Greed vs. Need
from AFL-CIO Works in Progress
Nine companies have made the National Labor Committee's latest
Neediest and Greediest list.
These well-known firms use contractors that manufacture their
label goods in sweatshops around the world where worker abuse is
common and wages are below poverty level.
For example, some Wal-Mart, Kmart and J.C. Penney garments are sewn under contract in a free-trade zone in Nicaragua where wages are as low as 15 cents an hour, workers are locked in factories from 6:45 a.m. to 7:15 p.m., they must work without talking, have only a half-hour break and are verbally and sometimes physically abused.
The others on the list are Guess Inc., Walt Disney Co., Nike, Esprit, May Co. and Victoria's Secret/Limited.
The NLC, labor and human rights activists around the globe made December 11 a National Day of Conscience to call attention to the deplorable wages and working conditions at sweatshops worldwide.
The problem of sweatshops and worker abuse is not limited to developing countries: The U.S. Labor Department is levying fines of more than $32,000 in back wages and penalties against Grayson Sewing, a Sherman, Texas, contractor, for hiring child laborers, ranging in age from nine to 15, and working some of them past 10 p.m. And a South Carolina farm labor contractor recently was sentenced to 15 years in the slammer for subjecting migrant cucumber harvesters to involuntary servitude.