On November 28, 1997 the National Labor Committee (NLC) announced its "Neediest and Greediest List" of companies that continue to violate human rights in the production of their merchandise. Held up for public view were Wal-Mart, K-Mart, J.C. Penney (in Nicaragua), Guess (Mexico), Walt Disney Co. (fled Haiti for Mexico and China), Nike, Esprit (China), May Co. (Indonesia), and Victoria's Secret/Limited (Dominican Republic).
The press release explained: "As part of the Holiday Season of Conscience to End Child Labor and Sweatshops a three-month international campaign endorsed by over 150 national organizations we are appealing to consumers to shop with their consciences by rewarding companies moving in the right direction while challenging those that continue to violate human rights. This is not a boycott, rather it is the beginning of a public dialogue challenging corporations with the idea that human rights are every bit as important as the bottom line."
Charles Kernaghan of NLC and Ed Miller of Hard Copy, a television program produced and distributed by Paramount Domestic Television, teamed up to investigate the systematic and egregious human rights violations in the Nicaraguan Free Trade Zone (FTZ). The three-part series aired in mid-November. This is how it was done, according to NLC.
"For several months, the NLC has been collecting labels, pay stubs and accounts of human rights violations in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Nicaragua. Working primarily with the Upper West Side/Tipitapa Sister City Project and TecNica, as well as with background information provided by Nicaragua Network and Witness for Peace, NLC staff traveled to Nicaragua the week of October 13. We carried out extensive interviews in safe locations with dozens of workers from Chentex, Fortex, Rocedes, Barons, Istmo, Mil Colores and Nien Hsing Factories.
"We toured neighborthoods, visited homes, went shopping with workers to see what they could afford to purchase, and investigated two illegal dumps where we found company documents. We also met with union, human rights, religious and environmental groups, including the CST, CENIDH, CEPAD and Generacion Ozono 2000, community groups in Tipitapa and contact has now been established with the Jesuit University.
"Hard Copy, which had extensively covered the Kathie Lee scandal, was interested to see whether things had changed, whether sweatshops were a thing of the past. Posing as jeans manufacturers, with hidden cameras and microphones, we returned to Nicaragua the week of October 27. Hard Copy entered the zone. Again, extensive house meetings were held with dozens of workers, neighborhoods were visited and we returned to the dump.
"The Hard Copy trip and the likely impact of the story being aired on national TV was fully discussed with the workers and organizations we met with. The pros and cons were reviewed. On one hand, the show could lead to a backlash on the part of the companies and the government firings, intimidation, threats to pull out, increased surveillance. On the other hand, to break the silent, hidden, systematic daily violation of fundamental human rights would open a space for struggle. The climate of worker rights violations would be dragged into the spotlight. A joint decision was made to take the risk."
A Los Angeles review of the Hard Copy TV program written by the TV public relations director Gary Rosen follows, in part.
Hard Copy and the NLC uncovered garments being produced which include brands such a Faded Glory for Wal-Mart, Arizona for J.C. Penney, Route 66 for K- Mart. Workers making these garments are paid a base wage of 15 cents per hour; compared to the base wage of 31 cents per hour Honduran workers were paid in the Kathie Lee Gifford scandal.
Many of the workers are underage; workers allege being physically and sexually abused; they are exposed to dangerous chemicals from solvents; the workers take megadoses of vitamins in order to work faster and stay awake (the workers buy these in the FTZ); and they are forced to work overtime without additional pay. According to the Hard Copy report, the workers are so malnourished that high doses of vitamins keep them awake and make them work faster. FTZ's are areas set up around the world which were originally established and built using US tax dollars. Manufactured goods produced within the FTZ are shipped to the US and are subject to reduced tariffs or no tariffs. The FTZ Hard Copy visited uses barbed wire fences and armed guards to keep the workers in and visitors out. The Nicaraguan FTZ (near Managua) contains about a dozen companies owned by manufacturers of different nationalities. One worker, Jolena Rodriguez, states, "They hit you...they hit you in the head...to make your work faster." Workers are screamed at "when the work doesn't come out." Under the pretense of checking for candy or gum as workers arrive and stolen goods as they leave, workers are searched by supervisors. A female worker says, "They take me into another room and search us all over. They touch us all over, including them lifting up our skirts to look underneath." If you refuse to work late as many as three times, you are fired.
The investigation also shows the housing conditions in which the workers live. The huts have tin and thatch roofs, fabric doors, dirt floors and cardboard walls. The houses do not have running water and propane tanks are used for cooking when the families can afford to buy fuel; open fires are used when there is no money for propane. The report shows several families living in the cramped, tiny spaces.
Furthermore, the investigation uncovers environmental abuses by manufacturers. Bleaches, solvents and dyes are washed into outdoor, open pits. Empty, rusted barrels of chemicals are stored out in the open, not in a controlled area. Workers also complain that they burn their hands with the bleach and chemicals used to make stone washed jeans. A very respected independent research institute in Nicaragua (International Foundation for the Global Economic Challenge) calculates the basic basket of necessities for a family of four (smaller than average) at 1,699.10 cordobas a month, which is US $40 a week. The base wage of 10 cents an hour, or $4.80 per week, meets only 12 percent of a families basic survival needs. The average wage of 31 cents an hour or $14.88 per week meets only 37 percent, while even the high end wage of 47 cents an hour, or $22.56 per week, meets only 56 percent of the cost of living.
Add to this the fact that these multinational companies who are fouling the country and mistreating the citizens, pay no taxes to Nicaragua. One example, and the others are comparable: The entire national budget of the government of Nicaragua is capped at $585 million. Wal-Mart's annual sales of $105 billion are 179 times greater than Nicaragua's budget; Wal-Mart made more than $3 billion in profits last year. The NLC/Hard Copy expose hit hard in Nicaragua, for the first time shining a major public spotlight on the systematic violation of fundamental rights in the free trade zone. The issue dominates local news. Companies react harshly, denying abuses, claiming they had inspected these factories, threatening to pull out. Several workers who appeared in the Hard Copy program have been fired. Suspected union organizers are being fired. Maquila workers, the vast majority of them young women, have fought back with strikes, press conferences, calls for independent monitoring. They are using the space opened up by the TV expose and the publicity it generated, as well as increasing international pressure, to demand respect for their human rights. The movement to defend the human and labor rights of the maquila workers in Nicaragua is at a crossroads.
Call Lee Loe for national addresses of these companies - 713-524-2682. This is an exciting project! I know that several Houstonians have contacted, either verbally or by mail, J.C, Penney Co. here. Add your voices to theirs. ~ Edited by Lee Loe from materials provided by NLC.