Designer labels on a student's back often mean 12-hour days on a worker's shoulders, a former sweatshop worker said at Northwestern Tuesday night.
Chie Abad, a union organizer and former garment worker in Saipan — a U.S. territory in the Northern Marianas Islands — spoke about labor rights and her sweatshop experiences to about 80 people. The speech was sponsored by NU's Peace Project.
Abad, a native of the Philippines, was one of thousands of Asian workers who purchased a one-year permit to work in Saipan for Sako Corp., a company that manufactures clothing for the Gap, Levi Strauss and other American firms, including university apparel companies.
But the working conditions at Sako were terrible, Abad said. Employees worked 12-hour days seven days a week in poorly ventilated factories for $3.05 per hour, she said. They lived in crowded barracks surrounded by barbed wire, and had curfews enforced by armed guards.
And if a woman working in the factory became pregnant, she was fired, Abad said.
When Abad attempted to organize a union in the sweatshop, factory owners took steps to prevent her from doing so, she said.
"The factory owner tried to silence me, first by promotions, then with money," Abad said. "They tried to silence me but I fought back. No worker should be treated like a slave."
Abad continued her efforts to improve her workplace. Because Saipan is a U.S. territory, Abad was able to work with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to bring a suit against the company for its treatment of pregnant women. She succeeded in gaining health insurance for the factory workers, but was fired from her job in return, she said.
Abad again fought back by filing a retaliation suit and she was eventually re-instated.
But conditions still were poor, she said.
"Even though I got my job back, I was still not happy," Abad said. "When the lawyers (from Global Exchange) asked me to file a suit against the Saipan companies, I said yes."
Working with Global Exchange, an international labor group, Abad fought for — and won — better conditions for some Saipan workers through lawsuits.
Despite her successes, companies like J.C. Penney, the Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch have yet to improve working conditions among their subcontractors, Abad said.
Abad said public pressure is the best strategy against companies employing sweatshop labor. She asked students to form labor advocacy groups and to directly contact companies using sweatshop labor.
"We are not calling for a boycott because a lot of people might lose their jobs," Abad said. "We want to pressure them."
Abad said she hopes for greater awareness of the workers' plight among students and the general public.
"We are not machines," she said. "We are human beings."
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