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Der virtuelle Treffpunkt der Gewerkschafts- und Betriebslinken
The virtual meeting place of the left in the unions and in the workplace
Date: 12/4/99 10:18 PM
From: Campaign for Labor Rights, clr@igc.apc.org
posted December 4, 1999
[Compiled from information provided by the
In this alert:
In the past two weeks, at least 27 workers have been illegally fired from the DOALL factory in El Salvador, which produces garments for the Liz Claiborne, Perry Ellis, Leslie Fay and Norton clothing lines. The workers were fired for exercising their right to organize.
Within days after applying for registration of their union, SETDESA, 10 of 11 union executive members and at least 17 other workers were fired at two DOALL maquila (assembly for export) garment factories in El SalvadorÆs San Marcos free trade zone.
On November 22, the day their application was filed, Union President Rosa Delia Dominguez and Secretary of Organization Maria Magdalena Valladarez de Diaz were asked to sign a statement that they were voluntarily resigning. Both refused. Ms. Valladarez de Diaz was offered 5,000 colones (U.S. $575), including three years severance pay, but she refused to sign or accept the money.
SETDESA and the Salvadoran Workers Central (CTS), to which it is affiliated, are demanding the immediate reinstatement of the fired workers and the elimination of sweatshop practices, including: verbal abuse by supervisors, forced overtime and excessively high work quotas subject to arbitrary increases.
DOALL employees work from 6:50 am to 7:00 pm Monday to Friday and from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturdays. Average salaries are U.S. $46 a week.
The larger of the two factories produces for Liz Claiborne and other major U.S. labels. Following media exposes of sweatshop conditions at the factory in 1996, a spokesperson for Liz Claiborne pledged that the company would no longer tolerate such abuses.
DOALL workers earn just 74 cents for every $198 Liz Claiborne jacket they sew, and 58 cents for every $118 pair of pants. Factory temperatures reach 100 degrees or more. Permission to use the bathroom is limited to twice a day. The air is filled with fabric dust. There is forced pregnancy testing. Workers are physically searched when they enter and exit the factory. They are denied the use of federal health care clinics. There is constant pressure - screaming and yelling - to finish the extraordinarily high production goals.
Last spring, 5 workers at the factory were fired after it was discovered that they had met with students from Columbia University who were in El Salvador conducting research on wages in the apparel industry. (Their study found that El SalvadorÆs minimum wage meets just 27 percent of the cost of living for a family of four.) Those workers were told that they were being fired because they ôwent to cry before the gringos.ö In August of 1998, 18 workers were fired for challenging the forced overtime at the factory and meeting to discuss organizing a union. In December of 1998, another worker was fired when the factory suspected him of being involved in an organizing campaign. In January of 1999, 11 DOALL workers were fired for meeting in a public place, indicating that they might be organizing a union. In March of 1999, three more workers were fired without back wages for being suspected of organizing a union, and the next month, two more workers were fired for resisting the mandatory overtime. (The recent history of DOALL is documented in a report called "Fired for Crying to the Gringos" at <www.nlcnet.org/LIZ/FIRED/index.html> on the National Labor Committee web site.)
A monitor from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a for-profit auditing company which conducts monitoring visits, gave the factory a clean bill of health after visiting the factory just days after the January illegal firings, telling Harvard University students in May that conditions were ôjust fineö in the factory. On the PWC visit to the factory, workers did not confide in the monitors for fear that they would be fired as well.
Liz Claiborne vice president Roberta Karp represents the company on the Apparel Industry Partnership/Fair Labor Association (AIP/FLA), whose code mandates respect for the right of freedom of association (the right to join a union and take part in union activities).
Please copy (or adapt), sign and mail or fax the following letter to Liz Claiborne vice president Roberta Karp and send the signature information below (not this entire alert!) to Campaign for Labor Rights by email <CLR@igc.org> or fax (541) 431-0523:
I have sent the letter to Liz Claiborne.
NAME:
CITY & STATE (or COUNTRY if not U.S.):
ORGANIZATION (if applicable):
Ms. Roberta Karp,
Vice President Liz Claiborne, Inc.
1141 Broadway,
8th floor New York,
NY 10018
Fax: (212) 626-3416
Dear Ms. Karp:
I am writing to express my concern about the firing of 10 union executive committee members and at least 17 other members of the union at two DOALL apparel factories in El Salvador, the larger of which produces apparel for your company. The workers were fired between November 22 and 25, a few days after applying for the registration of their union. Human rights organizations monitoring the situation report that union members have been offered severance packages and other benefits if they would sign statements that they were resigning voluntarily.
These charges are particularly disturbing since your company recently received positive media attention for releasing a report on working conditions in one of its contractor factories in Guatemala, a report which included specific recommendations on steps the supplier needed to take in order to bring its practices in line with your code of conduct and local legal requirements. I urge you to apply similar vigilance to what is happening at the DOALL factory in El Salvador.
Following media coverage of sweatshop abuses at DOALL in 1996, a Liz Claiborne representative pledged that such practices would no longer be tolerated. Yet, almost four years later, there are new reports of serious sweatshop practices at DOALL, including: forced and excessive hours of overtime, unreasonable production quotas, verbal abuse by supervisors and forced pregnancy testing.
I urge you to ensure that DOALL respects your companyÆs own code of conduct, the Apparel Industry Partnership code, to which you are a signatory, and Salvadoran law concerning the right to freedom of association without punishment or discrimination. I hope to learn soon that you have seen to it that the fired union supporters are immediately reinstated, that DOALL management recognizes the union and that sweatshop practices are eliminated.
Please note that I are NOT asking Liz Claiborne to end or suspend orders to the DOALL factory. I are asking that you work with the contractor to ensure that the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively are respected and their right to decent working conditions is guaranteed.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter. I will continue to follow the situation at DOALL through the reports of credible human rights organizations.
Sincerely,
The third installment of the 1999 Sweatshop Activist Organizing Packet has been completed. Everyone who ordered the packet earlier automatically receives the updates. Anyone ordering now receives the third installment, plus whatever is still current from installments 1 and 2. Order by email <CLR@igc.org> or phone (541) 344-5410. Include your postal address: Packet is in hard copy. Packet includes donation form and return envelope. Suggested donation: $10.00.
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