More China Labor Issues
I have been receiving the China Labor Watch email newsletter for a few months now, and the serious social issues being presented never cease to amaze me.
Just this week, there was a case presented in which a supplier to major retailers such as American Eagle, GAP, J Crew, Liz Claiborne, Target and Talbots was found to have horrendous working conditions, including:
- Employing minors
- Subjecting employees to extreme heat and toxic gases
- Regularly work 30 days/ month and over 12 hours/ day
- Base salaries below minimum wage
- Very difficult to resign if desired
This is all in the wake of a massive factory strike of a Chinese keyboard manufacturer supplying to IBM, Apple, LG and more. The issues at hand were:
- Factory required employees to work overtime, sometimes until as late as 2 AM after working normal hours from 7 AM- 5 PM. Workers put in 100-120 hours overtime a month.
- High rate of workplace injury
- No benefits
- Layoffs of older workers
- Severe emotional distress by manager’s verbal abuse and bullying
While China has come a long way from yesteryear’s rate of social problems, these issues still arise, and it is extremely important to ensure that your factories are safe and fair working environments. While a Social Audit clearly presents an upfront cost, the price is no where near what the costs of potential damage to brand reputation and sales could be. Frequently monitoring your factories is a must!
Every day workers suffer accidents whilst lifting or carrying things at work. The government’s Health and Safety Executive’s statistics are that nearly 40% of all significant injuries in the workplace happen whilst people are doing work lifting and carrying.