LABOUR-HUMAN RIGHTS: Clinton Hails Sweatshop Accord

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 14 1997 (IPS) - The unprecedented accord between leading U.S. apparel makers and labour and human rights groups on a voluntary code of conduct for working conditions in assembly plants will improve the lives of millions of garment workers around the world, according to President Bill Clinton.

As the agreement was officially unveiled at a White House ceremony Monday, Clinton called on all apparel and footwear companies to join the accord, which lays out minimum standards for companies and their contractors in their operations at home and abroad. “We need more companies to join this crusade,” he said.

The code, the fruit of eight months of negotiations, requires companies to observe local minimum wage and child labour laws and sets a work-week limit of 60 hours for employees. It also mandates the creation of a new association to implement the code and approve independent agencies to monitor compliance.

If companies are found to comply with the accord, they will be permitted by the association to attach a “No Sweat” label to their products.

Some labour rights groups have denounced the accord as too weak. Its defenders, however, argue that it marks a critical first step towards improving working conditions in a global industry which has historically been identified with sweatshops.

“I think this deal is an enormous breakthrough,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labour Committee, the New York- based group which gained national publicity last year after exposing conditions in factories in Haiti and Central America which produced popular brand-name clothing, such as the Walt Disney Co. and the Gap.

Kernaghan, who did not take part in the negotiations for the code, cautioned that much more work needs to be done, especially in ensuring that the monitors certified by the new association are truly independent of the companies.

The task force which produced the accord, the Apparel Industry Partnership, was set up by the White House last year after a wave of publicity — much of it generated by the Labour Committee — about sweatshop conditions in many apparel and footwear plants owned or contracted by major U.S. retailers. Surveys showed that upwards of 70 percent of U.S. consumers were concerned that the clothing they bought was produced in a safe and fair working environment.

Co-chairing the 20-member group were Linda Golodner, president of the National Consumers League and Roberta Karp, general counsel at the upscale retailer of women’s clothes, Liz Claiborne. In addition to Liz Claiborne, other companies included Phillips-Van Heusen, Nike, L.L. Bean, Patagonia, Tweeds, Reebok International Ltd., and Warnaco. But Warnaco, the maker of Hathaway shirts, declined to go along with the final result.

Also participating were a major textile-workers’ union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, the International Labour Rights Fund, the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and Business for Social Responsibility.

The code, most elements of which had already been adopted by the participating companies, forbids the use of forced or child labour (the latter referring to workers less than 15 years in age), unless local law permits 14-year-olds to work. It also bans sexual, physical, and verbal abuse against workers by companies or their local contractors which are also required to “respect” the right of employees to form unions.

On pay, the code noted that “wages are essential to meeting employee’s basic needs.” It requires employers to pay workers “at least the minimum wage required by local law or the prevailing industry wage, whichever is higher.”

This provision was assailed by a number of labour rights groups. They cited some developing countries, including Haiti and Vietnam, where the minimum wage is not adequate for subsistence and argued that non-company negotiators should have held out for a “living wage.”

“Companies are flocking to countries that deliberately set the minimum wage below subsistence to attract foreign investment,” charged Medea Benjamin, director of the San Francisco-based Global Exchange group.

As for working hours, the code says that employees shall not be required to work more than 48 hours and 12 hours overtime except “in extraordinary business circumstances.” Overtime hours must be paid at premium rates under local law and, in any case, no less than the regular hourly rate.

This provision was also attacked by the code’s critics who argued that “extraordinary business circumstances” could conceivably justify work weeks of well over 60 hours and that overtime should be paid at a rate at least time-and-a-half that of the regular rate.

But, with the code now in hand, most attention will now focus on the composition and work of the new association, according to critics and supporters who agree that the code’s implementation will be critical to its success.

The association, which is to be constituted over the next six months, is to include members nominated by companies, labour unions, and consumer, human rights and religious groups. But there is no agreement yet on how much representation each group will be allocated on the governing board, nor even whether it will act by consensus or by majority rules.

As important is the association’s accreditation of monitoring agencies. While the companies on the task force initially argued that they should be able to monitor their compliance with themselves, the non-industry groups successfully insisted that they accept “independent external monitors.”

But the companies would clearly prefer to use international auditing firms to do the monitoring, while human and labour rights groups favour the use of local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which would find it easier to gain the workers’ trust and which are familiar with the problems of local communities.

In a compromise hashed out between the two sides, it was agreed that auditing firms could be used, but they would be required under the code to consult regularly with local groups and ensure they establish a “secure communications channel” for workers to report non-compliance without fear of retribution by the company.

Some labour rights groups argued that permitting the use of private auditing firms marks a fatal flaw in the code’s enforcement, especially in more repressive plants where workers are unlikely to speak openly to business representatives. But others noted that the association can deny accreditation to firms which do not consult workers and local NGOs adequately.

“Setting up the actual system that this plan describes is going to be very difficult,” said James Silk, director of the Robert Kennedy Center and a task force participant. “This is an important accomplishment, but it has to be seen as just the first step.”