Disturbing Trends in GLOBAL PRODUCTION.

• Author: WHITE, HEATHER

As U.S. corporations farm out their manufacturing overseas, they are becoming enmeshed in labor conditions that are violations of basic human rights and public relations nightmares.

ON THE U.S. ISLAND territory of Saipan, workers are held in virtual bondage, unable to leave their sub-minimum wage jobs because they cannot repay recruiting fees as high as $7,000. In Honduras, employees at a garment factory told student activists that they earn about $20 for a 60-hour workweek. In China and Vietnam, human rights groups report that workers making shoes are routinely abused physically. In the Maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexican border, women are tested for pregnancy as a condition for employment, required to take birth control pills, and suffer other violations of their fundamental rights.

Fueled by an abundant supply of labor in the global market, capital mobility, and free trade, many American companies farm out much or all of their production to independent factories in countries with rock-bottom labor costs. The lack of restrictive and expensive government regulations overseas is also very attractive to businesses, reflecting favorably on the bottom line. This lack of regulation allows dangerous work environments to flourish. These rapidly growing supply chains are creating disturbing trends across the globe.

Verite was established in 1995 as a nonprofit organization to address the issues of global human rights and labor standards in factories that manufacture goods for the U.S. market. It offers inspection of labor practices, consulting services, and in-house training to American companies and organizations addressing child labor, hazardous workplace conditions, and sweatshop issues. Verite has an international advisory board and capabilities in more than 30 languages. Its goals are to ensure that goods produced by child labor, prison labor, and sweatshops are not found in the global production chains of U.S. companies; to help consumers make knowledgeable choices about which goods are produced under verified, non-abusive labor practices; and to improve labor standards worldwide in subcontracting industries through a standardized process of education, training, inspections, and corrections programs. The 10 most disturbing trends in global production identified by Verite follow.

1 Contract labor. In many areas of the world--including the Middle East, Japan, and Taiwan--overseas workers are hired through brokers in order to fill jobs in labor shortage areas that local people do not want. The foreign workers ante up incredibly high fees in order to get positions, which supposedly pay several times what they can make in their home countries. However, given these high fees, they consequently end up in virtual debt bondage to the factories. In many cases, they are enticed by the prospect of high-paying jobs in other nations, only to find that various deductions and interest rates (up to 25% per...