AMERICA IS A ***** HOLE. I HOPE THERE IS A CIVIL WAR HERE. IT
WOULD BE FUNNY TO SEE THESE FILTHY AMERICAN CONSUMPTION MAGGOTS CONSUME
EACH OTHER. ***** AMERICA.
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May 3, 2006
An Ugly Side of Free Trade: Sweatshops in Jordan
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO
Propelled by a free trade agreement with the United States, apparel
manufacturing is booming in Jordan, its exports to America soaring
twentyfold in the last five years.
But some foreign workers in Jordanian factories that produce garments
for Target, Wal-Mart and other American retailers are complaining of
dismal conditions - of 20-hour days, of not being paid for months and
of being hit by supervisors and jailed when they complain.
An advocacy group for workers contends that some apparel makers in
Jordan, and some contractors that supply foreign workers to them, have
engaged in human trafficking. Workers from Bangladesh said they paid
$1,000 to $3,000 to work in Jordan, but when they arrived, their
passports were confiscated, restricting their ability to leave and
tying them to jobs that often pay far less than promised and far less
than the country's minimum wage.
"We used to start at 8 in the morning, and we'd work until midnight, 1
or 2 a.m., seven days a week," said Nargis Akhter, a 25-year-old
Bangladeshi who, in a phone interview from Bangladesh, said she worked
last year for the Paramount Garment factory outside Amman. "When we
were in Bangladesh they promised us we would receive $120 a month, but
in the five months I was there I only got one month's salary - and
that was just $50."
The advocacy group, the National Labor Committee, which is based in New
York, found substandard conditions in more than 25 of Jordan's roughly
100 garment factories and is set to release a report on its findings
today. Its findings were supported in interviews with current and
former workers.
Such complaints have dogged the global apparel industry for years, even
as it has adopted measures intended to improve working conditions in
factories that produce clothing for American and European consumers.
But the abusive conditions that the guest workers described show how
hard it is to control sweatshops as factories spring up in new places,
often without effective monitoring in place.
In recent years, Jordan has become a magnet for apparel manufacturers,
helped by the privileged trade position that the United States has
given it, first because of its 1994 peace accord with Israel and then
because of a free trade agreement signed with Washington in 2001.
Jordan's apparel industry, which exported $1.2 billion to the United
States last year, employs tens of thousands of guest workers, mainly
from Bangladesh and China.
In interviews this week, five Bangladeshis who used to work in
Jordanian apparel factories and four who still do had similar tales of
paying more than $1,000 to work in Jordan, of working 90 to 120 hours a
week, of not being paid the overtime guaranteed by Jordanian law, of
sleeping 10 or 20 to a small dorm room. The National Labor Committee
helped arrange interviews with the Bangladeshi workers, who spoke
through interpreters.
The largest retailer in the United States, Wal-Mart, and one of the
largest clothing makers, Jones Apparel, confirmed yesterday that they
had discovered serious problems with the conditions at several major
Jordanian factories.
In addition, a factory monitor for a major American company confirmed
that Jordanian factories routinely confiscated their guest workers'
passports, doctored wage and hour records and coached employees to lie
to government and company inspectors about working conditions. The
monitor asked not to be identified because the company had not given
authorization to speak publicly.
Beth Keck, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the company did not own or
manage factories, but tried to improve working conditions in Jordan and
elsewhere. "It is a continuous challenge, not just for Wal-Mart but for
any company," she said, noting that the most commonly observed problems
included failure to pay proper wages, "egregious hours," and "use of
false or insufficient books or documentation."
Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee,
which has exposed mistreatment in factories in Central America and
China, said he was shocked by what he discovered in Jordan.
"These are the worst conditions I've ever seen," he said. "You have
people working 48 hours straight. You have workers who were stripped of
their passports, who don't have ID cards that allow them to go out on
the street. If they're stopped, they can be imprisoned or deported, so
they're trapped, often held under conditions of involuntary servitude."
Mr. Kernaghan said Bangladeshi workers had contacted his organization
to complain about working conditions in Jordan. He then traveled to
Jordan and met quietly with dozens of workers. He said American
companies, despite their monitoring efforts, were often slow to uncover
workplace abuses because workers were coached to lie to them or were
scared to speak out. Moreover, factories often send work out to
substandard subcontractors without notifying American retailers.
Several factory owners in Jordan insisted that they treated their
workers properly.
"Some people are always making allegations," said Karim Saifi, the
owner of United Garment Manufacturing, a factory near Amman that
workers criticized for long hours and wage violations. "As far as we
know, we follow all the labor laws here. If we were not abiding by all
of the local Jordan laws, we would not be able to operate."
Several foreign apparel workers said that while their factories
required them to stay until midnight, the Jordanian workers were
usually allowed to leave at 4 p.m.
Two large industrial zones outside Amman are thriving, having geared
themselves to the American apparel market. They have attracted dozens
of garment manufacturers, some with 200 workers, some with 2,000, that
say they produce clothes for J. C. Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, Gap and
Target.
"It would be wrong to think that problems at a few places are
representative of the 102 apparel factories in my country," said Yanal
Beasha, Jordan's trade representative in Washington.
Jordan's ambassador to the United States, Karim Kawar, said "If there
are any violations of our labor laws, we certainly take it seriously."
Mr. Beasha said Jordanian government inspectors monitor the working
conditions in factories. But several guest workers said factory
managers hid abuses by coaching workers to lie. Mr. Beasha said the
Jordanian government cared about the welfare of foreign guest workers,
noting that it enforced overtime laws and recently increased the
minimum wage for citizens and guest workers.
But Mohammed Z., who has worked for more than a year at the Paramount
Garment Factory, said that even though he worked more than 100 hours a
week - normally from 7 to midnight seven days a week - the company
refused to pay him overtime when he did not meet production targets. He
asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retribution.
Having paid $2,000 to work in Jordan, he said, in an interview from
Amman, "I'm not earning enough to repay my loan or to support my wife
and son."
Unhappy that his passport has been confiscated, he said: "My identity
has been taken by the company. I have no freedom because I have no
freedom to move to other places."
Mohammed Saiful Islam, 30, a Bangladeshi who was production manager at
Western Garment, said that several times the workers had to work until
4 a.m., then sleep on the factory's floor for a few hours, before
resuming work at 8 a.m.
"The workers got so exhausted they became sick," he said. "They could
hardly stay awake at their machines."
Mr. Saiful, who is in the United States to highlight poor working
conditions in Jordan, pointed to a yellow and black fleece sweatshirt
that he said his factory made. It had an Athletic Works label made for
Wal-Mart, selling for $9.48.
"Sometimes when companies sent in monitors, the workers were instructed
what to say," Mr. Saiful said.
Mohamed Irfan, who in a telephone interview from Jordan said he was
Western's owner, said, "The workers get the minimum wage, and all
times, there is no problem in our factory."
Mohamed Kasim, Paramount's owner, said his factory also paid its
workers properly. Mr. Kasim and other factory managers said workers
received free room and board and sometimes medical care.
But several workers said that when they were sick they did not receive
medical care, but were instead punished and had their pay docked.
Several Bangladeshis said there were terrible conditions at factories
that made clothes for Wal-Mart and Jones Apparel, which owns brands
like Gloria Vanderbilt and Jones New York.
Ms. Keck, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said company inspectors recently
identified "serious violations" of its labor rules at three Jordanian
factories. At Honorway Apparel Jordan, for example, which manufactures
sleepwear for Wal-Mart, inspectors found employees working off the
clock, managers who refused to pay overtime and wages that "could not
be verified," Ms. Keck said. At the Ivory Garment Factory, which
Wal-Mart ceased working with two years ago, inspectors found "egregious
working hours."
Joele Frank, a spokeswoman for Jones Apparel, said the company had also
found "serious problems" at the Ivory Garment Factory, which produces
Gloria Vanderbilt clothing, and said it would "monitor the situation
closely." A spokesman for Sears Holding, said the company was
investigating potential problems at Honorway, which produces clothes
for Kmart, a division of Sears Holding.
A Kohl's spokeswoman denied workers' accusations that clothing sold by
the company was made at several Jordanian factories with poor
conditions. Target said it worked with only one factory that has come
under criticism- Al Safa Garments, which Wal-Mart recently cited for
labor violations.
Many retailers said their policy was, after discovering violations, to
work with a factory to improve conditions, rather than automatically
withdraw their business. Wal-Mart says it gives factories a year to fix
serious problems, reinspecting them every 120 days.
"Our business with the factory is the only leverage we have to push for
improvement," Ms. Keck said.
After The New York Times asked about the accusations on Monday,
Wal-Mart dispatched two inspectors to Jordan.
Hazrat Ali, 25, who worked from September 2004 to March 2005 at the Al
Shahaed factory, said he sometimes worked 48 hours in a row and
received no pay for the six months.
"If we asked for money, they hit us," he said.
Nasima Akhter, 30, said that the Western factory gave its workers a
half-glass of tea for breakfast and often rice and some rotten chicken
for lunch.
"In the four months I was in Jordan, they didn't pay us a single
penny," she said. "When we asked management for our money and for
better food, they were very angry at us. We were put in some sort of
jail for four days without anything to eat. And then they forced us to
go back to Bangladesh."
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