|
|
|
|
|
What is Our “Ain’t I a Woman” Campaign? |
Mrs. Lai, Mrs. Gutierrez and other DKNY workers have been joined by other women workers who also have tolerated abusive conditions for the sake of their families. Many women are inspired by the example of these DKNY workers who risked so much to fight to be treated with respect like human beings, and to have some say about their working conditions and time.
Our campaign has drawn in women workers from across the board who are experiencing longer hours, lower wages and worsening conditions. Whether we work in a corporate law firm or a garment factory, control over our time and our lives is slipping away.
A century after Sojourner Truthís struggles against racism and sexism, women workers are stepping up the fight against the most destructive form that modern-day racism and sexism has taken: economic segregation and the perception that crumbs are better than nothing. Refusing to be treated like slaves or second-class citizens, we are coming together to build upon Sojourner Truthís struggle and proclaiming Ain't I a Woman?! |
|
Code of Conduct: Asking the Fox to Guard the Chicken Coop
Our “Ain’t I a Woman” campaign has been launched amidst a great deal of anti-sweatshop activism. For the most part, unfortunately, sweatshops are framed as a problem of "the other" : far-away workers in Third World countries, immigrant garment workers in this country hidden away behind barbed wires and locked gates.
An upsurge of activity has been directed at helping these workers: the U.S. Labor Department launched a "No Sweat" campaign to encourage manufacturers to sign on to "voluntary compliance" with labor laws. Students are demanding that their schools contract only with companies that agree to a "code of conduct" - which typically prohibits forced labor, child labor and violations of labor laws - and to "public disclosure" of where and under what conditions their goods are made. Advocacy groups are organizing consumer boycotts of companies exploiting workers abroad, chasing companies like Disney from Haiti to China and promoting the union label.
A new form of imperialism has emerged, where U.S. consumers are depicted as the key agents of change and the ones who know whatís best for those sweatshop workers who are suffering. Power is seen to reside in your ability to buy things, as a consumer, rather than in your ability to make things or make things run as a worker.
This focus on sweatshops overseas actually helps to protect sweatshops in the U.S., diverting attention from the expanding sweatshop system here and driving work from abroad to domestic sweatshops.
Voluntary compliance and monitoring measures are also naive. "No Sweat" and Codes of Conducts are based on the premise that corporations are well intentioned. How effective can these measures be if they are asking corporations to voluntarily contradict the very goal of corporations: to make a profit? Moreover, even if independent monitors investigate factories, workers will not tell the truth about sweatshop conditions if they are not organized to face threats of harassment, firing and blacklisting.
For example, workers from two of the largest sweatshops in Brooklyn, N.Y., were forced to work as long as 137 hours a week producing Street Beat Sportswear for retailers like Sears. Several were fired after asking for a day off. Workers were owed almost $300,000 in unpaid minimum wage and overtime pay and damages. Street Beat had three years earlier signed two compliance agreements with the Department of Labor. |
| back to top |
Taking Their Fate into Their Own Hands |
Here the story changes. The Street Beat workers from Brooklyn did not wait for another compliance agreement to be signed. They organized together with the support of other garment workers from the Chinese Staff & Workers' Association and other young workers from the National Mobilization Against SweatShops. We came together as working people to fight not only for the StreetBeat workers' owed wages, but also for their reinstatement to their jobs. We demanded that Sears commit to ensuring that 100 per cent of its goods be produced in law-abiding factories. To prevent them from moving work away in retaliation against our organizing, we also demanded that the company make sure that 75 per cent of its goods be produced in local communities. Standing up to harassment, threats and blacklisting, these workers succeeded in winning almost $300,000 from Street Beat.
Mrs. Lai, the DKNY worker from another factory, supported this battle. Inspired, she decided to expose and fight the cruel and discriminatory practices at her unionized mid-town factory. Her courage emboldened other DKNY workers - Olga, Maria, Fanny, Lupe, Lilia, Ruth and another Maria - who have now stepped forward.
These women are now fighting for their jobs back and their owed overtime pay. They are also demanding that DKNY re-open her factories, and ensure that its women workers will no longer suffer harassment and that it will no longer close factories when workers speak up for their rights. Last, the workers are demanding that DKNY commit to producing all of its clothing under legal conditions.
|
|
| back to top |
Why target retailers?
Today big retailers such as DKNY (a manufacturer as well) or Sears are allowed to walk away with billions of dollars by stripping women of their rights and crushing the life out of them. They sit on the top of a subcontracting pyramid and claim zero responsibility. Whoís responsible for inhuman and illegal working conditions in the sweatshops? Retailers hang back looking innocent, and let the blame fall on the manufacturers. Manufacturers duck and run, leaving the contractors (factory owners) to blame. Factory owners squeeze profits out of their workers while portraying themselves as victims.
Retailers, as the sellers of the clothing made in garment factories, hold the most power in this sub-contracting system as they decide what goods they will accept to sell and at what price they will purchase them. Manufacturers, who design the clothes, must offer them a good deal. Competition among manufacturers to sell their garments to retailers ó on top of manufacturersí thirst for profits ó drives down the prices for production.
And, who gets squeezed the most in this relentless drive to maximize profits? The women toiling long hours in New York City under oppressive conditions sewing DKNY labels sold at DKNY boutiques and Macy's. The women sewing Street Beat labels that were sold at Sears. The women sewing Kathie Lee labels that sold at Wal-Mart. What happens when they stand up for their rights? The contractor shuts down when Donna Karan pulls out her clothes. The Streetbeat contractor moves around the corner under a new name. Manufacturers take their work to another factory ó to another block, or another part of the city, country or world ó to exploit someone else.
Working people holding retailers accountable to them cuts to the chase of the sub-contracting system. As the top entity that ultimately holds the purse strings, the retailer has the power to make sure that 100 percent of its goods are made under legal conditions. It also has the power to ensure that its manufacturers donít run away to other states or other countries in their search for cheap labor, punishing workers that organize for their rights and depriving local factories and workers of work. |
| back to top |
Women's Work and the Sweatshop Economy |
The sweatshop conditions faced by the DKNY garment workers are not so far removed from the experiences of most women workers in this country. Women are disproportionately concentrated in clerical, service-sector and manufacturing jobs. Among all women workers in the U.S., one in five is a cashier, secretary or teacher. Nearly six out of 10 African American women work as nursing attendants, janitors, cleaners, cooks and maids. Immigrant women often take jobs as domestic workers, hotel and restaurant workers, orderlies, nursing assistants and laborers in manufacturing jobs such as garment and meat processing. Unfortunately, these very important areas of work, which we all depend on, tend to be devalued and lower-paid. And regardless of educational levels, in any occupation women are routinely paid less than men doing the same work.
And this is just the woman's "official" job. Regardless of race or class, women are still the primary caretakes of children and elderly relatives, and still take on a disproportionate responsibility for housework. This "women's work" is never recognized or valued as work, but is simply expected of women.
Adding insult to injury, women who have been caring for their children at home and receiving welfare benefits are now being forced into workfare, a government-supported cheap-labor program. These women are working starvation wages doing demeaning and dead-end work, while often having no choice but to pay a babysitter to watch their children.
Stuck in low-wage jobs and shouldering primary responsibility for their children, many women lack the economic autonomy to escape abusive relationships at home. Those who do are sometimes forced to work several jobs or turn to sex work as a quick way to put food on the table. Nearly a third of all families headed by women are living below the poverty-line. Even well-paid professional women cannot escape hard choices around career and motherhood. For many, advancement means giving all your time, which means having no time for children. Moreover, many bosses fail to offer maternity leave or to guarantee that mothers' jobs will be available when they return.
|
|
| >> Back to Campaigns |
|
mail: NMASS P.O. Box 130293, New York, NY
10013-0995
office: 30 Third Avenue, Brooklyn (between Atlantic and State)
tel: 718-625-9091 • fax: 718-625-8950
• email: nmass@yahoo.com
©2001 NMASS All RIghts
Reserved
|
|
