[lit-ideas] some hope for global sweatshop standards
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 16:51:20 -0400
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_accused_of_workers_rights_violations
Wal-Mart accused of workers rights violations
From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!
September 14, 2005
A class-action suit has been filed with the Superior court of the
state of California accusing Wal-Mart of failing to ensure their
suppliers' employees work in acceptable conditions.
The suit, representing workers from six countries across four
continents, conceals the identities of 17 workers from China,
Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland and Nicaragua in addition to four
Californians cited as also representing others from the state.
The complaint accuses Wal-Mart of failing to adequately police
garment suppliers and ensure that workers are not kept in sweatshop
conditions, and that this is in breach of their own Code of Conduct
for foreign suppliers. Wal-Mart counters that they have an extensive
programme to ensure suppliers adhere to their Code of Conduct; that
200 full-time inspectors are employed to check supplier factories,
and 108 factories have been permanently banned as suppliers.
However, this is mainly for child labor violations.
This is part of an ongoing campaign against Wal-Mart by the
International Labor Rights Fund [1]; a labor rights group opposed to
many of the business practices of Wal-Mart that they claim encourage
unacceptable working conditions and salaries in developing countries.
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