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Low-wage worker rights are compromised across the board - in jobs ranging from agriculture, meat and poultry processing, hotels and restaurants, retailing, nursing homes, day care centers, and residential construction in every city where exploitive day labor hiring exist. American workers face a system where business is empowered, their rights are eroding, and government is their enemy, not ally.
Sweatshops in Developing Countries
Abroad, exploitation is endemic in agriculture, mines, and factories producing garments, shoes, rugs, toys, chocolate, and other products. The same abuses are common - 60 - 80 hour workweeks, sub-poverty wages as low as pennies an hour, and no benefits in hazardous environments. Workers are harassed, intimidated, forced to work overtime, prevented from organizing, and fired if they complain.
Global sweatshops are mostly in Asia, Central and South America employing tens of millions of workers. It's also a children's issue as the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 250 million between the ages of 5 - 14 work in developing countries - 61% in Asia, 32% in Africa and 7% in Latin America, but scattered numbers show up everywhere. Many are forced to work, at times abducted, work for less pay than adults, and are denied an education and normal childhood. Worse still, some are confined, brutally exploited, beaten, and sexually abused with no one looking out for their welfare.
National Labor Committee (NLC) Sweatshop Report on a China Factory
On February 10, 2009, Jason Chen headlined, "Your Keyboards May Have Been Made in Appalling Conditions," then explained that Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Lenovo, and HP keyboards likely were made under horrific working conditions at a Meitai Dongguan City, China factory.
"Workers are prohibited from talking, listening to music, raising their heads, putting their hands in their pockets." They're fined for being one minute late, not trimming their fingernails, and for stepping on the grass. They're searched on entering or leaving the facility, and anyone handing out flyers or discussing working conditions with outsiders are fired.
The assembly line never stops, so workers needing bathroom breaks must wait for the scheduled time. Overtime is mandatory, "with 12-hour shifts seven days a week and an average of two days off a month." Anyone taking Sunday off is docked two and a half days' pay. Including unpaid overtime, workers average up to 81 hours a week on site for a 74 workweek, including 34 hours of overtime, 318% above China's legal limit.
Their base pay is 64 cents an hour, way below their basic needs, and after deductions for "primitive room and board," take-home wages are 41 cents an hour. For 75 hours a week, including overtime, it comes to $57.19 or 76 cents an hour. Routinely, workers are cheated of up to 19% of pay due them.
They're also docked two hours wages for "not lining up correctly while punching time cards or at the cafeteria," 4 and a half hours for taking personal phone calls, not working "diligently," raising their head to look around, putting personal possessions on their work desk, listening to the radio, "not parking bicycles according to company regulations," riding them at the facility not according to company rules, and returning to dorms after curfew.
They're penalized seven hours wages for switching beds without permission, one and a half day's pay for arriving over one hour late, riding the elevator without permission, using dorm electricity without permission, using company phones for personal calls, producing low quality, socializing with other employees during working hours, entering or leaving the factory without being inspected, or treating supervisors "with an arrogant attitude."
They lose three days' pay for leaving their workstation without permission, putting up notices or handing out flyers, or "revealing confidential company or production-related information."
They're fired for violating labor discipline, participating in prohibited groups (such as unions, human or civil rights organizations, or non-sanctioned religious ones), not observing government regulations on stopping work, slowing it down, or encouraging others to do it, missing three days work, disobeying China's one-child policy or company rules, causing trouble, or colluding in prohibited behavior.
NLC Report on Jordan Sweatshop
On July 24, 2009, an NLC report headlined, "US - Jordan Free Trade Agreement Stumbles," citing "human trafficking, abuse, forced overtime, primitive dorm conditions, imprisonment and forcible deportations of foreign guest workers at" Jordan's Musa Garment factory, owned by two Israeli businessmen, Jack Braun and Moshe Cohen.
About 209 workers are employed, included 181 foreign guest workers, 132 from Bangladesh and 49 from India. NLC explains the following abuses:
