Tens of thousands of Foreign Guest Workers Stripped of their Passports and Trapped in Involuntary Servitude.
May 5th, 2006

Sewing clothing for Wal-Mart, Kohl's, Gloria Vanderbilt, Target, L.L. Bean, Thalia Sodi, Kmart, Victoria's Secret and more...

$1.1 Billion of garments made in Jordan entered the U.S. duty-free last year.

Young woman hangs herself at the Al Safa Factory after being raped by a plant manager. The factory produced for Gloria Vanderbilt and Target. Four young women, including a 16 year-old girl, were raped by managers at the Western Factory, where garments were being sewn for Wal-Mart. Forced to work 109 hours a week, including 20 hour shifts, without pay for six months.

Al Shahaed workers, also sewing Wal-Mart, routinely forced to work 16, 24, 38 and even 72-hour shifts for an average wage of two cents an hour. Workers beaten with sticks and belts.

All across Jordan, it is common for guest workers to be at the factory over 100 hours each week, while they are being cheated of upwards of half the wages legally due them. Not one guest workers is paid the legal minimum wage. Nor do guest workers receive the legal overtime premium.

Seven day workweeks are routine, with one, at most two, days off each month. Beatings are common. Workers are shoved, slapped and punched for making mistakes, falling behind in their production goals or using the bathroom too often. Bathrooms lack tiolet paper, soap and towels. Workers asking for back wages owed them could be imprisoned. Housed under primitive dorm conditions, 8 to 10 people sharing each 10-foot by 10-foot room, sleeping in narrow metal double-level bunk beds. The dorms often lack running water up to three and four days a week, making it impossible to bathe. The stench of the bathrooms is unbearable. Corporate codes of conduct and audits are completely meaningless. Many workers say they feel like slaves, some workers are trying to escape, leaving their passports behind, hiding by day and running by night in an attempt to cross the border out of Jordan.

Yesterday's New York Times article just scratches the surface of an explosive new 160-page report being released today by the National Labor Committee.

Senator Byron Dorgan will introduce the "Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act" which will prohibit the import or sale in the U.S. of sweatshop goods made under conditions violating core ILO worker rights standards.

Some Background:

Between 2000 and 2005, Jordan's apparel exports to the U.S. soared 2,000 percent--reaching $1.1 billion in 2005.These garments entered the U.S. duty-free. There are at least 48,000 garment workers in Jordan and more than 25,000 are foreign "guest workers." The totals could be much higher since record keeping in Jordan is poor and dated. Guest workers are from Bangladesh, China, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Most of the garment factories in Jordan exporting duty-free to the U.S. are foreign-owned, with investment from China, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Oman. The Big Winner is China: More than 60 percent of the value of the garments entering the U.S. duty-free from Jordan are made up of fabric from China. Jordan is the fourth country with which the U.S. has signed a free trade agreement, doing so in December 2000. For years these gross, systematic violations of worker rights have gone on in broad daylight. In the immediate future, the U.S. is planning to sign FTAs with Oman, Peru, perhaps Colombia and United Arab Emirates. USAID trained the manager of the largest FTZ in Jordan--Al Tajamouat--where worker rights violations are rampant.

See the full report