ProgressOhio

Elected officials, religious leaders, human rights groups, students and labor groups call on Governor Strickland to end tax dollar support for sweatshops

The State of Ohio is inadvertently using taxpayer money to purchase goods from companies engaged in serious human rights and labor violations, according to a first-of-its-kind report released today by the SweatFree Ohio campaign and SweatFree Communities. The study, Subsidizing Sweatshops: How Our Tax Dollars Fund the Race to the Bottom, and What Cities and States Can Do, includes in-depth case studies of 12 factories in nine countries that produce public employee uniforms for nine major uniform brands. At least two companies named in the report have current contracts with the state of Ohio, and four of the companies are headquartered in the state.

To address this problem, a coalition of human rights and religious organizations, elected officials, businesses, labor unions, and student groups today launched the SweatFree Ohio campaign, calling on Governor Strickland to join the Sweatfree Consortium to end tax dollar support for sweatshops. The Sweatfree Consortium will help states, cities, counties, local government agencies, and school districts enforce their commitments to end public purchasing from sweatshops by investigating factories and creating a market for change. The SweatFree Ohio campaign has met with Governor's staff and Department of Administrative Services staff to discuss the initiative and looks forward to positive results.

"When the state of Ohio does business, Ohioans need to be assured our policies set the standards in worker protections," said Tim Burga, chief of staff for the Ohio AFL-CIO. "No taxpayer dollars should go to companies that don't play by the rules."

The state of Ohio currently has a contract with Lion Apparel, a Dayton-based company that sources products from the Alamode factory in Honduras that requires all women workers to undergo a pregnancy test every March. "If any worker's results are positive, they fire her, no matter how many years she's been working," said one worker at that factory.

Rev. Mark W. Diemer, Pastor of Grace of God Lutheran Church and Co-Presider for We Believe Ohio described his church's experience supporting garment workers in Haiti: "Many of these companies choose to employ subcontractors who do not pay as well and do not provide safe or healthy working conditions. We have the moral obligation to insure sustainable development that does not exploit workers."

Subsidizing Sweatshops reveals widespread human rights and labor violations throughout the uniform industry, including: child labor; illegally low poverty wages; forced and unpaid overtime; verbal, physical, and sexual abuse; pregnancy testing, excessively long work hours causing physical ailments; disregard for freedom of speech or association; and elaborate schemes to deceive corporate auditors.

"If we refuse shifts, are absent, or make a mistake then our supervisors and other mid-level management beat and slap us," said Bithi, a 22-year-old sewing operator who has worked four years at a Bangladesh factory producing undergarments for the Bob Barker Co. Bob Barker supplies the state of Ohio with undergarments, and the company was linked to a 2006 factory fire that killed an estimated 300 workers, mostly teenage girls.

"Our union is founded on the belief that all workers should earn a living wage in a safe, decent work environment," said John A. Lyall, president of AFSCME Ohio Council 8, the union for more than 50,000 local government and non-profit workers, many of whom wear uniforms. "We must work to ensure state and local tax dollars do not contribute to the exploitation of sweatshop workers in America and world wide."

Subsidizing Sweatshops recognizes Ohio's leadership role in the movement to end tax dollar support for sweatshops. The first sweatfree cities policy in the U.S. was passed by North Olmstead, Ohio, in 1997, and Lucas County became the most recent government entity to commit to joining the Sweatfree Consortium when county commissioners unanimously passed a sweatfree purchasing policy last month.

"Lucas County, Ohio is proud to be at the forefront of a national movement that will strengthen working families throughout the country and throughout the world," said Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop, who introduced the resolution. "The sweatfree policy we adopted has been met with widespread support from our community as people realize that it's the right thing to do morally as well as economically."

"Ohio has a unique place in the movement to end sweatshops, and we look forward to Governor Strickland continuing this leadership by joining the Sweatfree Consortium," said Victoria Kaplan, Midwest regional organizer for SweatFree Communities.

"If more people were informed about what conditions are like for the workers who make their clothes, I think that our situation would be different and there wouldn't be as many violations in the factories," said Elisa, a 31-year-old seamstress making uniforms at the Calypso Apparel factory in Nicaragua. "We hope that people in other countries will continue to support us and that we can all progress together."

Subsidizing Sweatshops is available at: www.sweatfree.org/subsidizing

More information on SweatFree Ohio is available at www.sweatfree.org/ohio