The Worker Rights Consortium turned up the heat on Wal-Mart yesterday with a new report that confirms what we already knew about the company: Wal-Mart buys its clothes from third world sweatshops that abuse worker rights.
Among other labor violations, WRC accuses the Chong Won factory of paying less than minimum wage, failing to provide legally mandated social security and health care and subjecting workers to forced and excessive overtime.
In one tragic case, a woman with severe asthma died the morning after being forced to work an overtime shift:
“Her family reported that she had frequently requested not to work overtime but had told them that she was instructed by her supervisor that she had to stay at the factory because it was “company policy”… After a while this employee stopped trying to refuse, in order to avoid harassment by supervisors, and because… she believed that continuing to refuse would cause her to lose her job.
This employee died in November of 2005, the morning after working an overtime shift until 8:00 p.m. Several of this worker’s colleagues testified that the worker was seriously ill during her final shift at the factory and had requested that she be relieved from staying until the end of the overtime shift. Her death certificated stated, “"Cause of death: CP [cardio-pulmonary] arrest, probably due to severe respiratory acidosis." This means that her heart stopped beating because her lungs ceased functioning and were no longer able to oxygenate her blood or expel carbon dioxide."
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walmart is awsome. who cares about the kids in all the other countrys that our goods. it isn't your kids that work in the sweatshops so shut up.
Posted by curtis on December 3, 2007 at 4:24 PM
Posted on December 3, 2007 at 4:24 PM
fuck u hoe bag.
Posted by leah on February 12, 2009 at 2:22 PM
Posted on February 12, 2009 at 2:22 PM