WORKPLACE CODE OF CONDUCT: THE DEMAGOGUERY OF LABOR LAW IN AMERICA

by Lori Zett

Independent external monitoring became a new profitable business enterprise with the birth of Codes of Conduct, and agreements between the US Department of Labor and Manufacturers like Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP) and Fair Labor Association (FLA), established to "eradicate sweatshops"(1) by touting their version of the "Code of Conduct" that establishes a floor for labor conditions and "Independent monitoring" to enforce it. I contend that "Codes of Conduct" are cosmetic and commercial monitoring of the codes, does nothing more than supply plausible deniability for its authors. They do not correct sweatshop conditions because their goal: profits, conflicts with the supposed goals of independent monitoring under AIP; the "floor" established by such agreements is too low to aid exploited workers; and Labor Law, which provides the underpinning for these Codes and agreements is too weak and ineffective to enforce "decent and humane working conditions." What is achieved with these agreements is not the ballyhooed "eradication of sweatshops," but a feeble attempt to soothe the public conscious, and, what is more important to business, the suspension of the "hot goods" provision of the FLSA.
Workers in the Apparel Industry are the most hard-hit group of the new global economy. They are the canaries that foretell the conditions of the work-environment for the rest of us. This is why the Apparel Industry needs to be studied and understood.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS:

Manufacturers: In this context, Manufacturers refers to the companies that sell apparel and toys that require sewing like Nike, Disney, The Gap, Wall-Mart, Kmart, DKNY, Jones Apparel, Warnaco, Liz Claiborne, Reebok, etc. These Manufacturers produce goods under their own name as well as other labels--only some of which are advertised and recognized. Manufacturers determine the style, choose the fabric--supposedly US produced fabric--cut and send the pattern pieces to Contractors for assembly. They select the Contractors; they pressure Contractors to lower the cost of labor and they, the Manufacturers, pocket the profits that result from lowering costs. This important phase, what the Manufacturer pays the Contractor, is not reviewed, examined, criticized or controlled by any governmental organization.(2)
Contractors own and manage the factories that assemble the goods for Manufacturers. Originally, Contractors, who produced for the US market, were located in the US where they provided jobs, low-paying but with potential, thanks to unions who had tools to improve both the pay and conditions (Labor Unions sympathizers were influential within the US government only during the period between 1936 and 1982 (3). Today, most Contractors are located in "free zones" and their surrounding areas in all the poorest countries on earth. Manufacturers send their cut goods to Contractors whose workers assemble them for a single-digit fraction of what they cost to assemble in the US and the Manufacturer pays import fees on the "value added only," that is, the cheap labor cost. Contractors bid or are granted contracts to assemble goods based on how cheaply they (4) work. They compete with each other to offer the lowest price, at the expense of workers, and to the benefit of Manufacturer for whom the price can never get too low nor the profits, too high. Unions that once were the only hope for improving conditions for workers are being oppressed all over the world. Within the US, Contractors threaten them with going offshore if they demand raises or try to improved conditions for their workers. Unions are forbidden by US Labor Law to coordinate action with other unions, and with unions from different states or different countries. When they do, they can be accused of an "Unfair Labor Practice" with all the sanctions, the injunctions and fines implied. Since the proliferation of "Trade Agreements" and "free zones," the United States has been a leader in dismantling the power--such as it was--of unions in the US, as well as in other nations, including those who had made the greatest inroads in labor protection, i.e, France, Germany, the Scandinavian countries and Italy. While Uncle Sam's right hand busily works to dismantle Unions, the left is said to support "freedom of association," or the right of workers to form a union (more about this later).
The Labor Boards, it can be State or National, "enforces" Labor Law. Charges of "Unfair Labor Practices" by both unions and industry are bought before the Board. Working within the limits of US Labor Law, it cannot protect workers, it is understaffed, and underfunded, most importantly, it has no power, no "force of law" to back up its decision.
The DoL or Department of Labor was set up to enforce FLSA. Each state has its own DoL and the Federal Government has its Department in Washington. Even under the best circumstances, the DoL is a toothless organization. 
The FLSA (Fair Labor and Safety Act of 1938) requires that workers be paid at least a minimum wage, overtime (5) after 40 hours, forbids child labor and includes some basic health and safety regulations. Though the document is wordy and purports to be prolabor, it omits many workers. This, therefore, are the only "fair" labor guarantees it offers. According to the FLSA, if a Contractor is found to produce goods in violation of its rules, the DoL will object to the shipment of said goods across the state line for 30 days and in the case of child labor, 30 days after the situation has been remedied, i.e., the child has been removed. (6) If the Manufacturer does not honor the objection, the DoL, who has no power of its own to enforce its decisions, can request an order from a Federal District Court. In an industry driven by seasonal deadlines, a 30-day lapse in the delivery represents a potential loss of most of the value of such "hot goods."
Independent External Monitors were set up by AIP, and later FLA, to monitor the compliance of the Code of Conduct by contractors. Price Waterhouse is one of the best-known accounting firm that has a Monitoring Department and Cal Safety has become one of the predominant consulting firm in the monitoring business. Independent External Monitors--the firms, not the monitors who carry out the inspections--are Accredited by the Board of Directors of the AIP or FLA. The criteria for external monitors include independence, neutrality and various qualifications regarding national and international labor law, safety and customs.

THE CODE 
What are the provisions of the DoL's Code of Conduct that will allow consumers to "have confidence that products that are manufactured in compliance with these standards are not produced under exploitative or inhumane conditions" and that they will bring social justice to labor in the US and the offshore factories? 
The standards, defined as "decent and humane working conditions" forbid forced labor--that is prison, indentured or bonded labor. It forbids child labor and defines a child as someone younger than fifteen (or "14 where the law of the country allows"). It stipulates that "wages are essential to meeting employees' basic needs" and then accepts "as a floor, at least the minimum wage required by local law" and legally mandated benefits (only Social Security in the US), and "overtime hours at such premium rate (sic.) as is legally required in the country of manufacture or, in those countries where such laws do not exist, at a rate at least equal to their regular hourly compensation rate." It also mentions that employees "shall" be treated with respect and dignity, and that there will be "no discrimination" in employment. It lists some health and safety standards, freedom of association and collective bargaining, a 60-hour limit to workweeks (with, of course, exceptions in undefined extraordinary business circumstances) and compliance with applicable local laws.
All the above are violated with impunity in the US, especially California and New York, and in offshore plants.
Forced prison labor is standard practice in China where most of the factories are secret and unchecked. Goods from these shops are transshipped (illegally) to model shops in Taiwan who receive glowing reports from independent monitors. However, it is not necessary to go all the way to China to find forced prison labor, there are plenty of examples of it in the United States where the surplus labor force is groomed from childhood in inner-city schools, to fill the prisons and create a new source of privatized profit.
Even pretending that factories did not hire children younger than fifteen or fourteen, (there have been documented cases of children ten, nine and even younger working in factories, but let us not quibble), what modern society considers fourteen and fifteen, a milestone for adulthood? Envision, if you will, a factory with a thousand or more fourteen to eighteen-year-olds bent over a sewing machine for ten or more hours a day, six days a week. It is absurd to pretend that these children (7) do not represent child labor just because bureaucrats, whose own children are sheltered in high schools, and universities well into their twenties, have decided that poor children cease to be children at these tender ages. It is absurd to believe that these conditions are not exploitative and inhumane, not a danger to the child's health, and that they are not a form of physical child abuse. These children, and they are children, cannot play, joke or even talk during work hours. Bathroom "privileges" are rationed. Before workers are allowed to enter the bathroom, their bodies are frisked. To encourage more production, they are often beaten, verbally abused and humiliated. Often, they eat their lunch, if they can afford to bring one, in the open with no protection from the elements. Transportation between the factory and home is not always provided and several cases have been reported of girls, who were walking home from work, being raped and even murdered. 
In Asia, the children that work in garment factories often live in dormitories within the zone and often (illegally) in an upper floor of the factory. This fact has resulted in injury and death of hundreds of workers in a number of fires. The privacy that these girls have in company dormitories is limited to the space around their beds, bunk beds, around which they hang rags as improvised curtains. The girls sleep in crowded facilities with no effort to separate the sick--including those with tuberculosis--from the rest. Under the guise of protecting the girls, factories, that are normally located in dangerous areas, set up curfews and lock the doors at night. Any girl or young woman, who does not return before curfew, is locked out.
Apologists will say, children have always helped support the family, it is good for them to have a responsibility. They will say that "sweatshops" are how countries began to accumulate wealth. We can agree that it is not only tolerable, but beneficial for teenagers to have a part-time job, to help the family or to have their own spending money. But, what we have here are children--predominantly female children--working 48, 60 or more hours every week. There are factories in many third world countries where girls work 36 hours straight (illegally) and are forced to sleep on rags beside their machines. Under the best circumstances, these children have only one day off a week. They have no time to learn, to think, to grow, to acquire experience, to make friends or (God forbid!) to have fun.
Why is the global community willing to tolerate full-time employment for children? Why not discuss living wages for the parents of these children instead?
As for the argument that nations accumulate wealth this way . . . Did colonialism and mercantilism not have something to do with accumulation? Didn't all the gold, silver, diamonds, profits from silk and spices, slave labor and sale, cocoa, coffee and bananas, as well as other natural wealth, taken (some would say stolen) from the South, somehow accumulate in European and US coffers? If we look a bit closer at the new "free trade" will we not recognize traits of the old colonialism under a new guise? And who is doing the accumulating? Certainly, not the children who work in the factories. When they are discarded after five or six years, all they have accumulated is damaged health, deteriorating eyesight and broken spirits. 
Under nondiscrimination, the Code of Conduct says "No person shall be subject to any discrimination in employment . . . on the basis of gender, race, religion, age . . ." Maquilas or Maquiladoras started in Asia but soon moved to Mexico. The US had scrapped the bracero immigration laws that permitted seasonal farm workers to enter and work in the US. Fearing rising unemployment among the men who had made their living in US fields, President Lopez Portillo, inspired by the success of The Tigers, negotiated "free trade zones" (zones free of labor, environmental and tax laws) with the United States. Manufacturers who were willing to move to Mexico could receive tax giveaways from both sides. Their executives could continue to live, in the manner to which they were accustomed, on the US side and drive over the border to supervise the factories. Thus, the unemployed men would have jobs in the new labor intensive industries. With the new agreements, Capital would benefit from cheap labor, no environmental standards, the freedom to shift profits between borders and, finally, be rid of any inference of social or moral obligations toward their workers. 
Unfortunately, maquilas never hired the unemployed men; they hired the men's submissive and pliable daughters, a group that traditionally had not worked out of the home. How does the nondiscrimination clause apply in this environment? With one fell swoop, industry tapped into the cheapest labor available and set Mexican social order on its head. Today, this system has been reproduced in most of the world's poor countries.
Since only women become pregnant, is it discrimination to demand pregnancy tests as a prerequisite to hiring? Girls have to submit to testing before being hired, she is forced to submit to it again monthly and the cost (as much as $10) is often taken out of her meager earnings. A pregnant woman will not be hired. If she becomes pregnant after being employed, she is pressured to abort and if she refuses, she receives punishment that will, hopefully, force her to quit. One factory in Central America forced pregnant women to sweep the areas around the factory at noon, when the sun was at its hottest. Others will force them to work on their feet or to lift heavy loads. These girls, suddenly independent and unprepared for it, often become single mothers. If they do not have a family member of a friend to help them, they have little alternative to locking their small children in the house alone. By the time these girls grow into women (24 or 25 years-old) they are discarded because of motherhood, deteriorating health and reduced productivity.
A minimum wage, whether in the US or a "developing country"--the currently politically correct term for poor countries--have one thing in common: they are substandard and grossly inadequate for survival. I have very clear memory of our fat-cat legislators whining about raising the minimum wage to $5.15. "My God, this will cause our economy to fall apart!"
Five dollars and fifteen cents an hour are equal to $219.20 for a 40-hour week, and yes, the richest government in the world takes its cut, almost two thousand dollars a year, from these workers. Thus, take home pay will be about $185 unless they have dependents. Such pay, even with the recently proposed, generous increase of one dollar over three years, is not a living wage. Imagine supporting dependents on less than $200 a week! These people, despite what the legislators say, are not teenagers entering the labor market but adults, mostly new immigrants, who support themselves and their children, they have no benefits and do not qualify for medical assistance. There are hundreds of factories (not considered sweatshops by fair labor regulations) in the New York area where every worker makes minimum wages (in the New York area where one is hard pressed to rent a single-room apartment for $500/month). To survive, these workers have a second job--on top of their 40-hour apparel job--or no other alternative except to live in groups and pool wages. 
Offshore plants in Latin America are surrounded by shanty towns where workers live. These are one-room shacks made of discarded wood, brick and even discarded billboards. Typically, they have no sewer system or running water and usually take their electricity by splicing into local electric lines. "Far from representing the absence of planning," according to Sao Paulo's City Planning Department, "the periphery model responds to a strategy of maximum capitalist accumulation (my emphasis). It enables the settlement of large contingents of people in areas that are bare of anything." The settlers have to build everything themselves thus "reducing to a minimum the need for investment in housing and infrastructure either by the public or private sector" (Dimenstein, 1991 p. 7). 
There are grave social dangers in situations where the workers live in the periphery models and in dormitories within the factories as well. There are grave, unexplored social repercussions of having entire communities of young women living without the support of mature adults. What happens when unsophisticated girls are suddenly exposed to advertising, consumerism and the lure of sex without the preparation, maturity and encouragement they need to make an informed decision? 
The health and safety provision of the code says that "Employers shall provide a safe and healthy working environment to prevent accidents and injury to health . . ." Yet, there are the numerous unpublished fires that have occurred with hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. When sewing machines do not have belt guards, an operator's hair can get caught in the rubber belt. The scalp, skin or nerve damage that such an accident can produce is horrendous. Yet lack of belt guards is common. Worse yet, old machines are exempt from the rule. Factories commonly have improperly maintained machines, frayed electrical wires, blocked exits and isles, insufficient, improperly maintained or blocked fire extinguishers, dirty, unsanitary, and inadequate bathroom facilities, poor lighting, pest infestation, unsafe pressing equipment and exploding boilers. The air is often unsuitable for breathing. Yet workers have no protection other than rags tied under their noses. However, I have never seen a factory being sited for health violations. Monitors don't have the background to check air quality or other health hazards and management does not, cannot or will not train them in these areas. In fact, California Safety and Compliance Corp. (a for-profit monitoring firm) sent a memo to their inspectors asking that the word "violation" be eliminated from reports to Manufacturers about health conditions in factories. 

INDEPENDENT MONITORING
AIP lists ten "obligations" for independent external monitors namely: 1) to establish clear evaluation guidelines, 2) to review databases, 3) to verify that workplace is informed and 4) that communication channels have been established, 5) to audit employee records, 6) conduct periodic visits and audits, 7) form relations with labor, human rights and other local institutions, 8) conduct employee interviews, 9) implement remediation and 10) complete an evaluation report. During the time I worked with CSCC the database, formation of links with human rights institutions and remediation were never mentioned. In fact, rather than implementing remediation as required, efforts were made to keep the Contractor uninformed. Because of this penchant of imparting information in drips and drabs, many Contractors complained that rules changed with every audit. The reason for this failure was to secure more frequent audits (if excuses could be found to fail Contractors or place them "at risk," they would require monthly, instead of quarterly visits--more visits, more fees). Various inspectors at the Hoboken office took it on themselves to instruct Contractors but it was always something they did on their own initiative. Informing workers is limited to one question about the Code. Only five employees are interviewed in most factories regardless of the number of employees. In cases like Disney, who demands 10% percent--to a maximum of 25--the interviews are conducted in groups of five or more, in violation of the confidentiality requirement. The requirement for communication channels is almost absurd. Far from establishing "channels to enable . . . employees . . . to report . . . noncompliance . . . with security [free from reprisals]." It is the company who creates the noncompliance, who imposes the silence and the punishment; it is the company who meets with supervisors to decide how to control workers and squeeze more profits from them. The first sign that a factory is dirty is the tension and fear of workers. They may avoid looking at the monitor, thus hoping not to be chosen for interviews, they will refuse to be interviewed, they will hide, (8) or simply lie. Once in a while some especially courageous worker might slip a note to the monitor requesting a meeting away from the factory. Even then, there is the danger of factory spies. In one Guatemalan factory, a group of women met with CSCC monitors in secret and at night. On the inspector's return to the states, he received a call from one of the workers, an eighteen-year-old single parent. The guard (9) had pretended to find a garment in her purse, accused her of stealing and she was fired. When the manufacturer (Kmart) did nothing, the procedure was repeated with the rest of the group. In another case an employee slipped a note in my hand containing her name and telephone number. I included her accusations--that coincided with some suspicious things I had seen and heard--in my report. One of her complaints was the quota she was obliged to meet. While I never gave her name, the inspector who went to that factory the following month mentioned the quota (all reports are supposed to be confidential). Since there were only two women doing that particular job, both came under suspicion and both were fired.
CSCC uses reports similar to the ones used by the DoL or those prescribed by certain clients. Employees' records are spot-checked. Visits and audits are ordered by the client and scheduled by them in agreement with the California office. Reports are written using cut and paste methods. Narratives are maintained within the guidelines demanded by CSCC, the form and most of the content is copied from the previous report.
The main reason why companies like CSCC comply so inadequately with AIP obligations, is rooted in the profit motive. CSCC aims for a 60% profit from inspections--about $250-$300 for national inspections and $1000 for international. To achieve this they pay low wages and severely limit the time allowed per inspections.
Monitors who work for CSCC punch time cards and are paid $12.00 or $12.35 an hour . . . sometimes. During slow months, June to September and December to March--there may only be three or four days' work per week. The company squeezes profits from their workers in other ways: by shaving hours, forcing off-clock-work, and through manipulations to avoid paying holiday pay (10). Following the example of Manufacturers, CSCC has opened offices in Taiwan, Mexico, and is planning other offices in "developing countries" to take advantage of still lower wages while charging the same fees and pocketing the difference. Travel is either paid at a lower rate or not paid at all, depending on where it occurs on the schedule. Even a trip to Asia comes under the "portal to portal (11)" provision of FLSA regulations. Monitors are obliged to travel on their own time during weekends and are paid only for the hours they inspect factories. Thus, on a recent trip to Asia, an inspector spent 45 hours traveling by air. She worked for 40 or more hours inspecting factories writing reports, faxing documents and about 20 hours in travel time--from one city to another--within the foreign country. S/he was paid $26.00 per diem, (12) $12.00 for each of the 40 hours, overtime only for hours spent in factories over the normal eight hours or finishing up reports at night in the hotel. The hours spent traveling, between one point and another, are paid at the rate of $10.00--not overtime--even in the cases when the inspector worked all day and drove to reach the next appointment well into the night. The hours spent in the air and in airports are unpaid. If the inspector wants a day off after having been without a free day for fourteen days, s/he has to take the day without pay or wait until the following free weekend. The DoL has no protection to offer an inspector who is not willing to give up her/his weekend. The "Fair Labor and Safety Act" considers it perfectly fair for an employee to work 125 hours over a two-week period and get paid for only 80 and to be obliged to work on weekends for no pay at all. 
In addition to the low pay, the emotionally and physically draining work, there is a confrontational atmosphere between employees and the management of CSCC. For example "at will employment" is stressed in manuals and memos. Anyone with minimal experience knows that for workers who are unprotected by unions or some rare contractual agreement, the core, the highest goal and most guarded "right," that US Labor Law gives capital is "at will employment," recently re-christened "flexibility." This principle states that the employer has the right to fire an employee for a good reason, for a bad reason, or for no reason at all (Lochner v. New York, Adair v. United States, Coppage v. Kansas and others). CSCC's insistence on emphasizing this known point creates an adversarial environment from the beginning. It is impossible for an employee to form loyalty ties with a company that makes them sign memos restating and emphasizing at will employment. The intimidation--monitors are threatened with firing in memos, at meetings and in telephone conversations--alters the behavior of even the most independent monitors. When the California executives are in the office, monitors are often treated with disrespect and even abusive language. I heard a California manager calling a monitor "stupid" and yelling at various of them for coming to the office to finish reports and transfer them to the main computer while still "on the clock." 
My reasons for discussing the above are twofold. How can a company who violates FLSA regulations with its own employees be trusted with monitoring the labor compliance of others? And, is it likely that qualified people, regardless of their dedication, can afford--financially or as a matter of self-respect--to work for such a company?
The low wages and unfavorable conditions result in difficulty in attracting and the impossibility of keeping qualified people. Turnover is epidemic. Most inspectors are very young, usually their first full-time job after graduation. AIP lists "familiarity with the relevant standards," "knowledge of prevailing practices and issues," "accounting skills," "knowledge of prevailing discrimination issues," "knowledge of prevailing labor relations" for the US and internationally among its "qualifying Characteristics" for monitors. All CSCC inspectors know of "labor law and practices" within individual countries comes from the information sheet handed to them before going on a trip (13) and what they learn along the way through their own effort and initiative. The learning, however takes time and CSCC has been known to send a new employee on international inspections after only one week of employment.
All the monitors have knowledge of a foreign language, though some only know what they learned in High School or Collage. Knowledge of dialects other than Mandarin is uncommon. (14) I was ordered to remove a comment that the workers did not understand the Chinese interpreter because "it would not look good to the Manufacturer." Since there are not enough Chinese speakers, CSCC monitors have interviewed Chinese workers using questionnaires written in Chinese. It was not usual, in such situations, to have workers answer the questionnaires in groups or to get assistance from their supervisors.
Even in the instances where the monitors, due to their own personal commitment are dedicated, they are prevented from making any tangible contribution by the inflexibility of the reports they must fill, the secret agreements between CSCC and certain Manufacturers (no violations or failures are accepted) and the time constraints which force them to do a superficial job.

LANGUAGE & CONCEPTS
Words are used and concepts are created that slant reality in favor of those with power who use them and to diminish the role, and the possibilities of action, of the working majority. 
Consider the following examples!
The DoL and FLSA define a sweatshop as a workplace that violates FLSA regulations. This definition limits, because it attempts to confine action to the most scandalous workplaces only. But, minimum wages cannot be considered adequate compensation for any experienced worker putting in 40 or more hours a week. It should be tolerated only for very young or inexperienced workers doing part-time work and then only for the very short controlled period that may be needed for the worker to learn the job. An employer is "sweating" profits out of workers when the profits outstrip, by an unacceptable (15) margin, the wages paid to workers for the work they do to produce it. CEOs are sweating profits from their workers when they "earn" salaries that are two, three or more hundreds percent greater than their average workers. It is this unacceptable profit margin that has resulted in the fact that today, the top 1% of the population owns 40% of the wealth in the United States.
The term fair is used in DoL documents to give a false impression. The popular understanding of the meaning of the word fair, according to Webster, is equitable, impartial, objective, free of self-interest, prejudice or favoritism. The word, as it is used by DoL and FLSA, however, does not make use of this definition. Instead, fair is used to mean "conforming with established rules." When the "established rules" are inequitable, partial, biased, and rooted in self-interest, that which is grounded in them and conforms to this definition, can still be called "fair!" 
We are bombarded with advertisements that persuade us to buy things we do not need and for which, once they outlive their usefulness and become garbage, we do not have sinks. Advertisers manipulate people to spend their earnings, not on things that benefit them, but on junk that siphons workers' earnings into their pockets. Citizens have become consumers. Even progressive groups use this term. Consider the meaning! Consumers describe masses that have no function other than "consuming" widgets at one end and discarding garbage at the other. Like pigs gorging on swill, consumers devour tons of fast food, brainlessly fill the malls and empty the shelves of merchants, of their junk-goods. 
The rush to the bottom, which has produced the abuse of low-wage labor, would lose its strength if consumers would stop consumption for its own sake. The day we demand to be treated as citizens again, we may find that the power to change, the power to implement social justice will be ours once again. 
Economists have tools that justify the oppression of workers. They do this, not by lying but by hiding the full truth, by emphasizing only one side and by changing or widening the scope of rules. There is a theory of diminishing returns of capital and labor, for example. This theory states that a point is always reached when adding more capital or labor no longer increases profit and can actually decrease it. "Downsizing" makes profitable use of this theory. It is, obviously, based on truth but it emphasizes only one side. Where is the accompanying economic theory that shows Capital's perpetual, expanding greed? Has Capital ever reach a point when it is, at last, satiated? Can anyone envision CEOs and Financiers saying: "I am rich enough, let labor get a piece of the pie?"
Where is the regulation . . . the "downsizing" that controls greed?
A good example of rule changing or scope expansion occurred recently. The theory says that wages will go up if supply does not equal demand. About two years ago, there was great scarcity of computer programmers. Did that mean, as the theory suggests, that the wages for the scarce commodity went up? No, Washington implemented special regulations to allow cheap computer programmers from India to enter the country and wages were not only held, but depressed. In other words, Labor is told to hold on (16), he will get his increase someday, when local demand exceeds global supply. The importation of cheap labor is a common way for capital to cheat labor and deprive it of its rightful increases. More than 25% of the student and resident doctors in the United States have been imported from third world countries. Is this just an accident or a deliberate act calculated to depress doctors' incomes (17)? Which will be the next professional (18) group to be pressured so that CEO and financiers can continue to inflate their own income and make their golden parachutes even more ample?
The DoL, AIP, FLA and other governmental organizations that purport concern about sweatshop conditions--as defined by them--set up the provisions and rules to monitor Contractors. Where are the governmental institutions and provisions, which monitors the profits of Manufacturers? If not for NGOs like Charles Kernigan's National Labor Committee, the public would be unaware that the primary blame for the deplorable conditions of domestic, maquila and offshore factories is directly attributable to Manufacturers who create the conditions through their greed for profits.

LABOR LAW
It is impossible to talk about sweatshops without commenting on US Labor Law, which due to the power of the US, is infecting Labor Law everywhere. With minor exceptions, until the New Deal, the US had no "Law" to protect labor in general. It did, however, always use its power against labor and the formation of Labor Unions. Antitrust laws, for example, were applied with more frequency against the activity of Labor Unions then against the Monopolists for whom they were created.
The Wagner Act, which protects the right of workers to form unions (freedom of association) was passed in 1935 and unused for one year, while the Supreme Court decided on its Constitutionality. In 1938 the Fair Labor and Safety Act was passed and it took only another nine years for the Taft-Hartley Act, which gutted the Wagner Act to be passed, and make the NLRB ineffectual. It will surprise no one that it was under Reagan, the once President of the Actors Guild, that the gutting of the Wagner Act was finally complete. Though retaining replacement workers, hired during strikes, after the strike ended was sanctioned in 1938 in NLRB v. Mackay Radio and Telegraph Co. (Cox et al, p. 529), it was rarely used until Ronald Reagan shined it up and handed it to Industry, rehabilitated in the eyes of public opinion and devastating for the union and labor struggles.
Today, Union organizing is the only legal activity that has to be carried out in secret. Organizers are forced to approach workers as outsiders, people just . . . somewhat shady. American workers have the right of free assembly and collective bargaining but they can be fired for it. Pro-union workers have no protection from labor flexibility until the union has the prescribed 30% "showing of interest" that will authorize a Board-supported election.
Once the showing of interest is proved, the union has the authority to bring an Unfair Labor Practice accusation before the Board if an employee is fired for union activity. The remedy against such unlawful firing (after litigation that could last years) is that the employer can be obliged to reinstate the fired employee (if s/he has remained unemployed in the interim and if s/he is willing to work in a hostile environment) and making up the income the employee lost. "The proper measure of the back pay award is not the wages the guilty employer failed to pay, but rather, the net loss suffered by the employee after the deduction of any wages earned in the interim in another job (my emphasis). Indeed, the law required the employee to take all reasonable steps necessary to mitigate his loss by finding another job. If he fails to take such steps, his potential earnings may be deducted from the back pay award even if they are not actually earned" (Weiler, 1996 p.1789). Due to the bargain basement price of remedies verses the chilling effect of firing a union organizing, labor charges of Unfair Labor Practice have gone from 4,760 in the decade of the 50s to 26,212 in a five-year period between 1975 and 1980, an increase of 156% (Ibid. 1800).
The term "tainted" is most often used to describe a situation in which the employer has used inflammatory language and threats to influence an election. It can also be used to throw out an election if one management employee was pro-union. Such pro-union attitude is thought to unfairly influence the vote in favor of the union merely through the weight of her/his managerial power (hold this thought).
The issue of anti-union speech has an interesting history. The Wagner Act did not permit the Company to state its opinion about unionization since it considered the decision to be strictly a right of the workers that had to be pursued without interference from management. It was the Taft-Hartley Amendment that gave management its "free speech provision." 
"As long as the campaign material is what it purports to be, i.e., mere propaganda of a particular party, the Board would leave the task of evaluating its contents solely to the employees" (Cox et al, 1996 p. 159). The Court is thus saying that the employees should know that propaganda coming from management is slanted in their management's favor and be able to judge its value in that light. This is an amusing concept in view of the fact that it is illegal for Company Officials to knowingly slant or lie about the information they give their stockholders. Putting these three inconsistencies together . . . one manager would be enough to taint an election but the same workers who can be swayed by one manager, are sufficiently discriminating to be able to weigh the truth or falsehood of reports, communications, propaganda, veiled threats and brazen lies issued by the Company, with the assistance of professional union-busting Labor Lawyers. Managers cannot lie to stockholders because they are supposed to serve the stockholders interests, therefore, they are allowed to lie to their employees . . . because they do not serve labor's interests, and labor is expected to know that!
Workers have a right to strike but the company has the right to hire "replacement workers" who cannot be removed from their new jobs when the strike is over. All that US Labor Laws guarantee after Reagan's fine tuning, therefore, is that when the strike is over, the striking worker has the right to be placed on a list. In view of these facts, what meaning can one give to the statement in the Code of Conduct regarding freedom of association?
It is self destructive to believe that only low-wage workers need protection. Under the Wagner Act, all employees had the right to organize and were protected. The Taft-Hartley Act excluded "any individual having the status of an independent contractor, or any individual employed as a supervisor" (19) (Cox et al, Statutory Supplement, p. 26). Labor Law does a few things here. 1) It draws a clear demarcation between one type of employee and the other which it calls supervisory or managerial. It creates classes among workers. 2) It takes the right to organize away from these employees who might have just as much need to organize as any assembly-line worker. If they do attempt to organize (as the Yeshiva case shows where all the professors of the University were declared managerial or more recently when medical doctors tried to organize) they are unprotected. 3) It establishes a clear adversarial relationship between labor and management. These boundaries are artificial. Everyone who must sell her/his labor in the market is vulnerable and needs the right to organize. Maintaining such boundaries between labor groups is Capital's contrived way to divide and (21)conquer. All workers' interests are intimately tied to the interests of every other worker. What occurs in New York's sweatshops and the maquilas have an effect on every other salaried workers, as the assaults on the once untouchable elite careers of medicine and law show.

CONCLUSION
Codes of Conduct are only a small part of a series of tools that were never intended to be a solution to the problems of unfair--using the word with its generally accepted meaning--labor conditions. At present, it is only one more Band-Aid used to hide, the gangrened limb of labor rights under corporate capitalism.
All the Codes of conduct I have seen (from labor organizations or Manufacturers) have two flaws that open the door to abuses. The child-labor provision that stipulates "at least 14 years of age" and provisions such as "in full compliance with the laws of their respective countries." I have already discussed child labor and the fact that a fourteen-year-old is still a child, medically, emotionally and morally. The fact that poor children are burdened with adult responsibility at very early age does not justify their use as cheap labor by multinationals. In the countries where these children are employed, there are great numbers of unemployed adults. Why aren't they hired? Because they might not be as submissive? Because they might demand higher pay?
Second, "in full compliance" or "workers shall be paid at least the minimum legal wage or a wage that meets local industry standards" is human rights rhetoric. Multinationals have moved from low wage country to lower wage country, from countries with little human rights protection to countries with no human rights protection. They have openly threatened governments who have attempted to guarantee some benefits for their workers with moving their factories to more "friendly" countries. "Developing countries" have been pressured to abandon environmental, labor and human rights protections. In view of Capital's blackmail to force countries to adapt the loosest regulations possible, what do such phrases represent? Do they represent anything other than the proverbial "skirt" behind which labor rights abusers hide?
The codes are mere words on papers in the absence of adequate monitoring by knowledgeable and independent labor and human rights experts. For-profit accounting firms and consultant firms do not meet these criteria because their goal, profits, is antithetical to the goals of human and labor rights. Only local people who understand the value of local currency in the local market, who have a profound grasp of their culture, history, and labor laws are equipped to judge wether or not a corporation is operating within the parameters of accepted labor and human rights. Monitoring cannot be left to superficially trained aficionados, or aspiring tourists.
Civil Rights and Feminist theory has advanced by deconstructing the language of oppression, economic and labor language needs to be deconstucted and definitions must be clarified before similar progress can be made for labor. Economic theory cannot be kept inaccessible. Labor is often hoodwinked because it does not have a thorough understanding of the jargon of micro and macro economics. Capital makes very profitable use of these disciplines by encoding them in mathematical formulas that keeps them mysterious and unreachable. Its time to demystify and use economic concepts for the benefit of labor. It is time for economics to be examined and to enter public discourse.
When the Wagner Act was enacted, it was understood that "at will" did not have the same meaning for capital, in search of profits, as it did for labor, struggling for survival. Although it codified fragmentation, workers must unionize workplace by workplace instead of industry by industry, it attempted to equalize the power between them. It was Taft-Hartley that dismantled this attempt at equilibrium by pretending an equality between them that does not exist, a set of laws that curbs "equally," the most powerful entity, capital, and the least powerful, labor, is automatically favoring the powerful. It was Taft-Hartley that emphasized the adversarial stance between capital and labor, who left a huge portion of salaried workers unprotected. Yet working people know almost nothing about the effects of this Act; nobody is advocating its repeal. 
Generally, union organizers are taught "Labor Law for Unions" that is they learn what they are "allowed" or "not allowed" to do. Capital hires labor lawyers to "push the envelope" of legal precedence while unions hire them to stay inside the confines of its very narrow, oppressive box. If unions don't start challenging our Labor law, it will continue to be used in favor of capital and as a controlling force against labor.
Corporate Globalized Labor does not need "Codes of Conduct" that are little more than another cosmetic remedy. It needs a deep and radical cures. It needs mandatory codes monitored by labor and human rights professionals. It needs strong Unions controlled by Labor, and Labor Laws that control Capital! It needs to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. It needs to cement international relations with globalized labor and to support coordinated action among unions. Nothing less can confront globalized capital. 
Bought and paid-for bureaucrats and self interested multinational industries cannot be the sole authors of trade agreements. If GATT, NAFTA and the WTO are to continue, labor, environmentalists, human and indigenous rights activists must have a seat at the negotiating table with equal voice, equal vote and equal power! Working people need to be supported in their effort to achieve an equitable share of capital and an equitable share of power for all citizens.

© Lori Zett

Bibliography

Cox et al. Labor Law: Cases and Materials, 12th ed. (Westbury, The Foundation Press, 1996.
Dimenstein, Gilberto. Brazil: War on Children, Latin America Bureau, 1991
Documents on the Department of Labor Web sight.
Westlaw Materials (1996)

Notes
1. Unless otherwise noted, quotes are taken from DoL documents on the web. www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/nosweat/partnership 
2. Before I left CSCC, they were in the process of setting up a web site where Manufacturers could post jobs for which Contractors could bid, the lowest bid, of corse would win.
3. At its height it only included about 35% of the working population . Today it is around 10%. 
4. Manufacturers who claim to be impotent in controlling workers' conditions, control quality very strictly by sending Q.C. experts who dictate all production processes from the number of stitches per inch to exact slant or curve of a seam. 

5. There are no provisions about what happens to the child, no assurances that the child will go to school. Since there is no requirement to follow the child, more often than not, s/he will be forced to take a job that is even worse, with no surveillance at all. 
6. I use the work child, children and girl deliberately because a 14 to 18 year-old is a child, Since they are usually female, this child is a girl. 
7. Since most inspectors are male and most of the workers are female, underage girls as well as those who are particularly frightened will hide in the women's bathroom until the monitor moves on. 
8. These factories are often surrounded with barbed-wire fences and policed by gun-toting guards. 
9. This accusation can be documented with specific experiences, signed memos and employee statements. The DoL's employee, Howard Stein, who received my written complaint was very indignant when I asked about the "protection" that the DoL gave CSCC, yet, neither he nor any of his monitors ever investigated, audited CSCC payroll or interviewed any employees . 
10. No payment required for the time it takes workers to go from their home to the job sight and back. 
11. After the Taiwan office was installed, CSCC tried to lower this to $15 but thanks to some wise counsel, failed. 
12. A non-Chinese speaking inspector found himself in Taiwan alone, a professional interpreting service is out of the question since the company is not willing to pay their fees. When he asked the office where he was expected to find an interpreter to help him do the inspections, he was told to go to a bar and find an English-speaking patron who would be willing to do the work "for a few bucks." 
13. The Hoboken Manager was able to attract a young Chinese who spoke five dialects but only after months of being the only Chinese speaker in the office. 
14. An acceptable margin can only be arrived at when both parts negotiate on a level playing field with equal power and equal vote. Only some form of work council backed by strong unions could accomplish this. 
15. In Trieste, where I was born, they would say, "hold on jack-ass, the grass is growing." By the time the "grass grows" everywhere on earth, labor, will have starved to death. 
16. HMO's have achieved lowering some Hospital Costs but mainly, they have succeeded in greatly reducing Doctors' income. It is amazing that a culture that doesn't consider the salaries paid to CEOs, Sport Figures, Entertainers, and Wall Street paper shuffles obscene, objects so vehemently to the wages that Medical Doctors used to earn even though they have to study for years, are paid slave wages for more years after that (up to 6 for Urology and 8 for Neurology) working up to 120 hours a week (even though the law says the limit is 70), are saddled with huge student loans if their parents do not happen to be rich, must carry huge malpractice insurance and hold the responsibility of life in their hands. 
17. The legal profession, unbeknownst to students, is replete. There are numerous Temporary Agencies that hire lawyers on a temporary basis. In a recent settlement of a class action suite against Prudential, there was no difficulty in hiring more than 300 experienced, licensed lawyers from the New York area to work for $17.00 an hour. In addition, these lawyers did not receive overtime pay because, as lawyers, they are considered "professional" by Taft-Hartley, and exempt. 
18. Democrats are not pro-labor, they are merely less anti-labor than Republicans. Both are the servants of Big Industry. 
19. A Senate Report defined the difference between managers and supervisors thus: "Supervisors are management people. They have distinguished themselves in their work. They have demonstrated their ability to take care of themselves without depending upon the pressure of collective action. No one forced them to become supervisors. They abandoned the 'collective security' of the rank and file voluntarily, because they believed the opportunities thus opened to them to be more valuable to them than such 'security.' It seems wrong, and it is wrong, to subject people of this kind, who have demonstrated their initiative, their ambition and their ability to get ahead, to the unionism . . . It is wrong for the foremen, for it discourages the things in them that made them foremen in the first place. For the same reason that it discourages those best qualified to get ahead, it is wrong for industry, and particularly for the future strength and productivity of our country. (H.R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Congress, 1st Session.)