The National Labor Committee

Hey guys,

In response to what we're blogging about lately, I've found some interesting web-sites:

The first one is a whole document put out by the NLC about what's going on in Jordan. It's 168 pages, and is painful to try to go through, but informative nonetheless:

http://www.nlcnet.org/faxes/jordan/report.pdf

This is the actual NLC website, and I think it's full of a lot of the info. we're interested in:

http://www.nlcnet.org/live/

I also simply typed in "free trade" on ask.com and it came up with several websites. One in particular was on the NY Times site and a specific article dealing with conditions in Jordan. It's titled "An Ugly Side of Free Trade: Sweatshops in Jordan" and definitely worth reading. I was shocked to see names like: Target, Wal-mart, Jones Apparel (which owns Gloria Vanderbilt and Jones New York), JC Penney, Sears, Gap, and Kohls.

Below are some quotes from the article, but I definitely recommend going and reading it.




"Some people are always making allegations," said Karim Saifi, the owner of United Garment Manufacturing, a factory near Amman that workers criticized for long hours and wage violations. "As far as we know, we follow all the labor laws here. If we were not abiding by all of the local Jordan laws, we would not be able to operate."

But Mohammed Z., who has worked for more than a year at the Paramount Garment Factory, said that even though he worked more than 100 hours a week — normally from 7 to midnight seven days a week — the company refused to pay him overtime when he did not meet production targets. He asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retribution.

Mohammed Saiful Islam, 30, a Bangladeshi who was production manager at Western Garment, said that several times the workers had to work until 4 a.m., then sleep on the factory's floor for a few hours, before resuming work at 8 a.m.
"The workers got so exhausted they became sick," he said. "They could hardly stay awake at their machines."





This is crazy. I can't believe that all of this was going on and I never knew. It's frustrating and exhausting. I'm so small and insignificant, how can I possibly do anything? Now is decision time...something has to be done. I can't live in my naive little world anymore. I'm hoping to find some companies that aren't involved in all of this, and ways to help support them. I have a feeling Karen could help with this. In the end, I know of one thing I can do....pray. I suppose that's the best place to start right now. This will get better. It has to.