Order a copy of the video "Sweating for a T-Shirt" by calling 1-800-497-1994 from within the United States, or 1-415-255-7296 from outside the US. Price: $100 Institutions, $50 Community Organizations, $25 Individuals
Let's Wear It With Pride
by Arlen Benjamin-Gomez
In July 1998, I went to my orientation at UCLA and bought a T-shirt in the campus store for my younger sister. The shirt was made by Fruit of the Loom and assembled in Honduras. The same kind of shirt has subsequently been spotted in campus stores at UC Berkeley and Georgetown.
Fruit of the Loom is the nation's largest manufacturer of screen print t-shirts, with 30% of the domestic market. From 1995-1997, Fruit of the
Loom closed down virtually all its US operations and moved overseas. By 1998, over 95% of its goods were being sewn in Central America, Mexico or the Caribbean.
Together with my mother Medea Benjamin, who is a human rights activist, I decided to trace the origin of the T-shirt. We called the headquarters of Fruit of the Loom in Chicago, but they wouldn't tell us what factory it was made in. So we called the research department of the garment workers union UNITE, which was able to give us the names and addresses of several factories in San Pedro Sula, Honduras that produce for Fruit of the Loom.
We then traveled to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to try to visit the factories. By talking to the local Honduras-US Chamber of Commerce, we learned that there were five factories producing for Fruit of the Loom, and we called the local Fruit of the Loom office to see if we could visit any one of them. The local representatives refused to let us in, so instead we met with representatives of a union called the FITH that organizes workers in the garment factories, and with many women workers.
They told us that the conditions in the Fruit of the Loom subcontractor factories were dismal. They said the pay is miserable: workers earn $3.50 a day when the cost of the basic market basket is $8 a day. Workers are often forced to work long hours of overtime without being adequately compensated. The quotas they have to fulfill every day are so high that the women suffer from tremendous stress and many became sick from the dust in the factories.
San Pedro Sula is an extremely hot town, and the workers said that ventilation in the factories is poor. They complained that the managers treated them with disrespect, limiting their use of the bathrooms, yelling at them, frisking them to make sure they were not stealing anything. "They don't treat us like human beings," said one of the women.
When workers try to organize and form unions, they are harassed and often blacklisted. In one of the Fruit of the Loom factories called Triple A, the workers tried four times to form a union, but each time the activists were fired.
After my experience in Honduras, I realize that we have no idea where the clothes we buy in our campus stores are coming from. Companies refuse to provide us with the list of factories they use, which is why it is so important to get a provision in our college Codes of Conduct that says the companies must publicly disclose the names and addresses of these factories. Without this information, there is no way that local groups can help us monitor work conditions.
I also realize that the only way workers can ensure that their rights are respected is by organizing unions. While none of the Fruit of the Loom factories had a union, several other factories in San Pedro Sula did have unions. This meant that the workers in these factories could ask for better conditions and better pay, and had a way to channel their grievances. As one of the lawyers we met with said, "The owners are always organized into business associations to pressure for policies that benefitbusiness. So workers must be organized as well in order to gain more power." This is why our campus Codes of Conduct must have a strong provision about the right of workers to form unions or associations of their choice, and their right to bargain collectively.
Finally, it was clear during my visit that the biggest problem the workers faced was low pay. Their low salaries meant that they lived in crowded shacks, did not have good diets, had difficulty providing for their children, and had to work overtime to make ends meet. Instead of keeping workers in poverty, US companies should be helping workers to get out of poverty. This is why the issue of a living wage is so critical. Right now, no college code contains a provision that companies must pay a living wage. But without this provision, we will not be able to call our university clothing "sweatshop free."
We must continue to work for stronger Codes of Conduct that open the factories to public scrutiny, allow workers to organize unions, and guarantee them fair compensation. Only then can we wear our university clothing with pride.
