UNITE
Commentary on AIP "Preliminary Agreement"
A particularly good and clear, 11-point critique of the FLA.
Responses
to the FLA agreement
Sweatshop Watch's page on the FLA has the most comprehensive collection
of news articles, analysis by NGOs, and commentary on the FLA.
Global
Exchange FLA Page
Articles following the formation of FLA, and the decision by the labor
component of the taskforce to leave the FLA.
Statement
on Codes of Conduct On the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights
Codes like the FLA "violate the letter and spirit of the Declaration."
So say groups including Asian Law Caucus, Asian Pacific American Legal
Center of Southern California, Campaign for Labor Rights, Global Exchange,
National Labor Committee, New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, People
of Faith Network, Press for Change, Resource Center of the Americas, Sweatshop
Watch, Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC), UNITE (Union of
Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, and others.
Due to a distorted voting structure, the corporate memebrs of the FLA control all the important decisions the Association makes. Who are these corproations? They include the most notorious sweatshop users, the targets of some of the most important anti-sweatshop campaigns in the movement. Here's information on some of the people who have been entrusted, through the FLA, to evaluate sweatshops -- both their own and those of other companies.
Nike
Read the testimony of Julia Esmeralda Pleites, who made Nike clothing
in El Salvador. After staying home to care for her sick daughter, Pleites
was physically and verbally abused, and fired.
Liz
Claiborne
At the Doall factories, workers making clothes for Liz Claibrne face
85-92 hour weeks, at 60 cents an hour.At least five organizing drives at
Doall have been crushed wit illegal firings.
Kathie
Lee Gifford
After massive negative [publicity surounding conditions in her factories,
Kathie Lee Gifford promised to stop using sweatshop labor. But Kathie Lee
handbags are made in China by workers making 13 cents an hour, working
84 hour weeks. Incredibly, the works go weeks without being paid, and have
never heard of Kathie Lee's own code of conduct.
Phillips-Van
Heusen
After six years, 500 Phillips-Van Heusen workers in Guatemala won a
union contract. The next year, the company violated the union contract
they had signed, and shut the factory with no notice. During the effort
to organize, workers suffered violent attacks, firings and intimidation.
It sure would be nice to know more about the these and other companies in on the FLA, but without independent monitoring or full disclosure, good luck! If you want to try, here are all FLA members. Note, however, that the Department of Labor has failed to remove UNITE, the AFL-CIO, and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility from the membership, all of whom left the FLA four months ago. Why did they leave? here are there answers:
Here's
the FLA Charter.
It's all here in black and white: from the skewed, corporate composition
of the board, to the stranglehold that sweatshop-using companies have on
improvements to the FLA.
Note: I've been told the FLA has added a women's rights section,
but it hadn't been added to their web page the last time I looked.