Low wages
China
In China, the wage that is required for a basic standard of living is 60p an hour - but the standard pay is 16p an hour. This means workers do not have enough to feed their family, send their children to school, or have access to safe water and sanitation.
Mexico
Mexican maquiladora assembly plant workers are earning poverty wages. Workers cannot meet the cost of transport, housing, food and other needs, even working considerable overtime.
The Clean Clothes Campaign (www.cleanclothes.org) study found that, 'in community after community, maquiladora workers can afford to only live in makeshift houses without water, electricity; even talking about nutritious diets for themselves and their children is a luxury. They work long, productive hours for the world’s biggest corporations and still cannot provide the most basic needs for their families. The legal minimum wage for workers is only 25 per cent of what a family of four needs to live on.'
Long hours and forced overtime
Workers often have to deal with:
• 15-hour days
• Seven day weeks
• Toilet break bans
• Shortened lunch breaks
What the workers had to say ...
‘I and other women workers at the plant are very badly treated. The supervisors treat us like machines – they shout at us, threaten us. Overtime is not voluntary; most women are forced to do overtime and are threatened with lower wages if they don’t comply.'
'The wage now is 17.6 pesos an hour, just over £1 a day, still below the minimum wage. No one can speak out because they will get sacked. If they are sacked they will go back to even worse poverty.’ Martha, Free Trade Zone worker, Guatemala.
The management on overtime: ‘Many workers do 12 or 14 hours, without being offered the choice of refusal. If they won’t do it their contract is "terminated".'
Mauritius
'You can't refuse overtime. If you don't do the overtime you don't come back tomorrow' (worker, Mauritius).
Poor health and safety standards
There are many health and safety hazards facing workers in the garment factories. These include eye problems and other disabilities caused by poor lighting and long hours. Breathing difficulties are also common, from dust in the air. Workers who are breathing in dust over long periods of time can be susceptible to lung disease.
Workers often have to sit in the same position for a long time, and shoulder and back pains can be common. Accidents caused by broken machinery and dangerous cramped factory floors happen all too often.
Fires have broken out because of unsafe wiring, and people have been killed or seriously injured because of poor fire procedures or locked exits. In November 2000, 51 workers died on the top floor of a four-storey building in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The women were sewing jumpers which were to be sold in the UK. When the women ran to the fire exits they found them locked. Tragically, more than 200 workers in Bangladesh have died in factory fires over the last decade.
Poor working conditions
Zola works in Guatemala City. She stitches 300 collars a day in a factory where it is unbearably hot and the noise is deafening. The workers are locked in; she is not allowed to talk, is punished if she goes to the toilet without permission, and often works 15 hours a day. Overtime is unpaid.
What the workers had to say....
On limited work space:
‘People are so cramped that some helpers were actually sitting under the cutting table to do their work. Others were sitting beneath the machines, cutting threads from the finished articles.’
On lack of ventilation:
’We do not get any air. The factory is very warm.’
On mealtimes:
‘The workers get a piece of bread from the factory before they start working, and nothing more during the entire day.’
On toilet facilities:
‘There are many problems with the toilets. There is one toilet pass for every 54 people. The factory had 12 toilets, of which seven are closed, leaving 5 toilets for 800–900 workers. Workers are searched before using the toilets.’
On discipline
‘Supervisors hit workers to make them work faster or when workers talk to teach one another.’
Click here to meet some garment workers >>