one percent of the retail price of the hat!

Cheated on overtime wages: Workers at the Lim’s factory report routinely being paid for only one half of the overtime hours they are actually forced to work. Since up to 30 hours of overtime are required each week, some workers are being cheated out of 15 hours a week on overtime pay.

By law, overtime is to be paid at a 100 percent premium, or double the standard wage, which would come to 43 cents an hour in the export processing zones ($.2163461 x 2 = $.4326922). So these workers are being cheated of $6.49 a week on overtime pay legally owed them. This comes on top of senior operators being shortchanged $1.54 each week on their regular wage. This $8.03, which at first glance might not seem like a lot, is actually an enormous amount of money desperately needed by people trapped in abject poverty, who are earning just $8.84 a week. This $8.03 would add 90 percent to their weekly wage, and could make the difference between having enough money to eat or going hungry.

This is the greatest exploitation the National Labor Committee has ever seen. Remember that in the U.S., labor accounts for approximately 10 percent of the cost of the garment. In Bangladesh, the labor cost has now almost been completely wiped out—falling from 10% to less than 1/10th of one percent of the retail price.

Also, since we know from U.S. Customs shipping documents (PIERS) that these caps enter the U.S. with an average total Customs value of $1.23—which includes the materials, direct and indirect labor, and shipping costs, as well as profit to the Lim’s factory—this

...the actual direct labor cost to sew each cap is less than 1.5 cents 6

BANGLADESH

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means that the mark-up on a university cap selling for $18.99 is over 1,400 percent (18.99 ÷ 1.23 = 15.439 – 100% = 1,444 percent!)

these Bangladeshi women, who are more than willing to work hard—to work 12 hours a day—but who are asking only for their rights.

Climbing out of misery and into poverty.

Doubling the workers’ wages: All the women at Lim’s agree that they are trapped in misery. Being paid so little, they cannot afford to even climb into poverty, to a level where their lives would gain a modicum of dignity and decency. Asked what they would need to climb out of misery and into poverty, they respond that they would need to be paid at least 4,000 taka a month, or $69.69. This would represent an 82 percent increase over their current wages.

Sheer greed and indifference is behind payment of such below-subsistence wages. There is no natural economic law on earth that demands such wages of misery. The companies can, and will, continue to get away with whatever they can, so long as the people, the consumers, do not know the reality behind the label.

A subsistence-level wage: • 34 cents an hour (.335030822) • $2.68 a day (8 hours) • $16.08 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $69.69 a month • $836.24 a year What would happen if the universities insisted on payment of such a basic subsistence level wage?

Would the sky fall in on corporate profits if they raised the wage for the Bangladeshi women from 18 cents to 34 cents an hour? Hardly. This is what would actually happen.

If the women were paid 34 cents an hour, so they could climb out of misery and into poverty, the direct labor cost to sew a university cap would still be less than 3 cents per cap, and their wages would still amount to just a little over 1/10th of one percent of the cap’s $18.99 retail price! ($.335030822 x 30 = $10.05. 10.05 ÷ 375 = $.026802465. $.026802465 ÷ 18.99 = $.001411398).

Payment of subsistence level wages would add $.012061113 to the direct cost to sew the cap, which is, of course, almost nothing. Yet, this insignificant 1.2 cents could help restore dignity to the lives of

Abuses at the Lim’s factory: • HEADACHES AND VOMITING: Due to the long hours, relentless pace and constant pressure, many workers report suffering from near constant headaches, nausea, bouts of vomiting, and other illnesses.

• NO ONE LASTS PAST 30: Eighty-four percent of the workers at Lim’s are between the ages of 18 and 25 years old, and almost no one makes it past 30. After seven to ten years in the factory, most workers are exhausted and worn out. If they do not leave on their own, management typically forces them out when they reach their 30s, so that they can replace them with another crop of young teenage girls who, in the company’s mind, are fresh and full of energy.

• TALKING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED DURING WORKING HOURS, and violators will be reprimanded.

• PERMISSION REQUIRED TO USE THE TOILET: Workers need permission, and must receive a “toilet pass” from their supervisors, to use the bathroom. Access is controlled and limited, but if permission is granted, the workers’ visits are monitored and timed. There are just 12 toilets for all 800 women workers, meaning there is just one toilet for every 67 women.

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• NO SEVERANCE PAY: Lim’s management refuses to pay any severance whatsoever to workers leaving the factory, no matter how many years they have worked there. Not surprisingly, management also refuses to participate in the government-sponsored Provident Fund, whereby workers can save money each month by agreeing to tiny deductions from their wages which the factory is then supposed to match, and deposit in an interest-bearing cooperative account.

• THERE IS NO DAYCARE CENTER AT THE LIM’S FACTORY. • THE FACTORY IS OVERCROWDED AND HOT. • NO SICK DAYS. NO PERSONAL DAYS. No matter how ill a worker is, no matter how valid the explanation—such as a note from a doctor—any days missed are punished with the docking of wages.

• CODES UNKNOWN AND MEANINGLESS: The workers have never even heard of the university Codes of Conduct and knew nothing about their meaning or supposed function. Apparently, the Codes are not posted, as no one had seen them.

However, the workers are instructed to lie to foreign buyers or representatives, claiming that conditions in the factory are fine and that they have no complaints. To do otherwise would result in firing.

• TOTAL REPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Every worker at Lim’s knows full well that if they are even suspected of exercising the

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most fundamental internationally recognized labor right of Freedom of Association, they will be immediately fired, thrown out of the factory and blacklisted. The workers attest to this repression unanimously, and with 100 percent certainty. One worker summoned up the common feeling when she said: “We feel imprisoned in our workplace, as we do not have any freedom at all.”

• TRAPPED IN ABJECT POVERTY: Most Lim’s workers cannot afford to marry, and it is common for four or five workers to be forced to share one tiny room in a dangerous slum area, for which they pay 1,300 taka a month. No worker we spoke with had any savings. Nor could any of these workers afford to purchase even the most basic of food necessities. The workers feel that they are trapped in misery, and that their lives lack dignity and decency.

• ISOLATED AND ALONE IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: The workers had no idea of who purchases the hats they sew, or even what countries the hats are exported to, and they had never heard of any of the labels or of the U.S. universities. Nor did they have any idea what the caps sold for. The workers had never heard of the student movement in the U.S. and had no idea that any kind of antisweatshop movement existed anywhere. They had never heard of the World Trade Organization or the International Labor Organization. They feel totally alone, and have no idea that anyone cares, or even thinks about them —which is exactly how the major retailers like it.

YOUNG AN HAT (BD) LTD. FACTORY CHITTAGONG BANGLADESH • OBLIGATORY OVERTIME: Up to 37.5 hours of overtime required each week, resulting in standard 13-to-14-hour shifts from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. Seven-day workweek—with just 2 days off each month. Average workweek 78 to 85.5 hours.

• PAID LESS THAN LEGAL MINIMUM WAGE: Sewers earn just 13 to 17 cents an hour—some paid less than 60 percent of the legal minimum. Helpers paid only 11 cents an hour and 86 cents a day—also paid less than 60 percent of the legal minimum.

• CHEATED ON OVERTIME WAGE: Forced to work up to 18.75 hours overtime each week without pay. Workers being illegally underpaid by $11.97 a week. Factory is cheating the workers of $995,000 a year in wages owed them.

Major Producer for at least 15 U.S. Universities including:

Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Purdue, University of Connecticut, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, University of Wisconsin

YOUNG AN HAT (BD) LTD. FACTORY

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• Workers paid just 1.6 cents for every $18.99 university cap they sew. Wages come to less than 1/10th of one percent of the cap’s retail price.

• If paid a living wage of 34 cents an hour, there would still be only 3 cents of labor in each cap, which is less than 2/10th of one percent of the retail price.

• WOMEN RECEIVE ONLY ONE MONTH’S MATERNITY LEAVE WITH PAY, not the three months that the law declares.

• DUE TO LONG HOURS, THE EXHAUST-

ING PACE AND CONSTANT PRESSURE, WORKERS REPORT SUFFERING FROM HEADACHES, VOMITING AND OTHER ILLNESSES. • Factory is overcrowded, hot, and poorly ventilated.

• NO LEGALLY REQUIRED SEVERANCE is paid.

• NO SICK DAYS. NO PERSONAL DAYS— wages are docked.

• NO HEALTHCARE CLINIC. NO DAY CARE center in the factory.

• SPEAKING DURING WORKING hours is

strictly prohibited.

• HARSH TREATMENT: Supervisors shout at and abuse the women, leading one worker to comment: “It is a great sin to be born into this world as a garment worker.”

• NO ONE LASTS PAST 30: Worn out after 10 years, workers are either forced out or fired when they reach their thirties, and are replaced with another crop of young teenage girls.

• WORKERS NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE TOILET: visits are monitored and timed.

• UNIVERSITY CODES OF CONDUCT ARE MEANINGLESS: No worker had ever seen or heard of these Codes. However, they are instructed to lie to foreign buyers, saying factory conditions are fine.

• TOTAL REPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Any worker even suspected of organizing to defend their basic rights will be immediately fired and blacklisted. Fear pervades the factory.

• TRAPPED IN MISERY: Four or more workers are forced to share one tiny room in a dangerous slum area. No one can afford to purchase even the most basic food necessities. Workers feel their lives have no dignity.

YOUNG AN HAT (BD) LTD. FACTORY

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Young An Hat (BD) Ltd. Plot 47-52, Sector #3, Bandan Chittagong Export Processing Zone Chittagong, Bangladesh Telephone: 031-740013 General Manager: Mr. Dhu Hung Cho Number of workers: 1,600 (Seventy-five percent women, 85 percent are between the ages of 18 and 25) Production: Caps and hats Labels: Young An Hat is a major producer for at least 15 U.S. universities: • Cornell University • Georgetown University • Northwestern University • Purdue University • Saint Joseph’s University • Tulane University • University of Arizona • University of Connecticut • University of Iowa • University of Michigan • University of Minnesota • University of New Hampshire • University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill • University of Washington • University of Wisconsin–Madison

Hours: Obligatory overtime. Up to 37.5 hours of overtime required per week, resulting in standard 13-to-14-hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. Seven-day workweek—with just two days off a month. Average workweek is 78 to 85.5 hours.

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The standard shift at the Young An Hat factory is 13 to 14 hours a day, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. The workweek is seven days, with just two days off in a month. Usually the workers receive every other Friday off—which is the Muslim holiday. This means the average workweek is 6.5 days, and between 30 and 37.5 hours of overtime are required each week, making the average workweek 78 to 85.5 hours long. All overtime is strictly obligatory.

Wages: Paid below the legal minimum wage: Sewers earn just 13 to 17 cents an hour—some paid less than 60 percent of legal minimum. Helpers paid just 11 cents an hour and 86 cents a day—also paid less than 60 percent of the minimum.

A senior operator at the Young An Hat factory, with more than five or six years' experience as a sewer, earns between 1,800 and 2,000 taka a month, or $31.36 to 34.84, which comes to just 15 to 17 cents an hour. Senior operators are being paid less than 70 percent of the legal minimum wage established for Bangladesh’s Export Processing Zones, which is $45 per month and 22 cents an hour for semi-skilled workers, including sewing operators. This legal minimum wage is established by the government’s Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority.

Average senior operator’s wage: (1,900 taka) • 16 cents an hour (.1591364) • $1.27 a day (8 hours) • $7.64 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $33.10 a month • $397.21 a year Junior sewing operators, with less than five

years’ experience, are paid just 1,500 to 1,700 taka a month, or $26.13 to $29.62, which comes to 13 to 14 cents an hour. Junior operators are being paid less than 60 percent of the legal EPZ minimum of $45 per month. They are being underpaid by $18.87 a month, or $4.35 a week, which is an enormous amount of money for a worker trapped in abject poverty and earning only $6.03 for the entire regular 48-hour workweek.

Average junior operator’s wage: (1,600 taka) • 13 cents an hour (.134012329) • $1.07 a day (8 hours) • $6.43 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $27.87 a month • $334.49 a year Helpers are also illegally underpaid. Helpers, typically young teenage girls who supply the assembly lines with fabric and then clean the finished garments by cutting off any loose threads, are paid 1,280 taka per month, or $22.30, which comes to 11 cents an hour, and 86 cents a day. The

1,280 taka a month wage represents a recent pay increase, but it still falls far short of the legal minimum wage established by the government for “unskilled labor” in the country’s export processing zones, which is $38 a month, and 18 cents an hour. Helpers at the Young An Hat factory are earning less than 60 percent of the legal minimum. Each month they are being underpaid by $15.70, or $3.62 a week—an enormous sum for someone earning just $5.15 for the entire regular workweek. If they were paid the legal minimum owed them, it would add 70 percent to their current wage.

Helper’s wage: • 11 cents an hour (.107209863) • 86 cents a day (8 hours) • $5.15 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $22.30 a month • $267.60 a year The legal minimum wage for the country’s Export Processing Zones is set by the government at $45 a month for “semi-skilled workers”, including sewing

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operators, and $38 a month for “unskilled workers”, such as helpers.

Legal EPZ operator’s wage: • 22 cents an hour (.216346153) • $1.73 a day (8 hours) • $10.38 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $45 a month • $540 a year Legal EPZ helper’s wage: • 18 cents an hour (.182692307) • $1.46 a day (8 hours) • $8.77 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $38 a month • $456 a year By systematically paying below the legal minimum wage, the Young An Hat company is cheating each worker of an average of $3.43 a week, which for all 1,600 workers adds up to $5,488 a week, and $285,376 a year in lost wages. It gets even worse, since management also robs the workers of at least half their legal overtime pay.

Cheated on overtime pay: Workers at the Young An Hat factory report being systematically cheated and paid for only one half of the overtime hours they are actually forced to work. Since it is obligatory to work 30 to 37.5 hours of overtime a week, this means some workers are being forced to work 18.75 hours of overtime a week without pay! These workers are being cheated of $8.11 a week in overtime wages legally due them.

All these illegal underpayments add up to a hefty profit for the Young An Hat company.

Consider a senior sewing operator, whose average pay for the regular 48-hour workweek is $7.64, when it should be, by law, $10.38. By paying below

the legal minimum wage, the workers are paid 26 percent less than the minimum—the company is shortchanging its senior operators of $2.74 a week in regular wages due them. Since it is factory policy to pay just one-half of the overtime hours actually worked each week—33.75 hours on average—this means the Young An Hat company is shortchanging its senior operators of another $7.30 in overtime wages legally due them. (The legal minimum wage for sewers in the EPZ is 22 cents an hour (.216346153), and overtime, by law, is to be paid at double the standard rate, or 43 cents an hour (.216346153 x 2 = .432692306). But, it does not even end here, since the overtime hours the company does pay are paid also below the legal minimum.

Young An pays just 32 cents (.1591364 x 2=.3182728) an hour for overtime, which is only 74 percent of the legal rate. So for the 16.875 hours of overtime the factory does pay, it is cheating its senior operator of another $1.93 legally owed them.

Whereas the operators should be earning $7.30 for their 16.875 hours of overtime, they are paid just $5.37.

On average then, the company is cheating its senior operators of $11.97 a week in wages legally due them. As has been mentioned already, this is an enormous amount of money for someone living in abject poverty trying to eke out an existence on just $7.64 a week in regular pay. This $11.87 could mean the difference between eating or being forced to go hungry.

While its workers go hungry, the Young An Hat company does quite well with its scheme. If it robs all of its 1,600 workers on a level similar to that of its senior operator, then the company pockets $19,152 a week, and $995,904 a year in wages stolen from the workers.

“It is a great sin to be born into this world as a garment worker.”

Workers are paid just 1.6 cents for every $18.99 university cap they sew. Wages amount to less than 1/10th of one percent of the retail price. There are 18 production lines at the Young An Hat factory, with 30 operators on each line. Management sets a mandatory production goal for each assembly line of 320 caps an hour. Even if we use the highest senior operator’s wage in the factory, which is 17 cents an hour, this still brings the total hourly payroll for all 30 operators to just $5.03 (.167515411 x 30 = $5.03). As these same 30 sewing operators must turn out 320 university caps an hour, this means that the direct labor cost to sew each cap is just—a stunning—1.6 cents ($5.03÷320 = .0157187)!

For the typical university cap which costs $18.99, the workers' wages amount to less than 1/10 of one percent of the caps retail price (.0157187 ÷ 18.99 = .0008277). In the experience of the National Labor Committee, this sets a record for exploitation. The direct cost to sew the product has become almost completely insignificant.

What could happen if the universities insisted that the retailers and their licensees must pay a “living wage” in Bangladesh of 34 cents an hour? The direct labor cost to sew the $18.99 university cap would now be 3 cents, and the workers wages would still amount to less than 2/10th of one percent of the caps’ retail price, something easily affordable by the universities and the companies involved. Every worker at the Young An Hat factory will tell you that they cannot live on the wages the company pays. A visit to the workers’ “homes”—typically four workers are forced to share one small room in a dangerous slum area—reveals immediately why the workers tell you their lives lack decency and dignity. The workers cannot even afford to purchase the most basic foods necessary for survival. No worker has any savings. Everyone

lives from day to day, from hand to mouth, trapped in abject poverty.

When asked what they would need to earn to climb out of misery and into poverty, almost every factory worker we spoke with across Bangladesh said 4,000 taka a month, or $69.69, which comes to 34 cents an hour. Bangladesh is a very poor country, and the workers know their lives will be hard. They are not talking about joining the middle class.

(Everywhere in the developing world, as in Bangladesh, workers’ wage demands are always incredibly modest and reasonable. These workers know very well the reality of their poor countries, the reality they live every day. They also know they desperately need these jobs, and the last thing the workers want to do is to drive these jobs out of their country. But they know they need their rights too, and at least a subsistence level wage that will allow them to exist with a modicum of dignity and decency). They are quite literally talking about the struggle to climb out of misery and into poverty, where their lives will have some dignity and decency and where they can adequately feed their families, even if it is for just a few days each week. This would be an enormous improvement over their current conditions.

So, according to the workers, a subsistence-level or living wage would need to be at least 4,000 taka a month, or $69.69. This would be a 55 percent increase over the legal minimum wage of $45 a month for sewing operators in the country’s export processing zones, and approximately a 111 percent increase over the illegal, below minimum, wage the Young An Hat company pays, of $33.10 a month.

Subsistence or living wage: (4,000 taka) • 34 cents an hour (.335030822) • $2.68 a day (8 hours)

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• $16.08 a week (6 days / 48 hours) • $69.69 a month • $836.24 a year What would be the impact on the cost of the caps if the universities insisted on payment of at least a basic subsistence-level wage of 34 cents an hour? Would the sky fall in on corporate profits? Would the licensees be forced into bankruptcy?

If the workers in Bangladesh were paid a subsistence living wage of 34 cents an hour, there would still be just 3 cents of direct labor involved in sewing each cap, which in turn amounts to wages representing less than 2/10th of one percent of the $18.99 university caps’ retail price (.335030822 x 30=$10.05 ÷ 320=.031409 ÷ 18.99= $0.0016539).

Surely the universities and their licensees could afford that much.

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Abuses at the Young An Hat factory: • JUST ONE-THIRD OF MATERNITY LEAVE AND BENEFITS GRANTED: Under Bangladesh law, maternity leave is set at three months with full pay. Illegally, the Young An Hat company permits just one month’s leave with pay.

• HARSH TREATMENT: One worker summed up the feelings of many when she said, “In spite of our working so hard, the supervisors often scream at us using abusive language, calling us terrible names which are most humiliating and insulting to us. It is a great sin to be born into this world as a garment worker.”

• HEADACHES AND VOMITING: Workers report that the long hours, relentless pace and constant pressure affect them physically, leaving them suffering not only from exhaustion, but often from serious headaches.

• NO ONE LASTS PAST 30: Eighty-five percent of the workers—overwhelmingly women—are between the ages 18 and 25. Almost no one makes it past 30 years of age at the factory, when they leave on their own account due to exhaustion and sickness, or are driven out by factory management seeking to replace them with another crop of young teenagers.

• NO HEATH CARE AND NO DAYCARE: Again illegally, the Young An Hat company has neither a basic medical clinic for the workers nor a factory daycare center.

• NO SICK DAYS ALLOWED: No matter how ill a worker is, and even if they return to work the following day with a medical note from their doctor, any days missed are punished with the docking of wages. The same is true of personal days.

• HOT AND POORLY VENTILATED: Workers report that the factory is overcrowded, hot and lacks adequate fresh air due to poor ventilation. Also, they say the factory is poorly lit.

• NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE TOILET: Workers need permission and must secure a toilet pass from their supervisors to use the bathroom.

Access is limited and controlled. If permission is granted the visit is monitored and timed. There are just eight toilets for all 1,200 women workers, meaning there is one toilet for every 150 workers.

Codes are posted in areas of the factory that the workers are not commonly allowed to enter, or they may be in English. Also, many of the workers, who have had little opportunity for schooling, are illiterate. But they know very clearly the reality of violations they endure every day.) However, workers are instructed to lie to any foreign buyer or representative who might approach them, saying that conditions in the factory are fine, their rights are respected and they have no complaints. To do otherwise will result in firings.

• TOTAL REPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Every worker tells you the same thing: that if management even suspected any workers of attempting to organize to defend their basic rights they would be immediately fired, kicked out of the factory, and blacklisted. The core internationally recognized labor right of Freedom of Association is totally denied at the Young An Hat factory. Fear pervades the factory.

• TRAPPED IN MISERY: Unable to afford to marry, most workers are forced to live four or more people to a single small room in a dangerous slum area which still costs 1,400 taka a month, or $24.38.

Even under these conditions, they do not have enough money left over to afford to meet their most basic food needs. Workers report having no savings.

They feel they are trapped in misery and that the conditions of their lives rob them of human dignity and decency.

• TALKING during working hours is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. • NO SEVERANCE PAY: Young An Hat management refuses to pay any severance at all to workers leaving the factory. By law, workers are supposed to receive 5,000 taka, or $87.11 for every year they worked in the factory. If they worked five years they should receive 25,000 taka, or $435.54.

Workers leave the factory penniless.

• UNIVERSITY CODES OF CONDUCT UNKNOWN AND MEANINGLESS: No worker we spoke with had ever heard of the U.S. Corporate Codes of Conduct, let alone seen them. No explanation had ever been provided for the workers regarding the existence of the Codes and their supposed function to help guarantee respect of their rights.

For the workers, the university codes remain completely meaningless. (It could be possible that the YOUNG AN HAT (BD) LTD FACTORY

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MEETING A 12-YEAR-OLD WORKER Tuesday shift at 7:00 a.m. in the morning and worked straight through to 7:00 a.m. on Friday.

Tuesday and Wednesday she was forced to work 20-hour shifts, from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Then on Thursday she worked a 24-hour shift, from 7:00 a.m. straight through to 7:00 a.m. Friday morning. She had worked 64 hours in the last three days; 120 hours in the last week! She was working 7 days a week.

Her eyes were more bloodshot than I had ever seen anyone's before–the entire eyeball a pale, glassy red, and she could barely speak. Not only exhausted, but she had nearly lost her voice, and all that was left was a painful low harsh rasp.

“Sir, I cannot express to you in words how they treat us in the factory.”

—AN 11 OR 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL SEWING CLOTHING FOR THE U.S. ou enter the Badda slum area in Dhaka by climbing over a wobbly makeshift bridge, 10 to 12 inches wide of bamboo roped together, spanning an open, putrid sewage channel. We went there by chance on an early Friday afternoon, the Muslim holiday, when the garment workers were supposed to have their weekly day off. We met an 18-year-old girl who, minutes before, had just returned from having been forced to work three twenty-hour shifts in a row.

She had not been home in three days. At most she slept two hours a night curled up on a piece of cardboard on the factory floor. She worked in a factory sewing pants and jackets for export to the United States. This young woman began the

Y

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It was 98 degrees. Flies swarmed everywhere.

She stood in front of her home, which was a dirt floor hut, 10' x 12', made of thatch, with some added scraps of plastic, cardboard, and wood.

Inside there was only room for one large bed, a cot, and a wooden wardrobe standing in the dirt. She explained it was about an hour's round trip walk to the nearest available water pump.

Four people lived here. For this they paid 1,000 taka a month, or $17.42. This woman earned 14 cents an hour, or $6.83 a week, sewing clothing for U.S. companies.

When it rained, she said, no one could sleep.

The hut leaked terribly, and everything would get drenched. They would sit up all night under an umbrella, trying to find a dry spot. Around the floor of the hut they had piled up little mounds of dirt, but during heavy rains, streams of muddy dirty water washed through their hut.

Within minutes, a crowd had gathered around us. One tall, thin, beautiful young girl caught our attention. She told us she also sewed pants, shirts, and jackets for export to the U.S. When we asked her age, she responded that she was 11 or 12 years old. Her mother, standing right next to her, confirmed that she was “11 or 12 years old”, and then said she did not get home from work until 11 p.m. or even midnight–and this was every night. In fact, she was working seven days a week, and was only here now because she had run home for lunch. She had begged them at work for the day off because her father was sick, but they refused. This week they were working 14 hours a day. She was working up to 98 hours a week, for 8 cents an hour.

When we asked her how they were treated at the factory, she responded: “Sir, I do not have the words to express to you how they treat us

in the factory.” Chills ran up my spine to hear an 11 or 12-year-old child speak like this. Later on, she told us, she and the other young workers were beaten, slapped, punched, hit with sticks and even beaten with shoes.

At one point I turned to take a picture of one of the huts, and she became a child again, leaping to make sure she got in the picture, smiling and excited. She was a beautiful child, and she was working 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

Everyone in the Badda slum wanted help, they were ready to struggle for their rights, only they said: “Please do not take our jobs away.”

Any worker would rather be exploited than have no job at all, and the people in Bangladesh are no exception. They knew their rights were being violated, that they were being starved and stripped of their human dignity, and that no one

19

should have to work so hard, yet be forced to live in such abject misery. They wanted, and were ready, to fight, and they wanted help, but they could not lose even these jobs, which were all they had.

shower, never a cool quiet room to sleep in, not even a cold soda—yet they did, and did so with spirit and dignity. Their clothing was immaculate—much cleaner than ours were—yet they came out of those huts. They had a great pride.

We swore at that moment that we would work together with them, to keep the U.S. companies in Bangladesh, not to let them pull out, but rather to pressure them to work with their contractors to clean up these factories, improve conditions, and guarantee respect for human and worker rights–including the right to organize–and payment of fair wages. Everyone was excited. We would meet again–soon.

These women had been taken into the global economy, locked in factories, stripped of their rights, and paid pennies an hour. Many could not read, but they knew no human being should be treated as they were.

These are our companies. We purchase their clothing. We must be able to do better than this.

As we were leaving, we wondered if any of us from our delegation would have the strength to survive here, working the long hours they do and then returning to these conditions–never a

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This is the real face of the global sweatshop economy which the giant U.S. retailers do not want us to see. But we must take a long hard look into the faces of our sisters and brothers in Bangladesh, and together struggle for a more humane system. If we do not act, we know one thing for certain–the retailers will never change.

ACTOR SPORTING LIMITED FACTORY DHAKA BANGLADESH • OBLIGATORY OVERTIME: Sixty to 70 hours of mandatory overtime per month, resulting in standard 11-to-13hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 or 9:00 p.m. Some 19hour shifts from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.

• NO REGULARLY SCHEDULED HOLIDAYS. In April the workers did not receive a single day off. At most two days off a month are permitted.

• Workers are at the factory up to 91 to 100 hours a week.

• BELOW-SUBSISTENCE WAGES. WORKERS CHEATED

OF THE LEGAL WAGE SET BY THE GOVERNMENT OF BANGLADESH: Sewing operators paid just 11 to 18 cents an hour, while the legal minimum wage in the Export Processing Zones is set at 22 cents. Junior operators, paid

Ahead Headgear; Falcon Headwear; Reebok

(Logo Athletic Inc. and On Field Apparel)

Georgetown University; University of Michigan; University of Connecticut;

ACTOR SPORTING LIMITEDFACTORY

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just $5.09 a week, are being cheated of over half their legal wage. Helpers, who earn just 7 cents an hour, or 59 cents a day, are cheated of over 60 percent of their legal wage.

• WORKERS PAID JUST 1.6 CENTS FOR

EACH $17.43 UNIVERSITY CAP THEY SEW. The cost to cut the fabric and embroider the cap adds another three cents, bringing the total labor cost to less than 5 cents. The five cents in wages amounts to less than 3/10ths of one percent of the cap’s retail price.

• THE UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR

LICENSEES MARK UP THE PRICE OF THE CAP BY 1350 PERCENT! • MATERNITY LEAVE IS NOT PAID. • PHYSICAL ABUSE: WORKERS HAVE BEEN SLAPPED, PUNCHED AND HIT WITH STICKS AND SHOES. • HARSH TREATMENT: Workers cannot move from their sewing machines or talk, and can be fired for two very minor mistakes.

• FACTORY IS HOT AND LACKS VENTILA-

TION. • Workers must get permission to use the toilet,

and their visits are timed.

• UNSAFE DRINKING WATER. • NO SICK DAYS ARE ALLOWED. • UNIONS PROHIBITED BY LAW: Any attempt to organize a union will be met with immediate mass firings. Workers forming associations are also fired.

• WORKERS CHEATED ON HOUSING SUB-

SIDY AND PENSION. • CORPORATE CODE OF CONDUCT COMPLETELY UNKNOWN AND MEANINGLESS: Codes are not posted and no explanation has ever been provided to the workers.

However, workers are threatened and instructed to lie to U.S. buyers by saying, “Yes, the rules are followed here. We have nothing to complain about.”

• NO WORKER CAN LAST MORE THAN 15 YEARS IN THESE FACTORIES. Most are exhausted and forced out after 10 years.

• WORKERS FORCED TO LIVE IN ABJECT POVERTY: Lacking money to get married, most workers must live three or four to a tiny room in a slum area.

ACTOR SPORTING LIMITED FACTORY

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Actor Sporting Limited Plot #33-35 Dhaka Export Processing Zone, Savar Dhaka, Bangladesh Telephone:

831-1826; 831-3378

Chairman:

Mr. Nagan Hung Tak

Managing Director: Mrs. Shelly Capital: Workers say factory is Korean-owned Number of workers: 3,500 (2,000 men and 1,500 women) Production: Caps Labels: • Georgetown University • University of Michigan • University of Connecticut • University of North Carolina • Indiana University • Purdue University • University of Minnesota • Illinois State University • Arizona State University • University of Arizona • Ahead Headgear • Falcon Headwear, Inc. • Reebok (Logo Athletics, On Field Apparel)

Hours: Forced overtime. Workers are at the factory up to 91 to 100 hours a week, resulting in a standard 11-to-13-hour shift, 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 or 9:00 p.m. Some 19-hour shifts from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. No regularly scheduled weekly holidays— at most, two days off each month. In April the workers were not permitted a single day off.

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As a result of forced overtime, the standard shift at the Actor Sporting Limited factory is 11 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. All overtime is strictly obligatory. On average, the sewing operators are forced to work 60 to 70 overtime hours each month. This means the operators are regularly working 62 to 65.5 hours a week. There are no regularly scheduled weekly holidays and the workers receive, at most, two days off a month.

However, in April 2001, the sewing operators were forced to work seven days a week without a single day off in the entire month. In April, the operators were also forced to work a standard 13-hour shift from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Operators’ Schedule in April—seven days a week: 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. work (5 hours) 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. lunch (1 hour) 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. work (4 hours) 6:00 p.m. to 6:20 p.m. break (20 minutes) 6:20 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. work (2 hours and 40 minutes) The workers were at the factory 13 hours while being paid for 11 hours and 40 minutes. During the 20-minute evening break at 6:00 p.m., the company provides a “food bonus” of a banana and half a piece of cake. The only drinking water available to the workers is the filthy tap water, which often causes illnesses.

Under this schedule, the workers would be at the factory 91 hours a week, while being paid for 81 hours and 40 minutes.

However, the Embroidery section—which would, for example, stitch Arizona State University logos on Falcon baseball caps—is often required to work 19-hour all-night shifts stretching from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the next morning. The work-

ers then sleep on the factory floor for three or four hours before beginning their next shift at 8:00 a.m.

Under this schedule, the embroiderers can be at the factory over 100 hours a week.

In general, the Finishing section is also required to work longer hours than the operators. Workers in the Finishing section complain of being on their feet 13 hours a day or longer.

Legal minimum wage violated. Many workers earning less than one half of the 22-cent-anhour minimum wage set by the government.

Even this minimum wage falls far below basic subsistence-level needs.

Sewing operators paid 11 to 18 cents an hour, or $5.09 to $8.84 a week, while helpers earn just 7 cents an hour, 59 cents a day. By law, sewing operators should be paid at least 22 cents an hour, and helpers 18 cents.

The Bangladesh’s government’s Export Processing Zone Authority is charged with establishing legal standards for wages, benefits, hours and working conditions in the country’s export processing zones. The government has set

the legal minimum wage for sewing operators (semi-skilled category) at 22 cents an hour and $10.38 a week. Helpers (unskilled category) are to be paid at least 18 cents an hour, $8.77 a week.

Furthermore, by law workers in the country’s export processing zones—such as the Dhaka EPZ— are to be paid a housing (rent) subsidy as well as other medical, transportation and religious holiday bonuses.

Actor Sporting Limited factory management blatantly violates all these legal minimum wage and benefit standards established by the government of Bangladesh.

According to Bangladesh’s law, sewing operators in the country’s export processing zones must be paid 2,583 taka a month, or $45 (U.S.).

Legal EPZ operator’s wage: 22 cents an hour (.216346153) $1.73 a day (8 hours) $10.38 a week (6 days, 48 hours) $45 a month $540 a year By law, helpers must be paid at least 18 cents an

25

hour, or $38 a month, which is 2,181.20 taka.

Legal EPZ helper’s wage: 18 cents an hour $1.46 a day (8 hours) $8.77 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $38 a month $456 a year Many sewing operators at the Actor factory are earning less than one half of the legal minimum wage owed them, while helpers are receiving just 40 percent of what is legally due them.

A senior operator at the Actor Sporting factory, with more than five or six years sewing experience, is paid 2,200 taka a month, or $38.33—which falls 15 percent below the legal minimum of $45 a month.

Senior operator’s wage: 18 cents an hour (0.184266952) $1.47 a day (8 hours) $8.84 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $38.33 a month $459.93 a year Junior operators, with less than five years’ experience as sewers, are paid just 1,265 taka per month, $22.04—which is less than one half of the $45 a month legal minimum wage owed them.

Junior operator’s wage: 11 cents an hour (0.105953497) 85 cents a day (8 hours) $5.09 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $22.04 a month $264.46 a year

times younger, and who cut the loose threads from the finished garments and supply cloth to the sewing lines, are paid just 880 taka a month, $15.33. By law, they should be earning at least $38 per month—meaning that they are being cheated of 60 percent of the legal wage owed them.

Helper’s wage: 7 cents an hour (0.073693379) 59 cents a day (8 hours) $3.54 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $15.33 a month $183.97 a year The fact that Actor Sporting Limited is failing to pay the legal minimum wage means that its workers are also being shortchanged on overtime pay.

Legally, overtime is to be paid at double the standard rate, or 43 cents an hour. For the average 65-hour workweek at the Actor factory the workers should be earning $17.74, which is $10.38 for the regular 48 hours at 22 cents an hour and $7.36 for 17 hour of overtime at 43 cents an hour. Yet, the highest overtime wage we heard of at the factory was 3,500 taka, or $60.98 a month, $14.07 a week. Even this wage—which could have been for more than 65 hours of work—fell 20 percent short of what the workers are legally entitled to, for 65 hours at work.

Furthermore, the Bangladesh government’s EPZ laws mandate payment of a housing subsidy, a transportation allowance, medical insurance and a bonus for religious holidays. Actor Sporting factory management fails to pay these legally mandated benefits as well, paying the workers zero—not a cent—in rent subsidy. Sick days are not permitted and as a “transportation allowance” the company provides a few dangerously overcrowded unsafe

Helpers, who tend to be 16 to 20 years old, some-

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...they are being cheated of 60 percent of the legal wage owed them

BANGLADESH

End the Race to the Bottom

buses, which are totally inadequate to meet the needs of 3,500 workers.

Wages at Actor Sporting Limited are paid 15 days late so that, for example, July wages are not paid until August 15.

Total labor cost to cut, sew and embroider each $17.43 university cap comes to less than five cents. Wages amount to less than 3/10ths of one percent of the retail price. Universities and their licensees mark up the price of the cap by 1,350 percent!

At the Actor factory, an assembly line made up of 30 sewers must complete 350 university caps each hour. That is the mandatory production goal set by management. Even if we take the highest senior operator’s wage of 18 cents an hour, then for all 30 operators the total hourly payroll still amounts to just $5.53 ($.184266852 x 30 = $5.528007). This means that the workers are paid just 1.6 cents for each cap they sew ($5.528007 ) 350 = $0.0157943). If we then add on the labor cost to cut the fabric and embroider the cap this adds another three cents, bringing the total labor cost to make each cap to a little less than 5 cents.

The five cents to cut, sew and embroider the cap amounts to less than 3/10ths of one percent of the average $17.43 retail price of the university caps. (The NLC has reviewed retail prices for university caps purchased at Notre Dame, Louisiana State University, University of Wisconsin, New York University, University of Michigan, Illinois State, Penn State, Florida State, Ohio State, University of Louisville and North Carolina and found the range to be $15.95 to $19.99, averaging $17.43.)

ment that 100 percent cotton twill five- and sixpanel baseball caps made in Bangladesh at the Actor Sporting Limited factory for the Reebok, Falcon and Ahead labels enter the U.S. with an average total landed Customs value of just $1.23. This $1.23 would be the total cost to produce the baseball caps—including all materials, accessories, direct and indirect labor, overhead, profit to Actor Sporting Limited and shipping costs.

U.S. retailers and universities then sell the caps for an average of $17.43, which represents a mark-up over cost of production of 1,350 percent!

Stuck in misery: The workers sewing these baseball caps at Actor Sporting for U.S. universities and retailers are being systematically denied their most fundamental human and worker rights, cheated of their legal wage and forced to live on wages far below subsistence level.

Paid just 1.6 cents for each hat they sew, most workers must remain single, since they cannot afford to marry. They are forced to live three or four to a tiny room in a slum area. No Actor Sporting Limited worker we spoke with had been able to save any money, and everyone lived from hand to mouth, from day to day.

Violations at the Actor Sporting Limited Factory • No maternity pay: Mothers do receive 14 weeks of maternity leave, but Actor Sporting illegally refuses to pay these women a single cent of maternity benefits.

• Beatings and physical abuse: Managers and supervisors have beaten workers, slapping and punching them and hitting them with sticks. Once supervisors used shoes to beat the workers.

U.S. Customs Department shipping records docu-

27

• Cruel and harsh treatment: The workers report that they are under constant pressure, often screamed at to work faster. The workers say that for a “slight mistake, you can receive a warning— and the second time you are fired or suspended for three months without pay, which is the same as being fired only they don’t have to pay you any benefits.” Everyone described the treatment as too strict and as “cruel.”

• Forbidden to move or talk: The workers told us, “you can’t move two feet from your work space without being screamed at.” No one is allowed to get up without permission. Talking during working hours is strictly prohibited.

• Permission required to use the toilet: Workers must ask permission from their supervisors to receive a “toilet pass” to use the bathroom.

Each visit is monitored and timed, and anyone taking too much time in a supervisor’s judgement will be shouted at and humiliated. At the very maximum, workers can use the toilet four times in a 13-hour shift. There are 24 toilets for all 2,000 male workers and 30 toilets for the 1,500 women.

• Factory is hot and ventilation inadequate.

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The factory is hot and lacks fresh air due to inadequate ventilation. Lighting is also poor.

• No sick days: No matter how ill a worker is, no matter how justified, Actor management refuses to pay sick days. Anyone who does not show up to work—even if they come the next day with a doctor’s note—will be docked the day’s pay.

• Unsafe drinking water: The only water available to the workers is the filthy tap water, which is the cause of many illnesses. The factory does not provide bottled or treated water.

• Cheated of severance pay: By law in the Export Processing Zones, the workers earn a severance pay of 5,000 taka ($87.11) for each year worked. So, for five years, a worker would be owed 25,000 taka, or $435.54, when they left the factory. For ten years of work, an operator would be owed 50,000 taka, or $871.08, when he or she left. However—again illegally—Actor Sporting management refuses to make these payments.

When workers leaving the factory ask for their legal severance payment, management simply refuses to pay and then just ignores them.

But things can get even worse. The government of Bangladesh has mandated the establishment of a Provident Fund, which is a sort of cooperative savings plan whereby a worker agrees to a withholding of, for example, 50 taka a month, or 87 cents, to be deposited in a factory-controlled savings account. Management is supposed to match

that worker’s savings. This would allow the worker to save $10.44 a year, which, when matched by the company, would come to a yearly savings of $20.44. It is not much at all, but it is all the workers have. However, workers forced to leave or quit the factory report having a hard time trying to withdraw their savings. We were told, “you are ACTOR SPORTING LIMITED FACTORY

29

lucky if you can get back your own money, let alone anything more” —referring to the company’s matching their savings and the interest owed. In fact, “sometimes you can’t even get your own money back,” said the workers.

• Freedom of Association is outlawed: Workers at the Actor Sporting Limited factory, and in all the export processing zones in Bangladesh, are by law stripped of their internationally recognized workers right to Freedom of Association—the right to organize a union and bargain collectively.

Any workers even suspected of organizing will be immediately fired. In June of 1999, when Actor workers tried to organize an “association,” they were immediately fired. The workers believe the company will “never allow a union.”

• Codes of Conduct unknown and completely meaningless: The workers know of no Corporate Codes of Conduct posted at the Actor factory and in fact have never even heard of such Codes. No explanation has ever been provided to them. They have no idea or concept of what these Codes might be, or how they are supposed to function. For these workers, these Codes are completely meaningless.

30

However, before U.S. buyers are scheduled to visit the factory, management threatens the workers and instructs them to lie should anyone approach them, saying, “yes, all the rules are followed here…we have nothing to complain about.” If they say otherwise, they will be fired.

• Ministry of Labor does nothing: Every worker we spoke with agreed that the Ministry of Labor does nothing: “They do absolutely nothing to implement the law.” The workers are in a trap, isolated, with nowhere to turn.

• Worn out at thirty: The workers told us no one lasts longer than 10 years in these factories, or at the very most 15 years. The exhaustion of 12-to14-hour shifts seven days a week along with the constant pressure, the screaming and even physical abuse, physically wear a worker out. “By 30 years of age, you are worn out and broken,” we were told, “and you will never see a worker who is anywhere near 40.” When the workers reach 30 years of age, the companies pressure them to quit, so they can be replaced by another crop of young teenagers.

PRO-SPORTS LTD. FACTORY DHAKA BANGLADESH • FORCED OVERTIME: On average, 20.75 to 22.5 hours overtime required each week, resulting in a standard 12hour shift, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Seven-day workweek— one day off per month. Two or three mandatory 19-hour shifts each month, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Average workweek 68.75 to 70.5 hours.

• BELOW-SUBSISTENCE WAGES: Sewers paid 13 to 18 cents an hour. Helpers earn just 8 cents an hour and 62 cents a day. Forced to work one or more overtime hours each day without pay. Cheated on 7 to 14 hours overtime pay each week.

New Era; University of Wisconsin; Tulane University; University of Washington; Miami University of Ohio

PRO-SPORTS LTD. FACTORY

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• NO MATERNITY BENEFITS. • NO HEALTH CARE, NO SICK DAYS, NO

DAYCARE CENTER. • FILTHY DRINKING WATER—causes bouts of diarrhea and vomiting.

• PERMISSION NEEDED TO USE THE TOILET—visits monitored and timed. Workers taking too long are shouted at.

• TALKING IS PROHIBITED. • Majority of workers are 16 to 25 years old.

Company policy is to force out “older” workers—anyone over 35 or 40 is fired.

• CODES OF CONDUCT UNKNOWN AND TOTALLY MEANINGLESS: No worker has ever heard of the Codes. However, workers are threatened and instructed to lie to U.S. buyers, claiming conditions are fine.

• TOTAL DENIAL OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Any worker even suspected of meeting to organize to defend their rights will be immediately fired. Fear permeates factory.

• Most workers cannot afford to get married. It is common for four people to be forced to share one tiny room in a slum area. Workers cannot afford event the most minimally necessary foods. No one has savings.

• EVERY WORKER FEELS TRAPPED IN A

TERRIBLY ABUSIVE SITUATION AND EVERY WORKER WOULD LIKE TO END THE VIOLATIONS—however, they are afraid that if they unite to regain their most basic right they will be fired.

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Pro-Sports Ltd. 313, Tejgaon 1/A Tejgaon, Dhaka 1208 Managing Director: Motawakkel Billah Number of workers: 900 (78 percent women)

ing day, after which the workers sleep on the factory floor for a few hours before beginning their next shift at 8:00 a.m. Such all-night shifts precede shipment dates, when completed orders must go out. The average workweek at the Pro-Sports factory is between 68.75 and 70.5 hours. Under extreme conditions, the workers can be at the factory 88 hours a week.

Production: Shirts, jackets, pants, hats Labels: • New Era • University of Wisconsin • Tulane University • Miami University of Ohio • University of Washington • Arizona State University • De Paul University • Central Michigan University • Northern Illinois University

Hours: Forced overtime. Mandatory 20.75 to 22.5 overtime hours each week, resulting in a standard 12-hour shift, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Seven-day workweek—one day off a month.

Two to three obligatory all-night 19-hour shifts each month. Average workweek 68.75 to 70.5 hours.

The standard shift at Pro-Sports Ltd. is 12 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The workweek is seven days a week. There are no regularly scheduled weekly holidays, or rest days, though generally workers receive one day off a month. This makes their average workweek 6.75 days. On average 20.75 to 22.5 hours of overtime are required each week. Each month there are two or three mandatory all-night shifts stretching from 8:00 a.m. straight through to 3:00 a.m. the follow-

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Wages: Below-subsistence wages: Sewers earn 13 to 18 cents an hour, while helpers are paid just 8 cents an hour and 62 cents a day. Workers cheated on overtime pay—forced to work one or more hours per day without pay.

A senior operator with more than five or six years’ experience sewing earns 2,200 taka per month, or $38.33, which comes to 18 cents an hour.

Senior operator’s wage: 18 cents an hour (.184266952) $1.47 a day (8 hours) $8.84 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $38.33 a month $459.93 a year Junior sewing operators, with less than five years’ experience, are paid 1,500 taka a month, or $26.13, which amounts to 13 cents an hour.

Junior operator’s wage: 13 cents an hour (.125636558) $1.01 a day (8 hours) $6.03 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $26.13 a month $313.59 a year Helpers, who are generally teenagers who supply the assembly lines with fabric and then clean the

finished garments by cutting off loose threads, are paid just 930 taka a month, or $16.20, which amounts to 8 cents an hour, and 62 cents a day.

Helper’s wage: 8 cents an hour (.077894666) 62 cents a day (8 hours) $3.74 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $16.20 a month $194.43 a year Cheated on overtime pay. Forced to work one or more hours each day without pay: Company policy at the Pro-Sports factory appears to be that its workers will be paid for just two hours of overtime each day, no matter how many hours are actually worked—which is generally three or more overtime hours per day. The ProSports workers are being cheated out of one or more hours of overtime pay each day, and between 7 to 14 hours of overtime pay per week. It is easy for management to do this. It is the supervisors’ responsibility to write down on the

workers’ timesheet the number of hours worked that day, and they simply write in two hours of overtime no matter how late the workers are actually forced to stay. Everything looks legal on paper, but the workers are being shortchanged of $2.58 to $5.16 a week in wages due to them, which might not seem like a lot to us, but is an enormous amount of money for workers who are earning just $8.84 for the entire regular 48-hour workweek, and who are living in abject poverty.

Paid late: Everyone at the Pro-Sports is paid one week late, meaning, for example, that their July wage is not received until between August 7 and 10.

Abuses at the Pro-Sports factory: • No maternity benefits: Mothers do receive six weeks leave, but it is without pay. Pro-Sports does not pay one cent of maternity benefits, which is illegal.

• No health care, no sick days, no day care center: Pro-Sports does not provide any health care to its workers, and does not permit sick days.

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No matter how ill a worker is, and even if she returns the following day with a justification from her doctor, her wages are docked for any days missed. There is no daycare center at the factory.

• Filthy drinking water: Pro-Sports does not provide bottled, treated, or boiled water, leaving the workers to drink the filthy tap water, which is a constant source of sickness, bouts of diarrhea and stomach infections.

• Talking prohibited: Speaking during working hours is strictly prohibited and anyone caught doing so will be punished.

• Permission required to use the toilet: Workers need permission to use the toilet and must receive a ‘toilet pass’ from their supervisor, who then monitors and times the visit. Any worker taking ‘too long’ in the supervisor’s judgment will be shouted at and abused in front of other workers.

There are just four toilets for all 700 women workers—or one toilet for each 175 women.

• Crowded and hot: The factory is very overcrowded, hot, and lacks adequate ventilation.

• Codes of Conduct are unknown and totally meaningless: No worker at Pro-Sports has even heard of the U.S. companies’ Codes of Conduct, let alone been given an explanation as to the Codes’ supposed role in guaranteeing their fundamental rights. However, before foreign buyers visit the factory the workers must clean the toilets and their work area. They are also threatened and instructed to lie, should any of the buyers ever approach them, saying that factory conditions are fine, all rules are respected, and that they have no complaints. If they say otherwise, they will be fired.

• Total denial of Freedom of Association: Though Freedom of Association—the core internationally recognized worker right—is guaranteed under Bangladeshi labor law as well as the U.S. companies’ Codes of Conduct, at the Pro-Sports factory it is violated on a daily basis. Any workers even suspected of meeting to organize to defend their most basic rights will be immediately fired. The Pro-Sports factory can do this with complete impunity. Fear permeates the factory.

• Forcing out “older” workers: Eighty-five percent of the workers at the Pro-Sports factory are between 16 and 25 years of age. Older workers are forced out to make way for another crop of teenage girls. It is apparently company policy to fire any worker when they reach 35 to 40 years of age.

• Trapped in misery: Most Pro-Sports workers cannot afford to marry. It is common for four workers to be forced to share one small room in a poor slum area. No worker we spoke with from the factory had any savings, and in fact, most could not afford to purchase even the most minimally necessary foods.

• Workers want change but they are isolated and afraid: The workers at the Pro-Sports factory feel they are trapped in a terrible situation and want desperately to end the constant abuses, but they are afraid that if they unite to defend their basic rights they will all be fired.

Any workers even suspected of meeting to organize to defend their most basic rights will be immediately fired.

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DADA (DHAKA) FACTORY DHAKA BANGLADESH • OBLIGATORY OVERTIME: Eleven and a half to fifteen hours of overtime required each week, resulting in standard 11-hour shift from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., six days a week.

Workers at the factory 66 hours a week.

• BELOW-SUBSISTENCE WAGES: Sewers earn just 14 to 23 cents an hour. Helpers paid only six to eight cents an hour, and 62 cents a day.

• CHEATED ON OVERTIME PAY: Workers report being paid for only 60 percent of the overtime hours they work. At a minimum they are forced to work 4.8 overtime hours a week without pay. Shortchanged 20 percent of their weekly wage.

Nike; Reebok; 18 Universities including:

Columbia, Cornell, Illinois State, Miami of Ohio, Northwestern, Purdue, University of Connecticut, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina

DADA (DHAKA) FACTORY

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• TRAPPED IN MISERY: One woman summed up wages at the factory this way: "we cannot even meet the most basic demands of our daily needs with the salary we are getting. How can we afford to see a doctor, and even if we could, how could we pay for the medicine?" Workers have no savings. Four to five workers are forced to share one small room in a slum area.

To climb out of misery and poverty, the workers say they would need to earn at least 34 cents an hour. Surely Nike and the universities could afford this.

• VOMITING AND HEADACHES: Due to the relentless pace and constant pressure, women report suffering from near-constant headaches and vomiting.

• FEW MAKE IT PAST 30: When they reach 30 years of age, 95 percent of workers either leave of their own accord because they are worn out, exhausted, and sick, or they are driven out by

the company anxious to replace them with another crop of young teenage girls.

• WORKERS NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE TOILETS: Visits are monitored and timed.

There is just one toilet for 140 women.

• NO SEVERANCE PAY: Not one cent in legally-required severance is paid.

• NO SICK DAYS: Any day missed is docked.

• TALKING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. • NIKE AND UNIVERSITY CODES OF

CONDUCT ARE COMPLETELY UNKNOWN AND MEANINGLESS: No worker had ever heard of the codes, let alone received any explanation as to their function.

• TOTAL REPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: If management even suspects workers were attempting to organize to defend their rights, they would all be immediately fired, thrown out of the factory, and blacklisted.

DADA (DHAKA) FACTORY

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CONSUMER PRESSURE WORKS Despite the continuing violations and abuse at the Dada factory, it is still important to realize that there have been many improvements there over the last two years—no doubt, in large measure due to the pressure placed on Nike, Reebok and the universities by concerned consumers in the U.S. and Canada. Dada used to operate on standard 12-to-14-hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 or 10:00 p.m., seven days a week, with—at most—just 2 days off a month.

There were 25.5 to 27.5 hours of mandatory overtime each week. Workers could be at the factory up to 85 hours a week while being paid for 78.5 hours. Helpers were paid just six cents an hour, 50 cents a day, and $13.07 a month!

There were no maternity benefits, and mothers were allowed just 45 days leave—and not the three months with full pay that the law demands.

The drinking water was contaminated and filthy.

So consumer pressure does work. However, typical to pattern, the last area that Nike and the other companies will move on is to guarantee the workers their legal right to organize and payment of at least subsistence-level wages. That will only be won with further awareness, pressure and popular campaigns.

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Dada (Dhaka) Ltd Plot #28, Section #6 Uttara residential area C/A Dhaka-1230, Bangladesh Telephone: 02-891-7231 Director: S.M. Majedur Rahim Number of Employees: 3,500 (80 percent women. Seventy-five percent are between the ages of 18 and 25).

Production: Caps and hats Labels: The workers provided us labels for Nike Team Sports (RN 94078), Wilson, and Reebok (Logo Athletic). A search of U.S. Customs department shipping documents (PIERS database) confirms Nike, Reebok (On Field Apparel), and American Needle and Novelty Caps (ANNCO) production at Dada. American Needle and Novelty Caps are also licensees for universities.

Dada produces caps and hats for at least 17 universities: Arizona State University Central Michigan University Columbia University Cornell University Illinois State University Miami University of Ohio Northwestern University Purdue University Tulane University of Arizona University of Connecticut University of Iowa University of Michigan University of Minnesota

University of New Hampshire University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) University of Washington

Hours: Obligatory overtime: 11.5 to 15 hours of overtime required per week results in standard 11-hour shift from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. six days a week. At the factory 66 hours a week.

The standard shift is 11 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. with an hour off for lunch. The workweek is six days, and 11.5-to-15 hours of overtime are required each week. All overtime is obligatory.

At a minimum, workers are at the factory 66 hours a week, while being paid for 60 hours.

Standard 11-hour shift: 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

5 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

work (4.5 hours) lunch (1 hour) work (3.5 hours) obligatory overtime (2 hours)

Wages: Below-subsistence wages: Sewers are paid just 14 to 23 cents an hour. Helpers paid only 6 to 8 cents an hour, and 62 cents a day.

Senior operators at the Dada factory with more than five years of experience as sewers earn between 2,300 and 2,700 taka a month, or $41.81 to $47.04 which comes to 20 to 23 cents an hour.

Average senior operator's wage: (2,550 Taka) 21 cents an hour (.2135821) $1.70 a day (8 hours) $10.25 a week (6 days/48 hours) $44.43 a month $533.10 a year Junior sewing operators, with less than five years' experience are paid between 1,700 and 2,000 taka a month, or $29.62 to $34.84, which comes to 14 to17 cents an hour.

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Average junior operator's wage: (1,850 taka) 15 cents an hour (.1549517) $1.24 a day (8 hours) $7.44 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $32.23 a month $313.59 a year

dery section at Dada used to work in just two 12hour shifts, seven days a week. The workers rarely received a day off. Now the embroidery section of the factory works on two seven-hour daytime shifts and the 10-hour night shift, and they do receive one day off a week.

Helpers, typically young teenage girls who supply the assembly lines with fabric and then clean the finished garments by cutting off any loose threads, are paid just 6 cents an hour when they start working, or $12.20 per month. Beginning their third month, these helpers are paid 930 taka a month, $16.20, which is just 8 cents an hour, 62 cents a day.

Helper's wage: 8 cents an hour (.0778946) 62 cents a day (8 hours) $3.74 a week (6 days/48 hours) $16.20 a month $184.43 a year The highest wages we found at the Dada factory were in the embroidery section, where workers embroider Yankees, Bulls, Steelers logos, etc., into Nike sports caps. Working the night shift for 10 hours from 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., six nights a week, the most experienced workers could earn up to 4,500 taka a month, or $74.80. This comes to $18.09 per week and averages—with overtime included—to 34 cents an hour. Explaining all the household chores they had to do when they returned home in the morning, most of the women reported being able to sleep only five hours a day before returning to work. However, it used to be much worse, the workers told us, before Nike— under pressure—demanded changes. The embroi-

Cheated on overtime pay: Dada workers report being paid for just 60 percent of the overtime hours they are actually forced to work each week.

At a minimum, sewing operators at Dada are being forced to work at least 4.8 hours of overtime each week without pay! Of course, this is illegal.

By law, workers must be paid double time for all overtime hours worked, or 43 cents an hour. (A senior operator’s average wage of .2135821 x 2 = .4271642). This means that the Dada company is illegally cheating its workers of $2.05 a week in overtime wages due them. Again, this might seem like an insignificant amount in the U.S., but for workers forced to live in abject poverty, $2.05 is a great deal of money. This $2.05 would add a full 20 percent to their average weekly wage of just $10.25, and could make the difference between eating and going hungry.

This scheme of routinely shortchanging the workers of their overtime pay adds up quite nicely for the Dada company, which can pocket an extra $7,105 each week, and $369,460 a year in money stolen from the workers.

Abuses at the Dada (Dhaka) factory: • TRAPPED IN MISERY: No worker at the Dada factory feels they have anywhere near a decent life.

One worker summed up the common feeling when she said “We cannot even meet the most basic

...pay a sustainable wage in Bangladesh of $.34/hour, there would still just be three cents of direct labor involved in the sewing of each cap...

demands of our daily needs with the salary we are getting. How can we afford to see a doctor, and even if we could, how could we pay for the medicine?”

Few workers can afford to marry. It is typical for four or five workers to be forced to share a small room in a dangerous slum area. Yet, even living under these conditions, workers go hungry—and lack adequate calories—since they cannot afford to purchase even the most basic food necessities. No worker we spoke with had been able to save any money. They lived from day to day, from hand to mouth.

The workers told us—and we heard this again and again from factory workers across Bangladesh— that they would need to earn at least 4,000 taka a month, $68.69—34 cents an hour, to climb out of misery and into poverty, where their lives could gain a modicum of decency and dignity. Surely Nike, the NFL, the universities and the other companies could afford to pay 34 cents an hour.

As things stand now, we know from production line data in several factories that the direct labor cost to sew a university cap amounts to less than two cents per hat. We also know that these same Reebok caps made at the Dada factory enter the United States with a Customs value of just $1.46— which accounts for all materials, direct and indirect labor and shipping costs, along with the profit of the Dada company. In short, the $1.46 represents the total production cost for the cap. As it is common for these hats to retail for $18.99 at university bookstores, this represents a 1,200 percent markup over the cost of production! If the universities insisted that their licensees pay a sustainable wage in Bangladesh of 34 cents an hour, there

would still just be three cents of direct labor involved in the sewing of each cap—something the universities could easily afford.

• VOMITING, HEADACHES: Many workers report that the relentless pace in the factory and constant pressure they face affect their health, leaving them suffering near-constant headaches and frequent bouts of vomiting and other illnesses.

• FEW MAKE IT PAST 30: Only a handful of workers in the factory make it past their 30th birthday. Ninety-four percent of workers either leave on their own account before they reach 30, because they are sick, exhausted, and worn out, or the company drives them out so they can replace them with another crop of young teenage girls.

• WORKERS NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE TOILET, and must secure a “toilet pass” from their supervisors. If permission is granted, their visits are monitored and timed. There are just 20 toilets for all 2800 women workers, which means there is just one toilet for every 140 workers.

• NO SEVERANCE PAY: Allegedly, the Dada company refuses to pay a single cent of severance to workers leaving the factory. By law, the workers are supposed to receive 5,000 taka, or $87.11, for each year they worked in the factory.

• SICK DAYS ARE NEVER GRANTED: No matter how ill a worker, and no matter how justified the absence—e.g. returning the following day with a medical note from the doctor—all days missed are punished with the docking of the workers' wages. Under Bangladesh’s labor law each worker is entitled to 14 days of sick leave a year, and with full pay.

• TALKING DURING WORKING HOURS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. • NIKE AND THE UNIVERSITY CODES OF CONDUCT UNKNOWN AND MEANINGLESS: No worker we spoke with had even heard of the codes, let alone seen them or been provided any explanation as to their supposed function in guaranteeing respect for worker rights. The university Codes of Conduct remain completely meaningless.

When we interviewed one of the most experienced workers in the factory—with eight years in the embroidery section—we thought we had finally found someone who knew of and had actually seen Nike’s Code of Conduct. She told us she knew the code quite well. However, when we asked her to describe Nike’s Code, she proudly recited from memory the instructions and rules, step by step, for cleaning her embroidery machine.

Some workers report that “inspectors”—they believe from Nike—visit the factory twice a month.

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If this is the case, why is it that these “inspectors” have been unable to discover the systematic shortchanging of workers of their overtime pay, the lack of severance pay and sick days, and the total denial of the right to organize. The workers had no trouble telling us that there was an iron-clad rule in the factory, which everyone knew and feared, that any effort to organize a labor union at Dada would be met with immediate mass firings.

• TOTAL SUPPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Despite the fact that this is the ILO’s core internationally recognized labor right, the Dada company totally represses the right to Freedom of Association. Every worker knows that if management even suspects that they are attempting to organize to defend their rights they will be immediately be fired, thrown out of the factory and blacklisted. Fear pervades the factory, as every worker reports that management will never allow a union.

SEOUL INTERNATIONAL (DHAKA) FACTORY DHAKA, BANGLADESH • EIGHTY-PLUS HOURS WORKWEEK. • STANDARD 12-HOUR SHIFTS, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

• TWO TO THREE MANDATORY, 19-HOUR ALL-NIGHT SHIFTS A MONTH, 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.

• NO REGULARLY SCHEDULED HOLIDAYS: workers generally get two days off a month.

• ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY HOURS OF OBLIGATORY OVERTIME PER MONTH. 34.5 to 37.5 overtime hours a week, working 82.5 to 85.5 hours a week.

• BELOW-SUBSISTENCE WAGES: 13 to 16 cents an hour for sewing operators, and 6 cents for the 15-year-old

Nike; Northwestern; Tulane; Universities of Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin

SEOUL INTERNATIONAL (DHAKA) FACTORY

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helpers, or 50 cents a day, which is below the legal minimum wage.

• WORKERS CHEATED ON OVERTIME PAY. • FACTORY IS CROWDED, HOT AND

POORLY VENTILATED. • CHEATED ON MATERNITY BENEFITS: new mothers are permitted just 45 days leave, without pay, instead of the legally mandated three months leave with full pay.

• WORKERS NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE BATHROOM. There is one toilet for every 75 women.

• UNSAFE DRINKING WATER. • HARSH TREATMENT: supervisors yell and scream at the workers, with constant threats and humiliation.

• UNION BUSTING: any attempt to exercise their legal right to organize a union will be met with immediate illegal mass firings.

Seoul International (Dhaka) Ltd. Amir Complex Plot #43, Sector #3 Uttara Model Town Dhaka-1230, Bangladesh Telephone: 02-891-5217 General manager: Sheikh Jahangir Alam Number of workers: 1,000. (60%women) Seoul International makes caps and hats for Nike and Northwestern University; Tulane University; University of Arizona; University of Connecticut; University of Michigan, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill); University of Washington; University of Wisconsin (Madison).

Hours: Obligatory overtime. Workweek of 80-plus hours. Two days off a month, some 19-hour, SEOUL INTERNATIONAL (DHAKA) FACTORY

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all-night shifts, 37.5 hours of overtime a week.

The standard shift at Seoul International is 12 hours a day, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The workweek averages 6.5 days, with just two days off per month. Two or three times a month the workers are forced to put in grueling 19-hour shifts, stretching from 8:00 a.m. right through the night to 3:00 a.m., after which they sleep on the factory floor. They must start work again at 8:00 a.m.

The sewing operators report being forced to work an average of 150 overtime hours each month.

This means they are working 34.5 to 37.5 overtime hours a week—bringing their work week to well over 80 hours. Under this schedule they work an 82.5-to-85.5-hour week.

Wages:

13 cents an hour ($0.1256365) $1.01 a day (8 hours) $6.03 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $26.13 a month $313.59 a year Helpers, who tend to be 15, 16 and 17 years old and who supply the production lines and clean the clothing by cutting off loose threads, earn just 750 taka, or $13.07 a month–6 cents an hour, which is well below the country’s legal minimum wage of 930 taka a month.

Helper’s wage: 6 cents an hour (.0628182) 50 cents a day $3.02 a week (6 days, 48 hours) $13.07 a month $156.79 a year

Below-subsistence wages: 13 to 16 cents an hour for sewing operators; helpers earn just 6 cents an hour, or 50 cents a day.

All wages are paid two weeks late. Pay for the month of July, for example, is not provided until August 12 to15.

A senior operator with at least five or six years of sewing experience earns 1,900 taka, or $33.10 a month, which comes to 16 cents an hour.

Cheated on overtime pay: sewing operators routinely report that all the overtime hours they work are not being recorded properly by their supervisors, who underestimate the time actually worked, and write in fewer hours in their time/pay cards.

In this way, they are being systematically underpaid and cheated of their legal overtime wage.

Senior operator’s wage: 16 cents an hour ($0.1591396) $1.27 a day (8 hours) $7.64 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $33.10 a month $397.21 a year Junior sewing operators with less than five years’ experience earn 1,500 taka, or $26.13 a month, which amounts to 13 cents an hour.

Junior operator’s wage:

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Below-subsistence wages: no one can possibly live on the 13-to-16-cent-an-hour wage the sewing operators are paid, let alone the 6 cents an hour earned by the helpers.

Workers report being forced to share tiny “dormlike” single rooms in slum areas with four or five

other workers, since that is all they can afford. A single room in a slum area will cost 1,500 taka a month, or $26.13. Most workers walk several kilometers to and from work each day to save money rather than pay the 12 to 15 cents to ride in a bicycle rickshaw. In what could be termed low intensity starvation, the workers must consistently forego basic food necessities, which they simply cannot afford.

Abuses at the Seoul International (Dhaka) factory: • The Seoul factory is crowded, hot and poorly ventilated.

• Unsafe drinking water. Workers must drink from the faucet, and receive neither filtered nor bottled water.

• Workers need permission to use the bathroom, and must first receive a card from the supervisors. There are just eight toilets for 600 women, or one toilet for every 75 women.

• Talking is prohibited during working hours.

• Sick days are not allowed. No matter how sick, any sewing operator missing a day’s work will have her pay docked.

• There are only two stairways to enter and exit the Seoul factory, which in an emergency might not be adequate to handle 1,000 workers trying to flee the factory at once to reach safety.

• Harsh treatment: supervisors scream at the workers, constantly humiliating and threatening them.

• Cheated on maternity benefits: new mothers at the Seoul International factory are permitted just 45 days maternity leave—unpaid. This is a direct violation of Bangladeshi labor laws that mandate a three-month maternity leave with full pay.

• Workers are not paid their legal severance when they leave the Seoul International factory.

• Right to organize systematically repressed: workers report that Seoul International management will never allow a union in their factory, and that any attempt to organize would be met with immediate mass firings, carried out with total impunity. There are only 11 government labor inspectors for all of Dhaka—where over one million garment workers toil. The Ministry of Labor in Bangladesh makes no attempt whatsoever to implement the country’s labor laws.

LABOR LAWS OF BANGLADESH at a glance HOURS:

* 48-hour regular workweek. * 8-hour day, 6-day week.

OVERTIME: * Overtime must be voluntary * Overtime should not exceed 12 hours a week (making a 60-hour workweek). and should not average more than 8 hours a week (a 56-hour workweek). * Overtime must be paid at double the standard wage. * Women cannot work night shifts, or past 8 p.m.

REST DAY:

* There must be one rest day off per week—either Friday or Sunday.

EXPORT PROCESSING ZONES AND BENEFITS: WAGES:

* EPZ minimum sewers wage—22 cents an hour. * EPZ minimum helpers wage—18 cents an hour.

BENEFITS:

* * * * *

Rent subsidy.

Transportation subsidy.

Medical allowance.

Religious festival bonus.

17 days vacation.

COUNTRYWIDE MINIMUM WAGE—8 CENTS AN HOUR. LEGAL BENEFITS: * 14 sick days a year with full pay. * 10 personal (“casual”) days a year with full pay. * 10 religious festival holidays with full pay. * 3 months’ maternity leave with full pay. * Daycare—factories with more than 50 employees must have a daycare center.

HEALTHCARE:

* Factories with more than 500 workers must have a healthcare clinic and dispensary staffed by a doctor and nurse.

SEVERANCE:

* Upon leaving a factory a worker is legally entitled to a severance payment of 5000 taka ($87.11) for each year worked.

PUNISHMENTS:

* Any and all forms of physical punishment are outlawed and punishable by law.

RIGHT TO ORGANIZE AND BARGAIN COLLECTIVELY are legal rights guaranteed

by Bangladesh’s labor law (except in the country’s Export Processing Zones, where the law does not apply.)

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CHAITY APPARELS FACTORY DHAKA BANGLADESH • TEN-TO-THIRTEEN-HOUR SHIFTS STANDARD, with mandatory 19-hour shifts required–from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.–up to twice a week.

• SEVEN-DAY WORKWEEK: At most, workers receive two Fridays off a month.

• WORKERS AT THE FACTORY 78 HOURS A WEEK ON AVERAGE. • BELOW SUBSISTENCE WAGES: Sewers paid 11 cents to 20 cents an hour. Fifteen-year-old helpers paid just 8 cents.

Nike; University of Minnesota

• FACTORY IS CROWDED, HOT, AND POORLY VENTILATED. • PREGNANT WOMEN ARE PROVIDED LESS THAN ONE HALF THEIR LEGAL MATERNITY LEAVE AND

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BENEFITS. • NO SICK DAYS ARE ALLOWED. • TALKING IS PROHIBITED AND WORKERS NEED PERMISSION TO USE THE BATHROOM. There is only one toilet for every 87 women workers.

• TREATMENT IS HARSH: Supervisors yell and shout at the workers and threaten them.

• NO WORKER HAD EVER HEARD OF NIKE, let alone knew of the Nike Code of Conduct.

• UNIONS OUTLAWED: Any attempt to organize will be met with immediate firings.

Chaity Apparels Ltd 43 Chalabon Azampur, Uttara Dhaka 1230, Bangladesh Telephone: 02-891-6189

Director: Abul Kalam Number of employees: 1,300 (600 male, 700 female) Production: Windbreakers, jackets, jogging suits Labels: Nike produces children’s apparel for the University of Minnesota.

Hours: Forced overtime resulting in ten-to-13-hour shifts, seven days a week, with two days off a month. Occasional 19-hour all-night shifts from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. At the factory 78 hours a week.

Standard shift: 10 to 13 hours a day, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. There is one 30-minute break during the day for lunch and another 15-minute evening break when the shift goes to 9:00 p.m. As a “food bonus”, CHAITY APPARELS FACTORY

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the company provides the workers with an egg and a piece of bread for the evening break.

The 13-hour shift: 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

6:00 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

6:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

work (5 hours) lunch (30 minutes) work (4.5 hours) break (15 minutes) work (2.75 hours)

Mandatory all-night 19-hour shifts from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m: In the month of May 2001, seven such all-night shifts were required, meaning the workers were forced to work almost two 19hour shifts a week. The shift stretches from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the following day. The workers then sleep on the factory floor and start working again at 8:00 a.m. the following morning. Such allnight shifts are tied to shipment dates, when there is a rush to complete the order.

One hundred hours of overtime a month: on average, workers report working 100 hours of overtime per month, and being paid for 71 to 73 hours a week. This means they are at the factory up to 78 hours a week.

$271.78 a year Senior operators with five or six years’ sewing experience earn 2,400 taka per month, or $41.81, which comes to 20 cents an hour.

Senior operator’s wage: 20 cents an hour ($0.2010184) $1.61 a day (8 hours) $9.65 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $41.81 a month $501.74 a year Helpers earn 950 taka a month, or $16.55, which comes to 8 cents an hour. Helpers are 15-to-17year-old teenage girls who help supply the lines, and “clean” the garments by cutting off loose threads. They work the same long grueling hours as the sewing operators, often seven days a week.

Helper’s wage: 8 cents an hour (.0795698) 64 cents a day (8 hours) $3.82 a week (6 days / 48 hours) $16.55 a month $198.61 a year

Eleven to 20 cents an hour for sewing operators, and 8 cents an hour for helpers.

Wages are paid one week late. The workers receive their pay seven days late, so, for example, they do not receive their pay for the month of July until August 7.

Junior operators with less than five years’ experience earn 1,300 taka per month, or $22.65, which amounts to 11 cents an hour.

Overtime pay: Overtime premium is not paid correctly. Workers earn $14.07 for a sevenday, 73-hour workweek.

Junior operator’s wage: 11 cents an hour ($0.108885) 87 cents a day (8 hours) $5.23 a week (6 days, 48 hours) $22.65 a month

The most senior sewing operator earns 20 cents an hour, or $9.65 for the regular 48-hour workweek.

However, to work 25 hours of overtime a week adds only $4.42 to the worker’s pay, bringing the gross to $14.07 for a 73-hour workweek. This

Wages:

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means the overtime hours are being paid at a rate of 18 cents an hour, which is less than the 20 cents an hour for regular time.

• NO SICK DAYS: Sick days are never granted.

No matter how ill, if a worker misses a day, her wages will be docked.

Starvation wages: No one can live on 20 cents an hour, let alone 8 to 11 cents earned by helpers and junior operators.

• CHEATED ON SEVERANCE PAY: When workers leave the Chaity factory they do not receive their legal severance pay. They receive nothing.

Most workers are forced to live with four people crowded into a tiny room, for which they pay 1,500 taka a month, or $26.13.

Most workers report walking several kilometers to and from work since they cannot afford the 12 cents to take a bicycle rickshaw.

Workers must deny themselves their most basic food needs. Some try to spend 1,500 taka ($26.13) a month on food — which is barely sufficient to survive — yet this is more than what the younger sewing operators earn in the entire month. They earn just 1,300 taka ($22.65) a month sewing clothing for Nike and the University of Minnesota.

Abuses at the Chaity factory: • UNSAFE DRINKING WATER: The only source of water for the workers is the faucet, but the water is not filtered or purified.

• FIRE HAZARD: There are just two stairways to enter and exit the Chaity factory, which might be insufficient in an emergency, with 1,300 workers attempting to flee for safety.

• UNION BUSTING: The legal rights to Freedom of Association, to form a union and to bargain collectively are 100 percent violated. Unions, and all efforts to defend worker rights are strictly prohibited. Anyone attempting to form a union will be immediately fired. This is an ironclad factory rule.

Anyone promoting respect for worker rights will also be immediately terminated.

• NIKE’S CODE OF CONDUCT UNKNOWN: The workers had never heard of Nike’s or University of Minnesota’s Codes of Conduct–which are supposed to guarantee respect for human and worker rights, including the strict implementation of all local labor laws in Bangladesh, including the right to organize.

• PERMISSION TO USE THE TOILET; JUST ONE TOILET FOR 87 WOMEN: Workers need permission from their supervisors to use the toilet.

If permission is granted, they receive a card. There are only 8 toilets for the 700 women workers.

• TALKING PROHIBITED during working hours.

• CHAITY FACTORY IS OVERCROWDED, HOT AND POORLY VENTILATED. • POOR LIGHTING: Workers complain of inadequate lighting on the factory floor.

• HARSH HUMILIATING TREATMENT: Supervisors yell and scream at the workers, constantly threatening them with punishment or firing.

• PREGNANT WOMEN CHEATED OF MATERNITY BENEFITS: Chaity provides just 45 days of maternity leave and benefits, which is less than half of the legally required three-month leave with pay.

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FACTS ON BANGLADESH Bangladesh is the Third Largest Exporter of Apparel to the U.S. The American people have a powerful voice to demand more humane treatment for the workers in Bangladesh: that their human and worker rights be respected; that they be paid at least a subsistence-level wage; and that basic factory health and safety standards be implemented.

In the year 2000, U.S. companies imported 924 million garments made in Bangladesh, with a wholesale customs value of over $2.2 billion. Apparel imports from Bangladesh were up 25.7 percent in 2000, over the year before. Forty-nine percent of Bangladesh’s worldwide apparel exports are destined for the U.S. market.

Some facts on Bangladesh: • There are 130 million people in Bangladesh • There are 1.6 million garment workers, 85 percent of them young women, in 3,500 export factories.

• Bangladesh is the third largest apparel exporter in the world to the U.S., and the 5th largest to the European union.

• Fifty percent of the children in Bangladesh are chronically malnourished.

• Often forced to work seven days a week, 12 to 18 hours a day, 68 percent of the women report being exhausted, sick, with their children uncared for, and their families in real crisis and falling apart.

• U.S. companies and their contractors in the export assembly factories pay no corporate taxes, no property, local or state taxes, no income tax, not even a sales tax; and no import or export duties.

• There are only 11 government Labor Ministry inspectors to enforce the law for the entire Dhaka area, where there are over one million garment workers.

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PHOTO CREDITS: Charles DESIGN: Mary Tyson

Kernaghan DADA (DHAKA) FACTORY

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National Labor Committee 275 7th Avenue, , 15th Floor New York, NY 10011 212-242-3002