Media Release
April 16, 2009

Contact: Jordan Wells, Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State, 201-400-9404
Bjorn Claeson, SweatFree Communities, 207-262-7277

Governor Paterson: Act now to stop tax $$ for sweatshops
Office for General Services puts 12 government contractors on notice following report that finds child labor, forced and unpaid overtime, toxic conditions in supplier facilities

“Our taxes—the economy--sweatshops, It’s all connected.” was the message on leaflets given to Post Office customers entering the Central Avenue Post Office in Albany yesterday. Groups educated taxpayers outside Post Offices in 12 cities, armed with a new report revealing that governments continue to purchase goods from companies engaged in serious human and labor rights violations.

In letters dated April 14, the New York State Office of General Services Commissioner John C. Egan notified 12 companies named in the report that they will be expected to remedy the sweatshop conditions found in their supplier factories, rather than “cut-and-run,” washing their hands of the sweatshop problems.

“OGS’s grounds for concern are obvious,” said Jordan Wells, Sweatfree Coordinator for the Labor-Religion Coalition. “What is not clear is on what ground they stand. New York needs clear, codified expectations of sweatfree working conditions in our supplier factories. We also need to join with others in the Sweatfree Consortium to better leverage compliance with these expectations.”

According to the report released by SweatFree Communities and the Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State, U.S. state, local, and federal tax dollars are being used to buy apparel made in sweatshops and are contributing to outsourcing. The report states that several local and state governments have adopted policies that would require government contractors to abide by ethical standards. New York is notably absent from this group.

Advocates led by the Labor-Religion Coalition are calling on Governor Paterson to join the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, which would stop tax dollar support for sweatshop abuses and level the playing field for ethical U.S. businesses. Since July of 2008, the State of Pennsylvania, the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the City of Portland, Oregon, and the City of Olympia, Washington, have all committed to joining the Consortium. During the same period, the few minor requirements that New York placed on apparel suppliers sunsetted and were not renewed.

Brian O’Shaughnessy, Executive Director of the Labor-Religion Coalition, said, “Unfortunately, sweatshop conditions continue to pervade the network of apparel factories supplying our state. We urge Governor Paterson to act swiftly in putting forth a sweatfree code of conduct and in joining the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium.”

Subsidizing Sweatshops II is a follow-up to the groundbreaking 2008 first edition and features in-depth interviews with workers in 8 factories spanning five countries who produce uniforms for public employees such as police officers and parks service employees for nine major uniform brands. Four of the case studies are newly-research factories, while four look at what improvements have been made in factories researched for the 2008 report. Findings include obligatory pregnancy tests, blacklisting of workers who support a union, poverty wages, forced and unpaid overtime, and child labor. At least three workers in two factories who participated in interviews for this report have since been fired from their jobs, allegedly for having spoken publicly about conditions in their factories.

“There are comparatively many adolescents and child workers, and their work is the same kind as that done by adult workers,” said a worker from the Genfort Shoes factory in Guangdong Province, China, where Ohio-based Rocky Brands, the parent of New York contractor Lehigh Safety Shoes, manufactures several lines of boots. “When people come to inspect, the children are told to hide,” said another Genfort Shoes worker.

“Every week I have to choose which of the bills I will be able to pay. I pay $600 for rent, $200 for gas, $100 for car insurance, and then there is the telephone and other bills. But I only make $250 a week… and we haven’t even talked about food!” says Lesbi, a worker at Eagle Industries’ factory in New Bedford, Mass., which manufactures tactical gear for New York State and the United States military.

Download the report at www.sweatfree.org/subsidizing
Learn more at www.labor-religion.org.
Interviews and photographs available upon request

The Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State, with a statewide staff and seven local coalition affiliates, educates and advocates for economic justice. In addition to the Sweatshop Free Campaign, its programs include an Annual 40-hour Fast for Worker Justice, Border Witness delegations to the Texas/ Mexico border and a Fair Trade Project. The LRC was one of the founding organizations of SweatFree Communities.

SweatFree Communities coordinates a national network of grassroots campaigns that promote humane working conditions in apparel and other labor-intensive global industries by working with both public and religious institutions to adopt sweatshop-free purchasing policies. Using institutional purchasing as a lever for worker justice, the sweatfree movement empowers ordinary people to create a just global economy through local action.

The Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, comprised of states, cities, counties, local government agencies, and school districts, as well as human rights advocates and labor rights experts, will pool resources of public entities to investigate working conditions in factories that make uniforms and other products for public employees. Cities and states will hold vendors to ethical standards, and create a market large enough to persuade companies to deal responsibly and ethically with their suppliers and workers. Learn more at www.buysweatfree.org

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Last Updated: 04/17/2009
© New York State Labor-Religion Coalition