Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Season of Giving: A Time to Think of Workers
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah or Ramadan or enjoy other traditions this season, chances are you’ll be making up a wish list of gifts and giving a lot of them, too.
Sadly, a lot of the things we’d like to have are made by people who can’t imagine what it’s like to have a bed covered with stuffed animals or drawers full of designer jeans.
The people making our toys and clothes in such countries as China and Mexico are paid less than $1 an hour, a tiny percentage of the prices you pay at the store. For example, women at a factory in Bangladesh that makes Disney clothing are paid just five cents for every $17.99 shirt they sew — starvation wages even in a very poor country.
Sweatshop workers — some of them children and teen-agers — spend 10 to 12 hours a day or longer in a hot factory working at rapid speed with dangerous machines. Supervisors yell at them to work faster. Some even hit workers.
In China, where there are 3 million toy workers, the situation gets worse as the holidays approach.
“They will be forced to work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, 30 days a month, handling toxic chemicals with their bare hands, while they are paid wages as low as 12 cents an hour making toys for our holiday season,” the National Labor Committee’s 2002 “Toys of Misery” campaign reports.
A recent Washington Post story told of toy workers being paid weeks late, cheated out of overtime pay, fined three days’ pay for missing a night shift due to exhaustion, fined for needing more than five minutes in the bathroom and fined for not working fast enough.
“No one would choose to work under such terrible conditions,” says CWA President Morton Bahr. “Very rich companies are taking advantage of workers who are so poor they have to accept whatever job and pay is offered. Workers are afraid to speak out, let alone join unions, because they need the jobs so badly. We need to speak up for them.”
A boycott — not buying products that are made in sweatshops — is one way to take a stand for worker and human rights. But don’t do it quietly. It’s very important to let companies know that you are or will boycott them, and why.
Through letters, the Internet and the media, you can reach out to company executives and to other consumers. When thousands of people tell a company that they’ll stop buying its products unless its employees are treated and paid fairly, that’s when you can really make a difference.
One such letter was sent recently from schoolchildren in Vermont to Michael Eisner, the billionaire who heads the Walt Disney Co. The kids described conditions at a Disney factory in Bangladesh.
“For all these years, the rights of the young women sewing your garments have been seriously violated,” they wrote. “The women are forced to work 14 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week... Women often live crammed together in tiny rooms, sleeping on the floor, with no running water or toilets. Women report being hit and punched, and denied maternity leave and benefits. Their most fundamental rights are violated on a daily basis.”
You can find addresses for Disney and four other major toymakers and retailers at http://www.nlcnet.org. The site includes the Toys of Misery report and the Washington Post story, along with tips for writing letters of protest to corporations.
You’ll find more websites below, and a list of sweatshop-free gift ideas, too.
Sadly, a lot of the things we’d like to have are made by people who can’t imagine what it’s like to have a bed covered with stuffed animals or drawers full of designer jeans.
The people making our toys and clothes in such countries as China and Mexico are paid less than $1 an hour, a tiny percentage of the prices you pay at the store. For example, women at a factory in Bangladesh that makes Disney clothing are paid just five cents for every $17.99 shirt they sew — starvation wages even in a very poor country.
Sweatshop workers — some of them children and teen-agers — spend 10 to 12 hours a day or longer in a hot factory working at rapid speed with dangerous machines. Supervisors yell at them to work faster. Some even hit workers.
In China, where there are 3 million toy workers, the situation gets worse as the holidays approach.
“They will be forced to work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, 30 days a month, handling toxic chemicals with their bare hands, while they are paid wages as low as 12 cents an hour making toys for our holiday season,” the National Labor Committee’s 2002 “Toys of Misery” campaign reports.
A recent Washington Post story told of toy workers being paid weeks late, cheated out of overtime pay, fined three days’ pay for missing a night shift due to exhaustion, fined for needing more than five minutes in the bathroom and fined for not working fast enough.
“No one would choose to work under such terrible conditions,” says CWA President Morton Bahr. “Very rich companies are taking advantage of workers who are so poor they have to accept whatever job and pay is offered. Workers are afraid to speak out, let alone join unions, because they need the jobs so badly. We need to speak up for them.”
A boycott — not buying products that are made in sweatshops — is one way to take a stand for worker and human rights. But don’t do it quietly. It’s very important to let companies know that you are or will boycott them, and why.
Through letters, the Internet and the media, you can reach out to company executives and to other consumers. When thousands of people tell a company that they’ll stop buying its products unless its employees are treated and paid fairly, that’s when you can really make a difference.
One such letter was sent recently from schoolchildren in Vermont to Michael Eisner, the billionaire who heads the Walt Disney Co. The kids described conditions at a Disney factory in Bangladesh.
“For all these years, the rights of the young women sewing your garments have been seriously violated,” they wrote. “The women are forced to work 14 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week... Women often live crammed together in tiny rooms, sleeping on the floor, with no running water or toilets. Women report being hit and punched, and denied maternity leave and benefits. Their most fundamental rights are violated on a daily basis.”
You can find addresses for Disney and four other major toymakers and retailers at http://www.nlcnet.org. The site includes the Toys of Misery report and the Washington Post story, along with tips for writing letters of protest to corporations.
You’ll find more websites below, and a list of sweatshop-free gift ideas, too.