Thursday, April 27, 2017

Like Father, Like Daughter

Workers at a factory in China that makes clothes for the Ivanka Trump clothing line and other labels made roughly $1 an hour.

 The workers toiled 60 hours a week to produce clothing they could never afford, such as the “brand’s $158 dresses [and] $79 blouses”—but low wages weren’t the only difficulty they endured. According to the Washington Post, “inspectors with the Fair Labor Association...found two dozen violations of international labor standards during a two-day tour of the factory in October, saying in a report that workers faced daunting hours, high turnover, and pay near or below China’s minimum wage.”

Laborers at the G-III factory, which is exclusively licensed to produce the Ivanka Trump line, also manufactured clothing for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. The Post reports auditors found workers were mandated to work 57 hours a week, and many far exceeded the maximum legal overtime limit of 35 hours per month, reaching an astounding 82 hours on the job every month. For their work factory workers were paid half as much as “the average manufacturing employee in urban China.”

Fewer than a third of the factory’s workers were offered legally mandated coverage under China’s “social insurance” benefits, including a pension and medical, maternity, unemployment and work-related injury insurance, inspectors found. The factory also did not contribute, as legally required, to a fund designed to help workers afford housing, inspectors said. Inspectors also cited the factory for a number of workplace safety concerns. It did not train loading workers on safety techniques or provide employees with equipment that could reduce injury, including lifting belts or seats with backrests.


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