Communist Web
Friday 17th March 2000 9.30pm gmt
400 march in solidarity with sweatshop workers
Special to the World
NEW YORK - Labor rights advocates demonstrated March 4 to celebrate
the week of International Women's Day and build support for women
workers' struggles to organize against sweatshop conditions.
The protesters rallied at The Gap, Old Navy, and the New York University
(NYU) bookstore, which sell products made in sweatshops. The march
ended with a rally at Greene and Washington Place, the site of the 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which nearly 150 women garment workers lost
their lives.
In discussions with anti-sweatshop groups, Gap has refused to accept
responsibility for ensuring that workers are paid the necessary living wage.
In Saipan, a U.S. territory replete with sweatshops, Gap does the most
business of any company on the island over $200 million a year,
contracting in six factories. These companies import without tariff or quota
restrictions and label their clothes "Made in the USA," but do not adhere to
U.S. labor laws.
Gap factory workers are subjected to forced pregnancy tests, forced
overtime, exceedingly high production goals, locked bathrooms, and wages
of $4 a day, which only meet one-third of their basic needs. If workers try
to organize a union or even become more informed of their rights, they are
fired.
At the final stop on the march route, participants saluted NYU's March 2
announcement that it would join the Worker's Rights Consortium, a non-
profit organization that supports and verifies licensee compliance with
production codes of conduct. These codes have been developed by colleges
and universities across the country to ensure that goods are produced under
conditions that respect the basic rights of workers.
In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company killed 146 garment
workers in New York City. It became a catalyst that helped to end the
commonplace abuse of workers in the United States. Days after the fire,
over 80,000 people took part in the funeral procession up Fifth Avenue.
Eventually, the groundswell of support led to safer workplaces.
In 1993 a fire at the Kadar Industrial Toy Company in Thailand killed 188
workers, who like the victims...
http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/mar/mar.html
