Sweat Shops: Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines
Source: https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ITGLWFSportswearReport2011.pdf
The International Trade Union Confederation looked into 83 factories across these 3 factories, the companies that bought for them and the conditions that they worked in. Most were women under 35 and collectively 100,000 workers worked here.
Indonesia:
-Temporary Short term contracts
-No sick pay or holiday pay
-No annual leave pay
-No written contracts
-Less than minimum wage
None of the factories paid living wage and many of them payed less than minimum wage.
Sri Lanka
-Basic Pay cut if they didn't achieve their targets
-No incentive pay unless entire quota was reached
-Worker said targets were impossible to meet so never any bonus, they had even denied themselves of toilet breaks or rest periods to try and meet these impossible targets.
-Forced to work unpaid overtime (up to 40+ hours in just overtime)
-100-130 hours of overtime per month, those who didn't received abuse by the management
-85% female aged 18-35
-Preferred unmarried
-Made women take pregnancy tests, wouldn't imply if pregnant
-Sexual intimidation and abuse was common
Phillipines
-30% of surveyed workers were paid less than legal minimum wage
-Many workers forced to work rest days.
-Standard day was 12 hours but to meet deadline days, forced to work an extra 2 hours
-60% were women
Overall, there has been many cases of workers been treat badly, receiving abuse, being underpaid, forced to work long hours and forced to meet impossible targets. This is a huge problem not just in these countries but Worldwide. Victoria's Secret are one of the brand contributing to the toxic system in manufacturing their products. Due to big corporations like VS buying into this, it's encouraging this to carry on. They must step up and improve their sourcing of materials as these conditions are against human rights and completely unethical.
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