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Corporate Crime Reporter, n. 45 november 23, 1998
Young women in free trade zones and maquila factories in Honduras are being injected against their will with Depo Provera, a contraceptive that blocks pregnancy for three months, the National Labor Committee alleged last week.
The women are often misled about what they are being injected with, with many believing they are receiving tetanus shots, said the Committee's Charles Kernaghan. "There is absolutely no supervision or education provided to the workers by qualified gynecologists."
Kernaghan said he learned of the practice from private nurses and doctors who often examine and care for the women in the maquila factories.
Kernaghan said that managers in the factories also indiscriminately pass out packages of contraceptive pills, again with no medical supervision, even to women who are still nursing.
Kernaghan said that ma4uila workers themselves say these practices have been going on for years. In the past, women were forced to receive injections, or they were suspended without pay.
Eighty to 90 percent of the apparel workers in Honduras are young women. Kernaghan said that factories in Honduras that are producing U.S. garments have long sought to "avoid delays to production resulting from pregnancy and legally mandated maternity leave."
Kernaghan called for an investigation of the situation. At a press conference in Washington, D.C., he also released new information about sweatshops around the world and urged consumers to demand sweatshop-free garments during the upcoming holiday season.
Kernaghan said that retailers like Bradlees, J.C. Penny, Sears and Marshalls, and apparel companies such as Fashion Knitwear, One Step Up, Arrow, Karl Kani and Salmor continue to sell clothing made in Burma, where workers are paid four cents an hour.
"The sad role the U.S. apparel companies play in Burma clearly demonstrates the need for full public disclosure of the names and addresses of the factories that produce the goods we purchase," Kernaghan said. "Especially during the holiday season, no one in America would knowingly purchase clothing sewn with blood, misery, torture. and death in Burma."
Despite the military dictators rule in Burma, apparel imports from Burma are up 43.4 percent in the first six months of 1998. This year, U.S. companies will import more than $110 million of clothing made in Burma.
At the press conference, Julia Esmeralda Pleites, a worker in the Formosa Textiles factory in the San Bartolo free trade zone in El Salvador told her story of making soccer shirts for Nike and Adidas.
Pleites said she was fired from the factory on October 9 after missing one day because she decided to stay home with her sick daughter.
"When I went to work the next day, they suspended me without pay and sent me home," Pleites said. "The chief of production, Charcal from Bangladesh, grabbed me by the shoulders shook me violently, pushed me and hit me hard in the thigh with his knee. I was afraid and began to cry. He shoved me again and tried to trip me. As I ran away, he cursed at me. They fired me the next day."
"At Formosa, they won t permit a union and everyone knows it," she said. "The minute they tind out you belong to a union, they would fire you. Everyone is afraid. There is nothing you can do."
Pleites said that pay at the factory is 42 colones ($4.80) a day. Pleites pays 275 colones a month for rent for a small 10-by-12 foot room. She lives with her mother and daughter. "At night, we can only afford 10 colones for a supper of beans, maybe a plantain, tortillas and coffee," she told reporters.
"It is a lie that we are treated with respect in the factory," Pleites said. "I am told that companies like Nike say we are treated well and that our rights are respected. That is not true, it is a lie. We suffer constant maltreatment and humiliations, and the wages are very little."
Kernaghan said that Pleites had never heard of Nike before he told her about the company. Her trip to Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Labor Committee, was her first trip out of El Salvador, Kernaghan said.
Kernaghan said that because of her statement before reporters, Pleites most likely will be unable to work again in El Salvador. The National Labor Committee will have to pay for her living expenses, Kernaghan said.
"When I saw the price of this Nike shirt, $75, which would be more than 650 colones in El Salvador, I couldn't believe it," she said. "It is very unjust because they pay us very cheaply to make a very expensive product."
"None of us ever heard of a Nike Code of Conduct," she said.
Leaving the press conference, reporters were met by two men from the public relations firm MS&L. I hey handed out a Nike press release saying that Nike is taking Pleites' allegations "very seriously" and is conducting its own investigation into the matter.
Nike said that Kernaghan's criticisms are 'important but misdirected" and that the best way to achieve fair pay, safe working conditions, and dignity is through the Apparel Industry Partnership AIP) that Nike and other companies have joined.
But Kernaghan said that recently released agreement by the White House backed AIP is "meaningless" because it doesn't force the companies to tell Americans where the garments they buy are being made. "What is Nike trying to hide?" Kernaghan asked. "Tell us where the garments are being made and allow independent inspections of those facilities."
He said since both labor and religious groups oppose the White House Task Force agreement, the agreement is "dead in the water."
Kernaghan said the anti-sweatshop movement in the U.S. is booming, with students at more than 50 universities organizing around the issue. "We can't keep up," he said.
Kernaghan also claimed that he believes that someone has hired
detectives to track the work of the National Labor Committee.
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