Factory workers in Haiti, photo IPS
Enclosed are three news articles reporting on the rising pressures on factory owners and operators in Haiti to pay the legal minimum wage.
The news articles follow a report last month by the Workers Rights Consortium and a report in April, 2013 by Better Work revealing that virtually no factory owners are paying the miminum wage and that a portion of workers’ earned wages are being pilfered by the same companies.
1. Gildan, Fruit of the Loom commit to ensuring that Haitian workers receive minimum wage
Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star reports on Nov. 18:
One of Canada’s largest garment companies [Gildan Activewear] has promised to ensure that thousands of workers who make its clothing in Haitian factories are paid at least $7.22 per day, the country’s minimum wage.
The move followed revelations that some labourers making apparel for Gildan Activewear were paid so little they had no money for food.
In addition to Gildan, Fruit of the Loom also agreed to ensure their contractor’s compliance with the minimum wage, according to Scott Nova, an official with the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). The statements from the two companies comes after a report (PDF), authored by the WRC found that “the majority of Haitian garment workers are being denied nearly a third of the wages they are legally due as a result of the factories’ theft of their income.” The WRC found that “over three quarters of the workers who were interviewed reported that they were unable to pay for three meals per day for themselves and their immediate family.”
As we previously described, the WRC noted that “tacitly complicit” in this wage theft were large North American brands such as “Gap, Gildan, Hanes, Kohl’s, Levi’s, Russell, Target, VF, and Walmart,” which all source clothing from Haiti. The WRC report called for these brands to ensure their third-party contractors comply with the minimum wage as well as compensate employees for their previous underpayment.
In a public statement, Gildan also called for “an industry-wide meeting and other combined efforts, involving brands, retailers and worker representatives similarly committed to ensuring compliance, in order to bring a common resolution to this issue in a manner which will appropriately address the working conditions in the apparel industry.” Gildan added that “we understand that one issue that will be on the table for discussion will be remedies for past non-compliance.”
Better Work Haiti, an international monitoring organization run by the International Labor Organization and funded by the World Bank and U.S. Department of Labor, has consistently reported massive non-compliance with Haiti’s minimum wage law. In their latest report, released in October, Better Work reported 100 percent non-compliance in the 23 factories covered in the report, but Better Work added that:
In the Minimum Wage Law there are two applicable wage requirements in exporting apparel factories in Haiti: the minimum wage of reference, currently set at 200 Gourdes per day (article 1 of the law), and the production wage (Minimum Wages: Piece Rate), currently set at 300 Gourdes per day (article 2.2 of the law). The production wage refers to a legal requirement for the employer to set piece rates in a manner such that a worker can earn 300 Gourdes during eight regular hours of work per day.
The Haitian government and Haitian manufacturers have advocated for an interpretation of the law which mandates only the lower of the two wages be paid, but Fruit of the Loom, in a public statement, acknowledges that, “It is our view that the clear intent of Haiti’s minimum wage law is for production rates to be set in such a manner as to allow workers to earn at least 300 gourdes for 8 hours of work in a day. Based on our independent investigation, we concur with the WRC that the garment industry in Haiti generally falls short of that standard.”
“The commitments from Gildan and Fruit of the Loom will put substantial pressure on other buyers,” Nova told the Toronto Star.
2. Gildan vows minimum wage for Haiti workers
By Rick Westhead, Foreign Affairs Reporter, Toronto Star, Nov 18, 2013
3. Canadian company linked to underpaid Haitian workers
Montreal apparel firm accused of hiring factory that pays below minimum wage
By Rick Westhead, Foreign Affairs Reporter, Toronto Star, Oct 31, 2013
A leading Canadian garment company that sells T-shirts and other apparel to universities across the country is accused of buying clothing from factories in Haiti that are paying thousands of workers less than the country's minimum wage. In some cases, the workers say they are being paid so little that they have no money for food and are forced to remain in locked factories until their assigned work is completed.
Montreal-based Gildan Activewear, which supplies T-shirts and other apparel to the University of Toronto and dozens of other Canadian universities, has been buying apparel from two Haitian factories that are paying workers well below Haiti's minimum wage, according to a report from the Worker Rights Consortium, a group representing nearly 200 universities that monitors factories making college-logo apparel.
Gildan spokeswoman Stephanie Gaucher said the company is talking to the WRC about its report. "It is important to note that what is raised in their report pertains to an issue that involves the industry in a country where the legal, political and social context is challenging," Gaucher said. "Gildan reiterates its commitment to engaging with stakeholders, including other members of the apparel industry, in order to resolve pending concerns with regards to the minimum wage issue within the apparel industry in Haiti, and ensure that minimum wage laws are being respected."
A spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Students said the organization is investigating whether the factories Gildan has used in Haiti have supplied clothing for Canadian universities.
The University of Toronto said it is also investigating. "The university is awaiting a response from the companies involved," said Michael Kurts, a University of Toronto spokesman. "If we do not receive a response that's acceptable to the WRC, the university will determine what further action is required, up to and including ceasing to do business with those companies or any company to whom they provide product."
The University of Toronto does not buy directly from Gildan, but through suppliers such as Dubwear, a Mississauga-based company that specializes in embroidery and decals. Dubwear owner Paul Dub said he, too, is seeking answers from Gildan.
For Gildan - whose sales have nearly doubled in three years, from $1 billion in 2009 to $1.9 billion last year - Haiti is an attractive place to make clothing. The minimum wage in the garment sector is 87 cents per hour. Trainees are paid 58 cents. Only Bangladesh and Cambodia offer cheaper labour for the garment industry.
Both Canada and the United States give preferential access to imports from Haiti. Under Canada's Least Developed Country Tariff, Haitian-based factories can export most products to Canada duty-free and quota-free, a benefit that helps Gildan widen profits on the clothing it buys there.
Following an earthquake in 2010 that killed as many as 159,000 and affected millions, leaving Haiti battered and struggling, international celebrities, including former U.S. president Bill Clinton, pledged that the garment sector would help to kindle Haiti's economy. Within months of the quake, South Korea's Hansoll Textile Ltd., along with the Inter-American Development Bank and the U.S. State Department, agreed to build an industrial park that would draw garment makers and create at least 120,000 jobs.
In its report titled "Stealing From the Poor: Wage Theft in the Haitian Apparel Industry," the Worker Rights Consortium interviewed workers from five of Haiti's 24 factories as recently as September. On average, workers are being paid 32 per cent less than the law requires, according to pay stubs reviewed by the watchdog group. "They are being cheated out of an average of seven weeks' pay per year," the report says. "They are ill-fed, indebted and without access to medical care."
At least 75 per cent of workers interviewed said they can't afford three meals a day for themselves and their families and 71 per cent said they borrow money to buy food.
Worker Rights Consortium official Ben Hensler said the International Labor Organization has reported since 2011that some factories in Haiti have underpaid employees. Since March, the ILO has warned that all of the 24 factories there are engaged in the shady practice. "This is an open secret," Hensler said. "No retailer can say they don't know about it."
Gaucher said part of the problem in Haiti is that some factory owners have different views about the country's actual minimum wage. "Our next step is to work proactively with the NGOs to address this industry-wide issue," she said. "We will not accept a situation where one of our contractors is not respecting our code of conduct and the laws of the countries in which they operate. This position has been clearly exposed to our contractors."
At one, 1,160-worker factory called Genesis, where Gildan said it has bought clothing since 2002, employees are paid 13 cents for every six dozen T-shirts they make. To earn minimum wage, they would have to produce 3,600 shirts in a single eight-hour shift, the WRC said.
"Workers reported that the factory's gates remain closed until the end of the workday and that workers are not permitted to leave the premises before this time without special permission," the report said, adding that 90 per cent of Genesis employees interviewed said they worked about 20 minutes per day off the clock, usually before beginning their official work day.
At Premium factory, a Gildan supplier since 2003, where 1,114 workers are employed, wages average $5.90 per day, 15 per cent less than the minimum wage.