WASHINGTON — A 15-year-old Honduran apparel worker told a Senate panel Wednesday of the harsh conditions under which she has worked since she was 13 making sweaters for a Liz Claiborne contractor.
Her story prompted promises from Liz Claiborne of an immediate investigation of the factory’s working conditions.
The testimony was part of the opening salvo in an attempt to gain legislation that would ban imports made by children.
“I wish the people in the U.S. knew what pain these sweaters cost us,” Lesly Margoth Rodriguez Solorzano told the Senate Subcommittee on Labor and Human Resources. “Here in the U.S. I am told that the Liz Claiborne sweaters I make cost $90. I earn 38 cents an hour.”
Speaking in Spanish, Solorzano said she works about 12 hours a day for the Korean company Galaxy Industries in Galaxy Industrial Park in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The girls in the factory are not allowed to talk, she said, and sometimes supervisors hit them to try to make them work faster.
She also testified: “The managers like to touch the girls. They grab our buttocks and breasts. Some of the girls believe that if you let them touch you, you will get a little extra pay at the end of the week.”
She was one of several child laborers who appeared before the panel, chaired by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D., Ohio). The testimony involved other products as well, including rugs and footwear.
“Nothing compares with the horrendous, brutal and inhuman treatment of millions of child laborers around the world,” Metzenbaum said. He held up a Liz Claiborne embroidered knit vest he said a staffer bought at Macy’s for $60 and asked Solorzano if she had worked on any like it. Yes, Solorzano said. She said her company made 70,000 in that style and that they worked extra unpaid hours until 10 p.m. some nights to finish the contract.
In response to the hearing, Jack Listanowski, executive vice president, manufacturing and operations for Liz Claiborne, issued a statement saying the firm intended to investigate the Honduras factory and would cease operations with the plant if those conditions are found to exist.
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“Representatives of Liz Claiborne Inc. examine at regular intervals the conditions of the facilities with which we do business to ensure that they meet our strict standards,” the statement said. “The company does not own any factories and chooses to work only with those that provide the best working conditions. In our previous visits, we did not observe the day-to-day working environment in the Honduras factory as reported by Ms. Solorzano. We do not endorse such activities, which are completely contrary to Liz Claiborne’s human rights policy.
“In response to Ms. Solorzano’s testimony, we are conducting an immediate and thorough investigation of this factory. If in fact the reported conditions exist, we will take decisive action and cease operations with this facility.”
Citing the exploitation of children to make rugs in India, pan for gold in Peru and make apparel in Bangladesh, Metzenbaum saved his harshest criticism for the U.S.
“Thousands of children, many of them immigrants, work long hours in sweatshops in major American cities like New York or Los Angeles, to put apparel in our department stores,” he said. “It is appalling that 160 nations have signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the United States has not.”
Metzenbaum said the North American Free Trade Agreement, and now the GATT Uruguay Round, “may only make matters worse” because more U.S. companies with factories abroad are reliant on child labor.
The hearing came on the heels of release of a Labor Department study saying child labor is prevalent in the apparel industries in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. Metzenbaum and Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) have cosponsored the bill that would prohibit imports made with child labor. Metzenbaum, who is retiring from Congress this year and plans to work on child labor issues after his retirement, said the U.S. should do more to outlaw the illicit trade.
In addition to import bans, he said, the U.S. should levy trade sanctions against countries using child labor, and offer technical and education aid to underdeveloped countries. Also, the U.S. should tie free trade privileges to child labor protections.
Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee for Worker and Human Rights in Central America, testified that even though Honduran law prohibits children working more than six hours daily, outlaws physical punishment and encourages education, those laws aren’t enforced.
Joaquin F. Otera, Deputy Undersecretary of Labor for international affairs, stopped short of offering a Clinton administration endorsement of the Harkin/Metzenbaum bill, but said the Labor Department planned to seek additional funding for further research and investigation into child labor.
— Fairchild News Service