By Marty Logan
MONTREAL, Mar 15 2002 (IPS)

North America’s largest T-shirt maker is to hold talks with groups in Honduras next week on working conditions in its four factories there. The company says it has met international labour standards despite recent media reports.

A representative of Montreal-based Gildan Activewear will travel with the leader of a Canadian group that tracks working conditions in “maquiladoras”, the duty-free zones first set up along the Mexico-U.S. border to attract investment from multinational corporations. Now found in many developing countries, the areas are notorious for sub-par working conditions.

“We have nothing to hide,” Gildan executive vice-president Mackie Vadacchino told IPS. “We have fantastic plants. They’re air-conditioned, they’re bright, they’re clean, they’re new. We have subsidised cafeterias. We have transportation. We’re not perfect – I’m sure we have things we can clean up or do better – but we have really good conditions.”

Gildan sold more than 315 million dollars worth of T-shirts, golf shirts and other tops in 2001, leading the market both at home and the United States. Many of its 7,000 employees work in four factories the company owns in Honduras and another in Mexico.

In January, a Canadian television news programme broadcast footage from one of the plants in Honduras, where it said employees must endure poor working conditions such as inferior air quality and monitored bathroom breaks. It reported that potential female employees must first take pregnancy tests.

Days after, a Montreal newspaper reported that Gildan had agreed to abide by an international code on working conditions after pressure from a union pension fund, one of the firm’s largest investors.

But both Vadacchino and a spokesman from the Quebec Federation of Labour’s Solidarity Fund say the decision to be audited by Social Accountability International (SAI) was made independently and that the process began much earlier.

Fund spokesman Gilles Audette was unavailable to comment, but in a letter to the Montreal Gazette newspaper he wrote: “At the beginning of autumn (2001) we initiated discussions to inform Gildan management of our approach concerning codes of conduct and to relate that, in our opinion, the SA8000 possesses the highest standard and the best monitoring system.”

According to SAI’s website, the SA8000 code is based on International Labour Organisation and United Nations standards for the treatment of workers. It covers nine areas: child labour, forced labour, health and safety, compensation, working hours, discrimination, discipline, free association, and collective bargaining and management systems. Under the system, independent, accredited auditors inspect workplaces. Their findings are published and can be appealed, said Jeffcott.

After meeting two potential auditing firms the Fund had identified, Gildan agreed to the audit days after the TV programme, but not because of the publicity, wrote Audette.

A spokesman from the Maquila Solidarity Network, whose leader will accompany Vaddachino to Honduras, said Gildan is moving in the right direction. “We’re encouraged by the steps they’re taking,” said policy analyst Bob Jeffcott, “but there needs to be some way that local NGOs and rights groups can play some role in that process.”

The private-sector auditors that work with SAI might be expert at inspecting a company’s books but Jeffcott questioned if they would be qualified to delve into such areas as freedom of association. Local groups, however, have that expertise, he said.

The Maquila Solidarity Network is one of SAI’s 19 advisers. Others represent business, government and the world of non-governmental organisations. As of February 2002, 115 facilities had been certified under SA8000, most of them in Asia with a handful in South America. No Central American factories had been certified.

Vadacchino said Gildan has already made some changes at its Honduras operations, based on information from SAI. Exit signs have been more clearly marked and the company has reduced the number of employees working in one area of one factory.

But she said the company does not view SA8000 as a burden. “In our case I truly feel that we’re already meeting the standards,” she said.

Gildan has also signed on to another code of conduct known as WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production). But Jeffcott said the industry-developed code is inferior to SA8000 because it does not meet international standards and is not transparent. “Our feeling is that it is dominated by the manufacturers themselves,” he said.

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