Worker Exploitation Behind Postal Uniforms Exposed

March 11, 2008  Postal Record, April issue (forthcoming)

By John Curtis, Branch 391

Everyone who wears a postal uniform is involved in the struggle over sweatshop labor in the apparel industry, whether they are aware of it or not. When you buy union-made products, you strike a blow against sweatshops. When you don’t, you compound the problem. Reliable information about sweatshop abuses is available from SweatFree Communities, which coordinates a national network of grassroots campaigns that promote humane working conditions in apparel by working with public and religious institutions to adopt sweatshop-free purchasing policies.

Branch 391 has been exchanging information with SweatFree Communities for several years. Their national website (sweatfree.org) even sports a photograph of one of our Bangor letter carriers, Bob Madore, at the top of their homepage (forth photo from the left).

Many letter carriers buy footwear from USPS-approved Rocky Shoes and Boots. SweatFree Communities reports that Rocky shut down its unionized manufacturing plant in Nelsonville, Ohio, in 2001 and moved production to low-wage factories in China and elsewhere. As many as 4,000 workers staged a strike on January 9 at a Rocky-contracted facility in Guangzhou, China, where they blocked traffic on a busy street. According to workers, the factory has embezzled 2-4 hours of wages and overtime compensation every day since 2002. Workers typically have to work on Sundays without any salary or overtime compensation. Following government intervention, the workers were persuaded to return to the factory and negotiate with management.

“These used to be good Ohio jobs,” said Wanda Taylor, who made shoes for 25 years in Rocky’s Ohio factory. “Now we know the consequences of NAFTA-style trade agreements: Ohio workers lose their jobs, and overseas workers are forced to work without pay. It’s a lose-lose situation that’s got to change.”

Next month I’ll discuss how letter carriers, the NALC, and the USPS can undertake such a change.