Blogs
Your Waiter Works in a Sweatshop
Our mental images of 'sweatshops' generally involve poor women huddled over sewing machines in far off poor countries. But they are here in the US too.
During our research for Help Wanted (http://www.verite.org/WellMade/_pdfs/Help_Wanted_2010.pdf) we encountered farm workers who were enslaved in Colorado by an organically certified supplier to Whole Foods. The grower hired these workers blindly through a labor broker, and then employed them alongside his direct employees (who ironically enough thought he was a good boss).
risk and reward for migrant workers
The great journalist David Bacon outlines the absurd contradictions faced by immigrant workers in the US these days.
Debt-bondage, adolescent girls and t-shirts.
Two years ago Verité conducted several workplace investigations in Tirupur City, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India. Tirupur bills itself as the ‘Manchester of South India’ in reference to its importance in Indian garment manufacturing.
Our investigation found one other thing that Tirupur shared with Manchester from industrial revolution days: a serious problem of child labor in t-shirt factories.
Keeping Watch
Just before the holidays a friend looking to make clothing in China under fair labor conditions received this note from a sympathetic Chinese sourcing agent:
