T-Shirt Sweatshops

Central America Exploited

Sep 11, 2006 Daniel Workman

An assembly-line of 15 workers has to make 15 t-shirts every 3 minutes, producing 3,400 shirts each day for US$7 per worker - a paltry 3 cents per shirt.

Sweatshops can be found around the globe. Crowded t-shirt sweatshops are filled with dust, lint and noisy machinery. Some of the worst t-shirt factories are concentrated in poor Central American countries like Honduras and El Salvador where the average annual wage is less than US$2,500.

Central American sweatshops are subcontracted by large apparel manufacturers like Gildan Activewear (Honduras) and Fruit of the Loom (El Salvador).

Fruit of the Loom refuses to identify its factories, claiming that information is a corporate trade secret. The official website (www.fruit.com) simply states that the company makes its own yarn, knits the cloth, cuts the fabric, sews the garments, and packages the product.

However, a report published by London-based activist group No Sweat includes photos of shirt labels smuggled out by Honduras sweatshop workers. The photos show labels from Fruit of the Loom as well as Hanes, Nike, Adidas and Gildan.

In contrast, Gildan Activewear has been a member of industry watchdog A Fair Labor Association (FLA) since late 2003. This may be a case of a wolf in sheep's clothing though. To keep its membership in the FLA, Gildan was forced to issue a public statement admitting that it had contracted t-shirt manufacturing to a vicious Honduran sweatshop with mandatory work shifts longer than the legal maximum. Workers had been fired illegally, then were harassed in their homes and forced to sign "voluntary" resignation letters. After publicly acknowledging its wrongdoings, Gildan agreed to rehire about 40 of the hundred of terminated employees - and then promptly shut down the troubled Honduran factory.

And The Winner Is...

Worker exploitation aside, the international clothing trade is lucrative for the big apparel makers of rich countries like the U.S. and Canada.

Montreal-based Gildan sold some 400 million shirts last year with annual sales fast approaching $1 billion. Gildan makes nearly 40% of all t-shirts sold in the U.S.

Generally, demand for Gildan's clothing is independent of fashion trends due to its focus on manufacturing blank t-shirts, sport shirts and sweatshirts in a variety of weights, sizes, colours and styles for wholesalers. In 2005 Gildan began selling branded t-shirts directly to U.S. retailers and is currently launching its products in Canadian stores for the back-to-school season.

Gildan is modernizing equipment in its Central American facilities to improve productivity and to lower production costs. This allows the company to modestly reduce selling prices which in turn increases demand for its merchandise. The world's biggest shirtmaker plans to aggressively expand in international markets, particularly in Europe and Australia.

And with the U.S. eliminating trade quotas on foreign-made socks as of January 1, 2006, Gildan is spending some $500 billion through 2010 partly to expand sock production facilities in Central America. Of two new Honduran factories, one will be able to make 20-million dozen pair a year making it the world's largest sock-making plant.

Meanwhile, sweatshop workers have to endure repetitive motion injuries and severe back pain, psychological stress from an unhealthy work environment, and respiratory illnesses from workplace dust and lint. All this and more results from working 12 hours shifts for extended periods without adequate pay or benefits, much less holidays or rest days.

The copyright of the article T-Shirt Sweatshops in International Trade is owned by Daniel Workman. Permission to republish T-Shirt Sweatshops in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.