Independent Factory Investigation Improves Conditions in Los Angeles Supplier Factory

First Official Investigation of Working Conditions in Factory Producing for U.S. Cities

The first official full-scale investigation of working conditions in a factory producing for U.S. cities has resulted in remarkable improvements for workers and a more humane working environment.  Yet, significant challenges remain, including the low albeit legal wages paid to workers, trapping them in a life of abject poverty.

In October and November, 2007, the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent factory monitor, investigated a number of alleged worker rights violations at New Wide Garment, an apparel manufacturer in Cambodia.  New Wide produces the Dickies brand clothing sold to the City of Los Angeles.  The City has contracted with the Worker Rights Consortium to monitor working conditions among its apparel suppliers and assist with the enforcement of its sweatfree procurement ordinance, adopted in 2004.

As a result of the WRC investigation, New Wide has taken several steps to improve the working conditions.  For example, the factory has:

• Reinstated a worker, who had been harassed, forced to work in solitary confinement, prevented from talking with other workers, and pressured to resign because she was attempting to organize a union.  Reinstated to her previous position with no loss of seniority, this worker has also received full back pay.
• Adopted a policy of non-discrimination against pregnant workers and compensated a pregnant worker unjustly terminated.  A special pass for pregnant workers now allows them to leave five minutes early at the lunch hour and at the end of the working day.
• Ceased the practice of restricting workers’ access to the toilets during the work day.  Adopted a policy of prohibiting verbal harassment and abuse.
• Agreed to provide paid sick leave, according to law.

These steps may be relatively small advances that the factory can make without significantly increasing its cost of production.  Yet, for 1,400 New Wide workers everyday work-life in a more humane environment is not trivial. These positive results also indicate the potential of independent factory investigations for ending public purchasing from sweatshops and improving working conditions in factories that produce for state and local governments.

Still, there are limits to what an independent investigator can accomplish on behalf of a single city, even one the size of Los Angeles.   Among the remaining worker rights violations revealed in the WRC investigation perhaps the most entrenched and challenging one is the payment of poverty wages.

While New Wide workers earn a typical and legal Cambodian wage of $0.24 to $0.30 per hour, a Cambodian living wage, according to Los Angeles’ sweatfree ordinance, is $0.63 per hour, more than twice the actual wages.  Workers typically live in squalid conditions, sharing small dormitory rooms of 12-15 square meters with three to five room mates, and one toilet with 50 other people.  Their children usually stay with grandparents in the countryside as workers do not have the means to look after them.

Yet, the WRC is not currently recommending that New Wide Garments raises wages.  They explain:

This is not a matter that can be solved by the factory alone; any approach to bringing wages at New Wide to the level of the procurement living wage would require changes not only at the factory level but also, more importantly, in the sourcing practices of New Wide’s buyers. … [It] would require that one or more of New Wide’s customers pay a higher price to the factory sufficient to allow New Wide to increase wages.

In other words, assisting workers in their struggle for dignified living conditions requires brands, such as Dickies, to pay more for the products than they believe they must pay according to current market conditions. This,in turn, necessities a sweatfree market large enough to provide incentive to some buyers to play a positive role in this struggle.  This market is larger than any single city or state can provide, but it is within reach for cities and states that come together to form a single sweatfree purchasing consortium.  The State and Local and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium will begin to demand changes in the sourcing practices of suppliers to affiliated cities and states once members represent a $100 million apparel market.

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Go here for the full WRC investigation of New Wide Garments.

Go here for more information about the State and Local Government Sweatfree Consortium.