Wage Inequalities in factory work in the DR @drfactoriessitrep-blog - Tumblr Blog

About

Felicia Arriaga

Cultural Anthropology 197S

Gender, Sex and Citizenship

(CULANTH/WOMENST/SXL 197S)

Fall 2011

This Situation Report takes a closer look at the wages offered to workers within factories in the Dominican Republic. Prior to 2007, factory work was a huge component of the Dominican Republic economy, since then factory work has moved on to countries where labor is cheaper. Some of the questions driving this situation report are as follows:

Why are women the most likely candidates to be working in these factories?

Why are factory workers seen as commodities and how is that label associated with the labor rights?

What role does the government of the country play in labor rights violations?

How do transnational companies set up shop in other countries?

The question of transnational corporations reflects an issue which is also explored in this Situation Report. Transnational corporations and Human Rights Governance Networks cross national boundaries and interact with various groups of people. Corporations set up factories within developing countries because of the cheap labor and tax breaks within that country but without the Human Rights Governance Networks those corporations are able to commit labor violations. Transnational corporations are able to exploit workers because of the role they play within the economy of the country, making it hard for the government to use it's power as a governing body to regulate. Which leads us to another questions.

What does it mean to be a global citizen vs. a citizen of a particular country?

When both transnational corporations and Human Rights Governance Networks treat workers in very different ways, it becomes unclear what group is in control of the worker's fate. Is it the role of the government of the Dominican Republic to protect its citizens when they feel economically pressured to comply to transnational corporations or does it then become the responsibility of Human Rights Governance Networks to step in and monitor the practices of the transnational corporations? If it is the latter, then in what aspects of daily worker life are the Human Rights Governance Networks expected to intervene? Is it even possible to imagine organizing without the help of outside influences or is it limited to influences from Human Rights Governance Networks and previous examples which make it possible to organize?

“Surveys consistently show that 80 percent of consumers would be willing to pay a little more for a no-sweat product,” says Mark Barenberg, a Columbia University law professor and an expert on global labor conditions. “The problem is that they haven’t had reliable information that there are factories that meet those standards. Alta Gracia is a game changer in that respect.”

http://www.workersrights.org/press/Is%20the%20perfect%20factory%20possible%2010-19-11.pdf

http://www.thenation.com/article/164072/perfect-factory-possible

#Alta Gracia #no-sweat products

American universities must help unionize Dominican sweatshops

With baseball season swinging into full gear, take a look at the "made in" label inside the baseball caps many of us wear. You may be surprised to learn that the cap you're wearing was made under inhumane working conditions in places like the Dominican Republic.

Sweatshop workers stitch logos into caps for Major League Baseball, the NHL, the NBA and the NFL.

Many college caps are made there, too. One company, BJ&B, for example, manufactures caps for the Universities of North CarolinaChapel Hill, Missouri, Connecticut, Arizona, Louisiana State, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn State, Tulane and Purdue.

College logo apparel sales are estimated at $2.5 billion annually, according to the Chicago Tribune. The industry is a classic profit pyramid, with workers constituting the exploited bottom rung.

Here's how it works: A university licenses its name and logo to American apparel distributors--such as Nike, Starter, Champion and Reebok--and earns about $1.50 per cap. BJ&B pays the worker 8 cents per cap. At that pay rate, a worker takes home $40 for a typical 56-hour workweek, as calculated by UNITE, an anti-sweatshop lobbying group. The total cost of making the cap comes out to about $6.08, but consumers pay about $19.95 for the cap.

The big winners are BJ&B's corporate parent, Yoopong Group in Korea, one of the largest cap producers in the world, and the American corporations that act as middlemen. Yoopong makes 14.4 million caps in the Dominican Republic alone.

The Spanish name for the industrial areas is "zona franca." It translates into "industrial free-trade zone," which means companies located there are exempt from import fees and income taxes. But for tens of thousands of Dominican factory workers, what it really means is "unregulated worker exploitation zone."

Thanks to continued pressure from American universities and companies, BJ&B workers were allowed to form a union in March and settled their first contract with management. The unionized workers now constitute the largest democratic, independent union in the free-trade zones of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. More unions are necessary. Working conditions at many of the 500 foreignowned factories throughout the country are reprehensible. Health and safety hazards, arbitrary disciplining by ruthless managers, women being forced to take pregnancy tests prior to being hired, forced overtime, wage discrimination against women, no safe drinking water, no benefits, no overtime or productivity incentives are commonplace.

"They would humiliate you verbally, but you took it because there was no other place to work," a former BJ&B worker-turned-union-activist told The New York Times recently.

Fortunately, many college students have recognized the need to act against sweatshops. United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) has mobilized almost 200 university groups to compel their schools to take action. One of the demands is a unified code to regulate and monitor the factories.

So far Duke, Brown and Notre Dame are among the universities that have adopted a version of the Code of Conduct for University Trademark Licensees, which makes the manufacturer subject to labor and human-rights standards. The code requires public disclosure of factory addresses, living wages, independent monitoring, freedom to unionize, and safe working conditions, no forced labor, no child labor, women's rights and independent monitoring.

"Sweatshops are hidden and they proliferate as long as they're hidden," asserts Steven Weingarten of the Union of Needle trade, Industrial and Textile Employees.

American universities and professional sports leagues ought to step up to the plate and demand decent pay and better working conditions for the people who make our caps.

10-module toolkit offers an innovative approach to organizing that draws on workers' organizing stories.

#Solidarity Center #FTZs #Export Processing Zones #leadership positions #union #NGOs

Organizing Export Processing Zones

#EPZs #FTZs #union

Spotlight interview with Gabriel del Rio (CASC - Dominican Republic)

What other priorities is CASC addressing at the moment?

Our main priority is the fight against trade union rights violations linked to the non-application of the labour laws. We have some strong unions, but most employers do everything they can to stop workers from exercising their trade union rights. Workers trying to form unions are faced with dismissal. The combination of workers’ poor knowledge of their rights and the fear of dismissal makes it difficult to form unions. The industrial sector is the worst affected, particularly the export processing zones and small and medium-sized enterprises. The wages in the EPZs are 100 dollars lower than in the factories outside the zones (although they can earn much more than this minimum wage if they fulfil a high production quota).

Pay is another key priority. With wages as they stand at the moment, workers are not able to live decently in the Dominican Republic. After a long fight, we managed to secure an agreement for a 17% increase in the legal minimum wage; it is now close to 10,000 pesos (around 260 US dollars). We are now starting negotiations on the wages in the export processing zones and the hospitality sector. Most workers earning over the minimum wage have to settle for just 300 dollars or so a month. It is virtually impossible under such conditions to pay for children’s education, for health care, a little leisure activity, etc. Considering the cost of living at the moment, a decent wage would be 750 US dollars a month.

Is CASC trying to incorporate domestic workers in its trade union campaigns?

Yes, and we also defended the proposed ILO Convention on domestic work. We are currently pressing our National Congress to ratify the new Convention. It is essential that domestic workers have the right to form their own unions, to fight for their rights, including the right to social security. We are campaigning for a change in the national legislation, because domestic workers do not have the same social rights as other workers, if they are dismissed, for instance.

At the moment, only a hundred and fifty or so domestic workers have joined CASC, as many of them are afraid they will lose their jobs if they become members. We are also hampered by cultural and traditional stereotypes whereby domestic workers are not seen as employees but inferior beings. This mindset makes it difficult for domestic workers to realise that they have the right to form or join a union.

Has the Dominican Republic been hard hit by the global economic crisis?

Over 60,000 jobs have been lost in the export processing zones. It has to be said, however, that the economic crisis has not affected the Dominican Republic as much as other countries, as we depend heavily on tourism and the services linked to it, and this sector has remained stable. We are, however, faced with a serious crisis, following the rise in the price of most basic staples.

Nonetheless, although gross GDP has not fallen, it is not distributed as it should be. Most workers are still just as poor, whilst the rich are continuing to grow richer. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing every day. The government’s social programmes are, fortunately, helping to reduce the number of people living in absolute misery, but poverty is still growing.

#CASC #EPZs in the DR #Wages #domestic workers #global economic crisis

As part of an awareness campaign for domestic workers, the Solidarity Center and its partners in the Dominican Republic created this poster. The slogan at the top says, "I am a domestic worker and I have rights."

Gender & Equality

The Solidarity Center empowers women workers to confront and challenge global systems that subject them to discrimination in the workplace.

The global economy isn’t working for working women. Women make up nearly half of the world’s workforce. Yet women account for close to three-fourths of the world’s population living in poverty. All over the world, women are relegated to low-wage, low-skilled, and dangerous jobs. At the same time, women retain primary responsibility for the care and survival of their families. In the home, at the workplace, and even within union structures, women everywhere face persistent and pervasive discrimination. For worker rights to take hold worldwide, this discrimination must cease.

The Solidarity Center empowers women to fight for their rights and addresses the particular needs of women workers. Through Solidarity Center programs, women are joining and leading unions, advocating for themselves and their families, and standing up for the rights of all workers worldwide. We provide training and foster the leadership skills needed to give women a voice in their unions, in their workplaces, and in the global economy. Tens of thousands of women have participated. Every year on March 8, Solidarity Center partners and unions around the world commemorate International Women’s Day to honor women’s struggle for justice and equality.

#Solidarity Center #women #workplace discrimination #poverty #worker rights protection #union leaders #International Women's Day

When a Dominican Factory Closes Its Doors, We Lose More Than Decent Jobs

By Molly McGrath

March 8, 2007 — International Women's Day reminds me of the time I met Jenny, at her home in Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic. Jenny, a single working mother, had lost her job at the BJ&B factory. In 2003, BJ&B was a leading supplier of logo caps to U.S. universities and athletic teams. Jenny was one of 1,600 workers, almost all women, until she was fired for standing up for her right to form a union.

Jenny and I first spoke when she had been out of work for a year. She and her family were deep in poverty. I watched as her four kids played next to an open sewer, outside her home — a shack made out of corrugated tin and wood. I was in college then, an activist with United Students Against Sweatshops. I had traveled to the Dominican Republic to meet with the workers who were attempting to form a union. My trip was coordinated by the Solidarity Center, an organization that helps workers worldwide.

The free trade zone where Jenny worked was developed with incentives to attract international investment and create employment for local workers. Like women all over the world employed in free trade zones, Jenny worked for long hours and low pay. When Jenny and her co-workers began to organize a union to improve their conditions, she put a picture of herself with her children on a flyer that said, "I am Jenny, of Plant #1, and these are my children. For their future, I support the union, and you should, too. Affiliate!"

That day, I promised Jenny that I would help her get her job back. With other students and unions, I pressed the corporations and universities that bought BJ&B caps to support the workers’ demand for a union and higher wages. As a result, Jenny and her co-workers won their jobs back and built a strong union.

Today, I work for the Solidarity Center. My colleagues and I continued to support Jenny and her co-workers as they built their union and improved their working and living conditions. The Solidarity Center trained the workers in basic union skills, such as collective bargaining, and helped the union build relationships with U.S. unions and consumer organizations.

But the victories that Jenny and her co-workers won are being overturned. Yupoong Corp., the Korean-based multinational company that owns BJ&B, has announced the plant’s sudden closure. Company owners cite increased competition from Asia. But that excuse rings hollow: Jenny was paid only 65 cents an hour.

The real reason the plant closed may be the expiration in 2005 of the Multi-Fiber Agreement. The agreement, also known as Agreement on Textile and Clothing, governed the world trade in textiles and garments from 1974 through 2004, imposing quotas on the amount of textiles developing countries could export to developed countries. This system of international textile and garment trade quotas provided incentives for multinational corporations to invest in developing countries.

The expiration of the agreement gives companies like Yupoong an excuse to close garment plants such as BJ&B as casualties of globalization.

Such plant closures are not limited to the Dominican Republic. Without the trade quotas, the garment industry has changed dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of workers, mostly women, from Mexico to Kenya to Indonesia, are now unemployed like Jenny.

As leaders in corporate social responsibility, the brands that manufacture caps at BJ&B are wrong to accept its closure. Abandoning women like Jenny, who is now pregnant and unemployed, is a contradiction to the principles they pledged to uphold. BJ&B was the last major employer in Villa Altagracia, after the closure of a sugar mill and a paper factory. Women especially have few other job prospects. Some may be forced into degrading work like prostitution.

Jenny said she thinks the closure has been planned for a long time, to get rid of the union. After witnessing what I did as a student, I agree. And just as American workers would not accept such treatment, we should not accept it for those who are under even more economic hardship. Let's take this International Women's Day to honor women like Jenny. Tell companies they owe more to these women, and to communities like Villa Altagracia.

Molly McGrath is a Program Officer at the Solidarity Center.

#International Women's Day #Alta Gracia #colleges & universities #women #union #firing #poverty #USAS #FTZs #collective bargaining #Multi-Fiber Agreement #unemployment

Alta Gracia Could Be Model for Apparel Industry

Posted By James Parks On October 27, 2010 @ 4:40 pm In Global Action | Comments Disabled

Alta Gracia [1], the first apparel factory in the developing world to pay a living wage, is a big step toward setting a new standard for apparel manufacturing around the world. But consumers must be energized to buy the new brand in large numbers before other manufacturers will follow suit, several experts said today.

The market is growing for the Alta Gracia products, mainly college logo T-shirts and sweatshirts, but is limited to college bookstores. Much more needs to be done to convince sympathetic groups like unions, human rights organizations and state and local governments to insist on buying only apparel made by workers who earn a living wage.

Speaking at a forum at Georgetown University Law School this morning, John Kline, a Georgetown professor and author of a new research report, “Alta Gracia: Branding Decent Work Conditions,” said the most immediate impact of the living wage is workers’ sense of respect and a new confidence they can achieve some of their dreams because they have a decent wage.

The factory and brand, Alta Gracia, is named after the town and is owned by Spartanburg, S.C.-based Knights Apparel, the leading supplier of college-logo apparel to U.S. universities, according to the Collegiate Licensing Co. Alta Gracia pays the 120 workers about three-and-a-half times the average pay of the country’s apparel workers—and allows workers to join a union without interference.

Joseph Bozich, CEO of Knights Apparel, worked closely for two years with the Worker Rights Consortium [2] (WRC) to make sure the factory treated workers fairly. The workers formed a union and held the founding meeting in June 2010. The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center [3] spent many years working on international anti-sweatshop campaigns and training organizers from the Dominican Federation of Export Workers (FEDOTRAZONAS), many of whom are now leaders at the newly formed Alta Gracia union.

What has been accomplished at the Alta Gracia factory so far is bringing hope to a very poor community on the economic edge, said Cathy Feingold, AFL-CIO’s International Affairs director. Feingold, who helped train the Alta Gracia workers, said the workers’ living wage lets workers in other industries know they can set the bar higher and ask for more as well.

But Feingold and Scott Nova, executive director of WRC, made it clear that there is a lot of work ahead before the model of Alta Gracia is accepted in the apparel industry. The pressure on contractors to keep prices low is tremendous, Nova said. Knights Apparel, which is privately owned, agreed to accept lower profits and to make a long-term commitment to buy the factory’s products. Other companies will not make those commitments unless they see a surge in consumer support for living-wage apparel.

Nova and Robert Stumberg of the Georgetown Law Center pointed out that the idea of holding apparel manufacturers to a living wage standard may be the best way to end sweatshop conditions in the industry. But both warned there are many issues to be resolved first, such as how to set a standard that would apply to different countries with differing wage structures.

The forum was sponsored by Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor [4].

Importance:

Consumers must buy the product before other manufacturers adopt the model. Training workers within the Dominican Federation of Export Workers was essential to ensuring they became leaders of the unions. Problem: how to set a standard that would apply to different countries with differing wage structures.

#Alta Gracia #living wage #college apparel #respect #Knights Apparel #WRC #AFL-CIO Solidarity Center #FEDOTRAZONAS #standards

In the Dominican Republic, the Solidarity Center partners with unions to promote worker and migrant rights in the construction, free trade zone, tourism, food, and industrial sectors and to educate workers about national, regional, and international labor laws.

#Solidarity Center #DR #CNUS #CAFTA-DR #2007 #Haitian migrant workers

Domestic Workers in the Dominican Republic Unite for Decent Work

Marleni had a good union job in the Dominican Republic. For five years she worked in a garment factory, stitching jeans for a well-known U.S. brand. But when the company pulled out, the factory shut down, and Marleni and her 500 co-workers, mostly women, lost their jobs. After months of searching for other factory work, Marleni, like 75,000 textile workers in her country since 2005, entered the informal economy as a domestic worker.

Today, informal economy employment, such as domestic work, street vending, and jobs in beauty salons, represents the largest area of employment growth, not only in the Dominican Republic but worldwide. Informal economy employment leaves workers with low salaries, no job security, and few social benefits. Workers like Marleni who once worked in factories with steady paychecks and benefits struggle to support their families.

The Solidarity Center supports worker associations that promote and protect the rights of domestic workers. ASOMUCI, an association of women workers in the Dominican Republic’s second largest city, Santiago de los Caballeros, reaches out to both Haitian migrant and Dominican domestic workers and trains them on their worker rights, including their right to join a union. ASOMUCI and its counterpart in Santo Domingo, the Association of Home Workers, work with the national labor federation CNUS. This year, domestic workers throughout the Dominican Republic launched a public awareness campaign aimed at educating workers about domestic worker rights. The campaign resulted in the formation of a coordinating network of four domestic worker associations, including one newly founded association of Haitian domestic workers in Port-au-Prince.

Fortunately, Marleni’s story is a one of progress and hope for domestic workers in the Dominican Republic. She now belongs to one of the small committees of domestic workers organized by ASOMUCI. Through trainings, she has learned about her rights on the job. Most important, she has learned that she is not alone. She is part of a larger movement of domestic workers who are organizing to develop national public policies and to advocate for an international convention aimed at protecting domestic workers throughout the world.

Importance:

Because of the decrease in factory work in the country, many female workers are now being incorporated into the informal sector of the economy, more specifically within domestic work. Domestic workers have united to form associations which also protect their rights as women workers.

#DR #domestic workers #informal economy #Solidarity Center #ASOMUCI #union #CNUS

Story in pictures of Alta Gracia Factory Workers in the Dominican Republic.

#DR #Alta Gracia

Trailer for Maquilapolis: City of Factories

#Maquilapolis

Carmen Durán, a factory worker in Mexico, documents her life and shows herself having dinner with her children, Paloma and Alex.

Mexican factory worker Eva, who does not make a living wage, earns extra money cooking and selling food to nearby laborers.

Mexican worker Carmen created this video diary about her hobby, running.

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Wage Inequalities in factory work in the DR