The following is reprinted with permission from The Associated Press. © Copyright 1996 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
U.S. Firms Responding to Pressure, But Tougher Monitoring Needed
By HARRY DUNPHY Associated Press Writer
Oct. 21, 1996WASHINGTON (AP) - American clothing companies are responding to pressure to reduce child labor in foreign plants, but need to enforce their requirements more strictly, Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich said Monday.
A Labor Department survey showed that child labor remains pervasive, particularly in Asia, but is "not now prevalent" in the Latin American countries checked.
With more than 200 million children being exploited, Reich said, there is no easy way to eliminate the problem of youngsters working in dismal conditions at substandard wages.
"We can keep the pressure on (companies) in a variety of ways and simply alerting the public to steps they are taking is important," Reich said. "The good news is that companies are responding. "
Concern over child labor has mounted after a spate of bad publicity over conditions of foreign workers who produce the mounting imports of apparel. The department said more than half the $178 billion worth of garments sold in the United States in 1995 were imported, compared with 30 percent in 1980.
The bad publicity has involved such celebrities as television personality Kathie Lee Gifford, whose name was used in a line of clothing manufactured in Honduras.
Reich said even though celebrities do not have any management control in the companies they work with, they have an obligation to find out what system is used to ensure that workers making such clothing are humanely treated.
The department examined the American companies' codes and visited 70 plants in six countries that make clothing for U.S. firms - the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India and the Philippines.
According to a recent study by Human Rights Watch-Asia, as many as 115 million children are at work in India alone.
The department said that the codes of conduct on child labor that U.S. companies have developed are only as effective as the monitoring policies the companies use to enforce them.
"Codes are not a panacea," Reich said. (They) are not worth the paper they are printed on without strict enforcement of the requirements."
The department sent a voluntary questionnaire to 48 companies, among them the Gap, JC Penney, Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne and Nike. Thirty-six of the 45 companies that responded said they have adopted standards against child labor.
While the companies distributed codes of conduct to their suppliers, only 22 of 70 plant managers said they told their workers about them. Only 21 posted the codes in work areas and there also was no training of managers in the new codes.
The survey said the codes must be enforced and proposed site visits and talks with plant workers to be sure the codes are honored.
The most frequent and thorough monitoring is among suppliers that are owned or contract directly with U.S. corporations. In contrast, Indian and Filipino children work for small subcontractors or in their homes, where there is no monitoring at all.
Larry K. Martin, president of the American Apparel Manufacturer's Association, commented that his members "take their responsibilities very seriously, both domestically and abroad, and try to meet or exceed the standards in the countries in which they do business."
He said child labor is declining in Latin America "because most of the facilities in the Caribbean basin are U.S.-owned or operated. I am not surprised to see problems in Asia because there is not much U.S. ownership so we don't have the same influence."
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ranking member of a Senate committee that appropriates funds for labor, health and human services, said passing his bill on voluntarily labelling every garment as a "child-labor free" product would help in implementing stronger standards.
"The best way to stop child labor is to deny markets to those who exploit children as a cheap labor source,"he said in a statement.
Nike in the News