Gap Inc. admits its poor work conditions
Associated Press
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO - In an unusual display of corporate candor, Gap Inc. on
Wednesday acknowledged that many of the overseas workers making the
retailer's clothes are mistreated and vowed to improve often shoddy
factory conditions by cracking down on unrepentant manufacturers.
The San Francisco-based owner of the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic
stores made the comments Wednesday in its first ever "social
responsibility" report - a 40-page document that mixed contrition
about the past with promises to do better.
The worst and most persistent of the violations led Gap to end business
with 136 of the 3,009 factories it uses in 2003.
"We feel strongly that commerce and social responsibility don't have
to be at odds," Gap CEO Paul Pressler told shareholders Wednesday at
the company's annual meeting.
Gap uncovered thousands of violations at manufacturers scattered across
50 countries.
"Few factories, if any, are in full compliance all of the
time," the report said.
Workplace activists who have long chided Gap for making its clothes at
so-called "sweatshops" praised the merchant for shedding light
on rampant abuses that have haunted the clothing industry for years.
"We think this goes far beyond the public relations fluff that other
companies put out a lot of the time," said Bob Jeffcott, policy
analyst for the Maquila Solidarity Network, a workers' rights group in
Toronto. "By making some very candid admissions, they are taking an
important first step toward cleaning up the problems."
Gap's commitment is particularly significant because the factories
supplying the merchant may employ 300,000 workers combined, estimated
Bruce Raynor, president of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and
Textile Employees.
"We have had our differences with Gap in the past and probably will
again, but this is something that deserves to be applauded," he
said.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest company and a frequent target
of sweatshop critics, plans to review Gap's report to get ideas on how it
might improve conditions at the factories supplying its merchandise, said
company spokesman Bill Wertz.
"Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for Wal-Mart," Jeffcott
said.
Gap's report provides a geographic breakdown on workplace violations
uncovered by more than 90 inspectors.
The most frequent problems cropped up in China. Of 241 factories there
rated by Gap last year, 73 plants received the company's two lowest
grades.
Sweatshop activists find that especially alarming because when quotas on
apparel and textiles among World Trade Organization member nations expire
next year, China is expected to become the global powerhouse of
production.
Unacceptably low pay is an especially widespread problem throughout the
world. Between 25 percent and 50 percent of the inspected factories
supplying Gap from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean paid their
workers below the minimum wage at some point last year, the report said.
A group of shareholders that collaborated with Gap - including the
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Domini Social Investments,
As You Sow Foundation, Calvert Group, and the Center for Reflection,
Education and Action - said it pressured the company to undertake the
project.
"Gap did not just decide to do this out of altruism," said
Conrad MacKerron, director of As You Sow's corporate responsibility
program.
Gap developed a Code of Vendor Conduct in 1996 prohibiting child labor,
forced labor and discrimination, and protecting freedom of association
and other rights. Its vendor compliance officers try to visit every
factory, every year.
Gap's report said some types of violations, such as freedom of
association and discrimination, are especially difficult to uncover and
prove. It believes these violations are more widespread than its data
suggest.
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