NZ Sweatshops Inc.
By Cameron Walker, Auckland
So your brand new, highly expensive, major brand jacket actually cost less than two bucks to make in a Thai sweatshop. How cool is that?! Not very. Leading sportswear companies continue to make huge profits from unethical sweatshop labour.
Earlier this year Sripai Nonsee, a trade unionist and former sweatshop worker from Thailand, visited New Zealand to speak about the terrible conditions facing clothing workers in Thailand.
At the age of 17 Sripai left her rural home to find work in the Thai capital, Bangkok. She got a job at a firm called Par Garment, producing clothing for big brand sportswear companies, such as Nike, Adidas, GAP, Old Navy and Fila. These clothing brands are very expensive in shops in more developed countries such as New Zealand, but the workers who produce them are treated very badly.
The sportswear companies use sweatshop labour because it brings down the amount of money they have to spend on production, which means they make more profit.
Vulnerable to abuse
Conditions in the factory where Sripai worked were very poor. The workers, mainly teenage girls and young women, were forced to work three hours unpaid overtime. During this time they were locked in the factory and not allowed out.
The factory was hot and dusty and had no first aid room. Sexual abuse was frequent and any worker who refused to submit to the sexual demands of the personnel officer would be threatened with the loss of their job.
Many of those employed in sweatshops are vulnerable to abuse because they are young, desperate for work and from rural parts of Thailand, away from their families.
Working to improve conditions
The workers became sick of their treatment so they set up a trade union. At the age of 20 Sripai became the head of the union at her factory.
Six years later she was fired when she tried to help workers set up a union at another Par Garment factory.
In New Zealand forming a union is considered a basic right for workers.
Thailand has not approved the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions on the rights of workers to organize unions. This makes it easier for factory owners to get away with poor work conditions.
Today Sripai works with organizations which aim to improve conditions for Thai clothing workers.
78 cents!
During her time in New Zealand, Sripai visited a sports store in Christchurch. She found a selection of jackets that she used to make in Thailand. Each of the jackets took less than two hours to make, for which the worker was paid 78 cents an hour. But in New Zealand they were being sold for $159.99 each. Sripai calculated it would take 205 hours, or eight and a half days and nights, for workers in her factory to earn enough money to buy just ONE of the jackets.
Ripped off
Last year the company which owns that particular store made a profit of $23.6 million. Some sportswear companies, such as Nike, make profits in the billions. These companies are growing very rich off the sweat of workers, like Sripai, in Thailand.
Is it really worth spending huge amounts of money on clothing which is made by virtual slaves?
We’re getting ripped off and so are Thai workers!
GLOSSARY
Sweatshop: A factory where workers are forced to work long hours, for low pay and with poor conditions. The factory Sripai worked in was a sweatshop.
Trade Union: An organized association of workers which aims to protect and improve pay and workplace conditions. Sripai is a clothing workers trade unionist.
International Labour Organisation (ILO): An agency of the United Nations which aims to promote fair conditions in the workplace and the abolition of forced labour. The ILO researches and creates rules for governments to put in place to ensure workplaces always have fair pay and conditions.
This article was originally written for the Global Focus project (link
to explanation?), a collaborative effort between Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It has been reproduced here with the permission of the good folk at Tearaway. This article appeared in the December 2004 issue of Tearaway.
Learn More
Sweatshops
sweatshopwatch.org
Corpwatch.org
Aworldconnected.org
Feminist.org
Fair trade in New Zealand and Australia
Trade Aid
Fair Trade Association
Scoop Article
