Everyone likes a pretty Christmas – a Christmas filled with family, lights, decorating and giving. None of us wants a season where joy is based on someone else’s misery. Yet Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., released a report by the National Labor Committee last week that revealed our joy is at the expense of others. Our favorite trading partners in China are forcing their workers to produce our Christmas delights in conditions unfit for elves or humans.
The report is based on an investigation of an 8,000-person factory titled, “A Wal-Mart Christmas.” It details conditions at the Guangzhou Huanya Gift Company. In the company’s own words, they “have a long term, friendly, collaborative relationships with industry leaders Wal-Mart.”
Despite popular beliefs, China does have labor laws, and according to this report, Guangzhou violates all of them. The problem of course is enforcement. With no local enforcement, the labor laws in China are lip service to appease those who vacuum up their cheap goods.
Evidence of wrongdoing was gathered by reports, pay slips, photographs and other documents leaked out of the factory. The stories are horrific. One group of workers included high school students on their summer “vacation.” Some 500-600 high-school workers were putting in 12-15 hours a day, seven days a week. A crooked teacher who was paid more than the students for doing no work lured the high-school students. The high-school workers reported that there were children as young as 12 working in the factory. When local officials did not respond to their complaints, the students smuggled evidence of the abuses out of the factory.
In addition to the high-school workers, numerous other labor violations were documented. Workers are required to put in a regular shift of 10 hours a day, seven days a week. To keep the job, workers must also “volunteer” for 30 hours a week of overtime, giving workers a 100-hour work week.
Workers who tried to take Sundays off were docked two-and-a-half days of pay or fired.
Workers were paid below the 55 cents per hour minimum for regular work, and overtime pay did not exist at any amount near the rate legally mandated in China. Some workers averaged 22 cents per hour. Wal-Mart told the National Labor Committee they had reviewed the payment documents and found them to be without violation and Wal-Mart would “continue to look.” The documents smuggled out of the factory say otherwise.
The factory withholds wages for one month. So a worker starting at the beginning of September will not be paid until the end of October. Workers are docked for almost any infraction, such as setting ornaments on the floor. As if the working hours and pay are not bad enough, workers spray paint with minimal protections. Yes, they wear gloves but not protective gloves, and their respiration masks would not meet minimum OSHA standards.
After Sen. Dorgan released the report this week, Wal-Mart said they would do a full investigation. This is the very same company that has spent oodles of dough lobbying and trying to put a good face on the fact that their labor practices in the United States have resulted in a major class-action lawsuit.
There is a remedy for these workers in Senate Bill 367, the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act. The bill, introduced 11 months ago has not made it to the Senate floor. It has 17 co-sponsors but the two senators from Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart, are not among them; no Republicans have signed on either.
The best part of S.B. 367 is not only does it prohibit goods to be sold in the United States that are produced under sweat shop conditions, it allows people with “standing” to bring suit in federal court. That provision will certainly put a nail in the bill’s coffin, allowing legal redress will never be permitted by the likes of Wal-Mart. The lobbyists will be making their Christmas bonuses by making sure no one can sue for slave labor conditions endured while making Christmas ornaments, or anything else for that matter, bought on the cheap. I love the holiday season. I love the decorations. I don’t love Wal-Mart and a Congress that allows this kind of practice to continue.
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