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Showing posts with label Haiti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haiti. Show all posts

Monday, December 23, 2013

Buying Overseas Clothing, U.S. Flouts Its Own Advice

Interational fashion safety, once a catalyst in the US of beter working conditions, still does not bring to the table the USToday's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com


One of the world’s biggest clothing buyers, the United States government spends more than $1.5 billion a year at factories overseas, acquiring everything from the royal blue shirts worn by airport security workers to the olive button-downs required for forest rangers and the camouflage pants sold to troops on military bases.
But even though the Obama administration has called on Western buyers to use their purchasing power to push for improved industry working conditions after several workplace disasters over the last 14 months, the American government has done little to adjust its own shopping habits.
Labor Department officials say that federal agencies have a “zero tolerance” policy on using overseas plants that break local laws, but American government suppliers in countries including Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan and Vietnam show a pattern of legal violations and harsh working conditions, according to audits and interviews at factories. Among them: padlocked fire exits, buildings at risk of collapse, falsified wage records and repeated hand punctures from sewing needles when workers were pushed to hurry up.
In Bangladesh, shirts with Marine Corps logos sold in military stores were made at DK Knitwear, where child laborers made up a third of the work force, according to a 2010 audit that led some vendors to cut ties with the plant. Managers punched workers for missed production quotas, and the plant had...
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Saturday, October 19, 2013

Labor Group Says Haiti's Factories Are Unsafe

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from abcnews.go.com


Haiti's garment factories are unsafe for their workers, often lacking marked fire exits, safe drinking water and sufficient toilets, a labor group said Wednesday.

A study by the Geneva-based Better Work organization looked at working conditions in 23 Haitian factories from May to August. It found 13 workplaces were not sufficiently lighted, and 11 failed to clearly mark emergency exits and escape routes. Eleven factories did not have adequate fire-fighting equipment.

It also found that 21 did not have the legally required number of toilets, and the same number didn't have onsite medical facilities and staff.

Henri-Claude Muller-Poitevien, president of a government commission that oversees Haiti's assembly plants, said he welcomed the survey by the labor compliance group, which is supported by the International Labor Organization and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.
He said his commission is working with Better Work and the fire department to mark emergency exits and install fire-fighting equipment.

"All the buildings need improvement — this is what we are doing now," Muller-Poitevien said. "We definitely want to comply with everything, but we will never be the triple-A student."

Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe responded on his blog Tuesday night to a separate report from another labor group that alleges assembly plants don't pay their workers even the minimum wage. He said the country is "continuing to build an environment that holds ourselves and...
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