Corporate Responsibility Mondays

Here’s a short 1 minute video of Jenrain’s story that I made last week. Forgive the cheesiness of my voice-over reading.

And here’s another story of a worker who makes things she can’t afford and can’t enjoy so that we can have excess. Sadly, this is what would be considered an “above average” work life in an overseas factory.

I don’t share these stories as a pompous detached white boy. But rather to show you how full of contradictions I am. For example check out the first four photos from our Sunday house cleaning session. We have a table full of stuff. Made 2 trips to Goodwill. Threw away 2 garbage bags. And have 7 rubbermaid tubs full to the brim. And that’s just what we cleaned out of our cabinets and closets. That’s just the stuff we don’t use on a regular basis, i.e. 6 months or so. And we only live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house. Less than 1500 square feet. Talk about embarrassing gross excess.

Anyway . . .

From Samima.

I cannot support myself with the wage I am getting. I have rice and lentils for breakfast, rice and mashed potato for lunch, and for supper rice and vegetables. I eat chicken once a month when I get paid, and maybe twice a month I buy a small piece of fish.

If we want to use the bathroom, we have to get permission from the supervisor, and he monitors the time. If someone takes too long for any reason, the supervisor shouts at her and humiliates her, calling her names. If someone makes a mistake, the supervisor docks four or five hours of overtime wage, or lists her as absent, taking the whole day’s wage.

In my factory there is no day care, no medical facilities. The women don’t receive maternity benefits. The overtime is mandatory, but we are always cheated on our overtime pay. The supervisor makes us sign two separate payroll sheets. One tells the truth – that we worked four or five hours of overtime each day. The other says that we only worked two hours of overtime each day, as our labor law requires. That is the one they show to the buyers.

Our lives have been stolen. We are treated like animals, and any workers who attempt to get together a union are fired immediately and may be blacklisted. We feel that we have been born only to serve the needs of the owners.

[tags]Corporate Responsibility, Globalization, Colonialism, Sweat Shop Labor[/tags]