HOW GLAMOROUS IS CHILD LABOR?
Darlings! You’ll be ever so pleased to learn that a new, high-fashion superstore has opened in America. It’s called Wal-Mart. Yes, the stodgy old downscale store has gone upscale, offering hip new clothing lines like Metro 7!
If you think anything has really changed, however, you might check the labels on these new glam goods to see if any are made in Bangladesh. If so, they might have come from a factory there by the name of Harvest Rich, which produces clothing for Wal-Mart and others.
There’s nothing at all hip about Harvest Rich – it’s a sweatshop that uses child labor. In a new investigative report, the National Labor Committee, a diligent watchdog group, has documented conditions in Harvest Rich that are grotesque, even by sweatshop standards. Approximately 200 children between 11 and 14 years old work in this factory, sewing garments under contract to Wal-Mart.
The children are forced to work 12 to 14 hours a day, with some shifts going 20 hours. In all of September, these child laborers got just one day off. For the grueling long shifts, they are allowed only about four hours of sleep on the factory floor before being awakened and put back on the machines, sometimes collapsing from exhaustion. Their wages are as low as 6 cents an hour. They are routinely slapped or beaten if they don’t meet their production goals, make mistakes, or even take too long in the bathroom.
Wal-Mart washes its hands of this by asserting that it has a “code of conduct” for its contractors, supposedly enforced by apparel industry monitors. Yet Harvest Rich, which is certified by this group, shows that corporate self-monitoring is an abysmal failure – even at stopping the most disgusting practices.
To see the report and join the effort to move children from sweatshops into schools, call the National Labor Committee: 212/242-3002.
A SWEET FIX
Krispy Kreme’s plump, sugar-sweet doughnuts were hotter than frying oil just a few years ago. Gaga celebrities lined up to invest in Krispy Kreme franchises, and the media gushed that these sweet-treat purveyors were foodie angels. Ah, but that was then, and this is now – and Krispy Kreme’s little dough blobs have suddenly turned satanically stale as a food phenomenon.
The corporation has seen its stock price sink from $50 a share to less than $9 as its sales have sagged and health officials in both Chicago and New York have sought to ban the artificial trans-fatty acids used to make the product.
So, has the corporation responded by eliminating its unhealthy ingredients? Of course not. Instead, Krispy Kreme Inc. has taken the old path of denial and dissembling that was blazed years ago by the tobacco giants. Not only is the doughnut chain going down tobacco road, it has even brought two former tobacco executives into its top management ranks! They are there to help direct its damage-control campaign, and both are expected to bring to doughnuts the same aggressive strategies that were used to glaze over the problems of cigarettes.
Wall Street analysts, who had cheered on the disgusting marketing tactics of the tobacco executives, are now applying their same skewed ethical compass to Krispy Kreme’s troubles. Applauding the company’s hiring of skilled image fixers, one analyst declared that such a move is essential when health groups are trying “to ban the main product you sell.”
There they go again. Health advocates are not trying to ban the doughnuts – just the unhealthy trans-fatty acids that Krispy Kreme uses. They could switch to a heart-healthy oil, as other food companies are doing.
Hey, Krispy Kreme – instead of dumping money into image fixers from Tobacco World and trying to dupe customers, just fix your product and be honest with customers.
This article appears in December 8 • 2006.