Press Room
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- BusinessWeek Online: How China's Labor Conditions Stack Up Against Those of Other Low-Cost Nations
- November 27, 2006
- International Herald Tribune: 'Sweatshop snoops' take on China factories
- September 15, 2006
- OnPhilanthropy Funding Equality: How Corporations are Giving Women and Girls a Chance to Succeed
- June 14 2006
Jun, 13, 2006May 3, 2006Independent Monitoring of Corporations: Verite'
Dan Viederman, Executive Director of Verité, a nonprofit that monitors factories globally for compliance with human and labor rights codes, spoke with Corporate Watchdog Media. The discussion touched on Verité's work with the Gap on its groundbreaking Social Responsibility Report; Verité's December 2005 report on exploitation of foreign contract laborersin Asia and the Middle East; and the challenges of maintaining independence from corporate clients. Listen
Verité-ASK Director Dr. Aqueel Khan to speak at Centre for Social Markets-India's 5th annual conference on "Offshoring: The New Development Paradigm?"
- Date: 16-17th December 2005
Venue/Location: The Park, New Delhi.
Description: The conference will focus on the topical issue of Outsourcing/ Offshoring as the new development paradigm for emerging markets. India has made a name for itself as the world's leading exponent of knowledge/skills-led outsourcing. The conference will explore the range of views and passions that this growth model has aroused -including the risks from a corporate responsibility perspective. It will seek to add depth to an international debate that is in danger of generating more heat than light, and identify areas where common cause/ partnerships can be created.
For further information: http://www.csmworld.org
Verité’s
Debt-Bondage Labor Conference, December 9-10, 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand
For more information and the proceedings of
Verité's December 9-10th research conference, PROTECTING
OVERSEAS WORKERS: Strategic Perspectives on Labor Rights Among Foreign
Contract Workers in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, please click here to email
your request to Verité. Note: the proceedings will be completed
in early 2005.
Verité
& 6 Corporate Partners Uncover Excessive Overtime in Chinese
Factories
On September 7, 2004, Verité released our
latest research study, “Excessive Overtime in Chinese Supplier Factories:
Causes, Impacts, and Recommendations for Action.” The report highlights
what has become a widespread problem for companies that source in
‘the world’s workshop,’ southern China. Download report here in
English
or Chinese.
The face of
the global workplace is a woman. Verité launches new programs
to support women workers.
Women make up 70 percent of the
world’s population living in poverty. Women account for over 85%
of the workers in the apparel and footwear sectors alone. Though
progress has been made, Verité’s factory monitors continue
to uncover, on a daily basis, the obstacles faced by women workers
in the global supply chain.
US Department of Labor Sponsors Labor Rights
Seminars October 18, 2004
US DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL LABOR AFFAIRS, OCTOBER 21, 2004
The Department of Labor held Labor Rights Seminars for State Department
employees in Panama City, Istanbul, Bangkok, and Johannesburg. Verité
designed and delivered the trainings as part of their 3-year project
for the Department of Labor.
Cheap
Goods in the US, Subsidized by Workers Overseas
BY
DAN VIEDERMAN, GREENMONEY JOURNAL, FALL, 2004
The things
we buy are cheap. Clothes, food, toys and gadgets are remarkably
affordable for most of us. $4.96 for a t-shirt, twenty bucks for
a sweater, $59.99 for a bicycle, $450 for a computer? Prices like
these were unimaginable just several years ago. The Wal-Marts and
Dells of the world have parlayed efficient markets, global production,
huge leverage, cheap transportation and low overseas wages into
savings for American consumers and huge profits for themselves.
Commentary: Sweatshops: Finally,
Airing the Dirty Linen
BY AARON BERNSTEIN,
BUSINESS WEEK, JUNE 23, 2003
For more than a decade,
consumer-product and retail companies have been fending off sweatshop
critics by hiring auditors to inspect their overseas factories for
labor violations.
No
Way Out
BY NICHOLAS STERN, FORTUNE MAGAZINE,
JANUARY 8, 2003
Forced Labor Trends in Competitive Global
Economy. Includes an interview with Verité's Heather White.
Bangladesh
Braces for Trade Law Changes
BY SAYEEDA KAHN,
MONITOR, SPRING/SUMMER 2003
Thanks to favorable international
trade laws, Bangladesh's garment industry is the country's top employer
and its primary source of foreign capital. All that is going to
change in January 2004, when those laws are phased out and the industry
will have to compete with powerhouses like China and India. Sayeeda
Kahn examines the potentially devastating impacts the changes will
have on Bangladeshi women.
China
Life Skills Program Expanded
BY JULIA LLOYD,
MONITOR, SPRING/SUMMER 2003
Due to an overwhelming demand,
Verité's Life Skills Training program is entering a new phase
in China. In conjunction with the Timberland Company, Verité
has developed a Peer Education program that will train workers to
become educators. Workers themselves will help spread information
on nutrition, labor laws and mathematics, among other subjects,
to their co-workers.
The
Impact of U.S. Trade Legislation on Sub-Saharan Africa
BY STEVE DONNELL, MONITOR, SPRING/SUMMER 2003
The African Growth and Opportunity Act was intended to stimulate
economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world's poorest
regions. The AGOA lowered trade barriers to the U.S. in 2000. Since
then, the region's exports to the U.S. have jumped by 60 percent.
But have the new jobs come at a high price? Verité reports.
Upward Mobility: 11,000 Workers
Trained in China
BY QING ZHANG, MONITOR,
SPRING/SUMMER 2003
In the year and a half since its inception,
Verité's Mobile Training Program has grown to include 11,000
workers in 23 factories in southern China. This year, the Mobile
Training van will regularly visit 38 factories, educating workers
about occupational health and safety, worker's rights, labor law,
nutrition and women's health issues.
Behind the Labels: Garment
Workers on U.S. SAIPAN
MONITOR, FALL 2002
The workers endure 14-hours shifts, payless paydays and factory
lock-downs – does it sound like China? It's not. Read a review of
Behind the Labels, a film exposing labor abuses on the U.S. territory
of Saipan, where conditions are Third World but the labels say "Made
in the USA."
Common
Verité Findings in Vietnamese Apparel and Footwear Factories
MONITOR, FALL 2002
Have you ever
wondered what it's like to work in a Vietnamese clothes factory?
Are you curious about why Asian-made shoes are so cheap? Verité
publishes an eye-opening list of common practices – and abuses –
at Vietnamese factories.
Saipan
Workers Gain Class Status and Provisional Approval of The Settlement
MONITOR, FALL 2002
In an historic judgment,
a federal judge granted class-action status to a three-year old
lawsuit involving 30,000 workers on the U.S. territory of Saipan.
The ruling will also allow Verité, hired as a part of the
preliminary settlement, to begin independent monitoring of labor
practices and factory conditions on the island.
Verité's
China Labor Center: Providing Women Workers with the Skills they
Need
MONITOR, FALL 2002
Migrant
workers are rarely aware of their rights under Chinese law and are
often ignorant of the health and safety issues they'll encounter
in the workplace. In May 2002, Verité established a workers'
resource center that will provide factory workers in Guangdong Province
with training on labor rights and vocational and life skills training.
Verité Snapshot: Vietnam
MONITOR, FALL 2002
With a 93.7
percent literacy rate and 37 percent of the population living below
the poverty line, Vietnam is a study in contradictions. Learn more
about this fascinating country; read Verité's Vietnam Snapshot.
Workers
Win Independent Union in Mexico!
MONITOR,
FALL 2002
In October 2001, workers at the Mex Mode factory
in Atlixco, Mexico formed the first independent union to sign a
collective bargaining agreement with a Mexican maquila factory.
Within months, Nike threatened to stop ordering from the factory,
and the union—and activists worldwide—kicked into high gear.
The Hidden Assembly
Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global Economy BY RADHIKA BALAKRISHNAN AND
ED. KUMARIAN PRESS, INC., MONITOR, FALL 2002
Read an
excerpt from The Hidden Assembly Line, a collection of essays on
the impact of trade globalization on women workers in Asia. In this
section, Professor Radhika Balakrishnan examines the difficulties
of organizing with subcontractors who often work in the home and
are viewed as scabs by traditional unions.
Verité China
Suppliers' Conferences
MONITOR, FALL 2001
Verité began organizing suppliers' conferences in China in
1998 in response to a clear need among factory managers to understand
the social labor law compliance process. At first, their reception
was tentative. But in 2001, over 150 factory owners and managers
attended Verité's spring 2001 conference in China's Zhuhai
Special Economic Zone. Is the tide turning?
Compliance Choices: Challenges
and Red Herrings
BY MIL NIEPOLD, MONITOR
Companies often ask Verité to certify factories as socially
“compliant” – that is, as respecting core human rights. But in an
increasingly volatile global economy, factory conditions can literally
change from one day to the next. Verité’s Mil Niepold examines
the challenges of compliance and points the way toward sustainable
change.
Verité Index
MONITOR, FALL 2001
Think you know the facts
about global labor issues? The Verité Index just might surprise
you....
The Mekong
Environment and Resource Institute (MERI)
MONITOR,
FALL 2001
Workplace conditions don't simply affect factory
workers – when factory waste is badly managed it can affect the
surrounding communities as well. Verité is partnering with
the Mekong Environment and Resource Institute to better understand
how development affects the Mekong river basin and the people who
rely on the river for their livelihood.
View from Sri Lanka:
Sri Lankan Garment Factory Workers in the Middle East
BY SONALI GUNASEKERA, MONITOR, FALL 2001
Exploitation
is at its worst for the world's contract workers. Far from home
and their traditional social networks, they face constant wage disputes,
forced overtime and sometimes abuse – and they live without legal
protections. Nowhere is this more evident than with Sri Lankans
who travel to work in the Middle East. Verité's Sonali Gunasekera
reports.
Summary
of Verité Findings in Turkish Factories
MONITOR,
FALL 2001
Few are better positioned to provide an overview
of working conditions in Turkey than Verité. Verité
has been conducting audits and worker interviews in Turkish factories
since 1999. Intrigued by what they found? Read on.
