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MORE LABOR NEWS
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TITLE: U.S. Trade Policy Serves To Prop Up The Dictators in Burma |
AUTHOR: |
DATE: March 1, 2001 |
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As the ILO calls for sanctions, the U.S. government has provided unlimited U.S. market access to apparel made in sweatshops run by the brutal Burmese military regime, producing well-known U.S. apparel brands including Fila, Arrow Golf, Kasper, T.J. Maxx & Jordache. Working together with Senator Tom Harkin's office, the NLC has obtained a U.S. Embassy cable which blows the whistle on the dictators, exposes contradictions in U.S. policy. The Embassy cable and additional NLC research name U.S. manufacturers and retailers who continue to produce in Burma, thereby helping sustain Burma's brutal military regime. Go to the NLC's website to access the new NLC Report, the U.S. Embassy Cable read New York Times article below. ******************** March 1, 2001 Memo Feeds Concern That Exports to U.S. Help Burmese Junta By Steven Greenhouse New York Times
Myanmar, which has been governed by a military junta for more than a dozen years, is rapidly increasing apparel exports to the United States despite American economic sanctions. A newly declassified State Department cable describes how factories in Myanmar, formerly Burma, have produced garments for leading American designers and retailers, including Kenneth Cole, Nautica, Jordache, Kmart and Wal-Mart. The cable, written by the American Embassy in Myanmar's capital, Yangoon, also known as Rangoon, to the Secretary of State voices concern that Myanmar's military leaders are benefiting financially from these shipments because most of the factories are joint ventures partly owned by the military government. "The Burmese garment industry is booming -- growing 45 percent in the last year," said the cable dated last July. "Factories on the northern outskirts of Rangoon are operating non-stop, producing winter clothes for the U.S. market." In 1999, the cable said, Myanmar exported $168 million worth of garments to the United States, but those shipments more than doubled last year, soaring to $403.7 million. That places Burma's apparel exports to the United States well above France's, at about the same level as Israel's exports to the United States. Four years ago, President Bill Clinton banned new American investments in Myanmar, but the government has not banned all trade, although it has encouraged companies not to do business there. Mr. Clinton took those actions because of the military junta's repression of the democratic opposition and its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The cable was obtained from Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who along with Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, and Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has called for the ban on apparel imports from Myanmar. "Here we have perhaps the most brutally repressive military regime in the world," Senator Harkin said. "And by importing all this apparel from there, we're putting close to half a billion dollars into their coffers every year." Most of Myanmar's garment factories, the cable states, have been financed by Korean, Taiwanese and Hong Kong manufacturers that have turned to Myanmar because they are bumping up against quotas imposed by the United States limiting imports from their countries. Myanmar, by contrast, has unfilled import quotas to the United States. Low pay is a major attraction for foreign manufacturers, the cable suggests. "Workers reportedly receive salaries ranging between 5,000 and 17,000 kyat (or $14 to $47 dollars) per month for a 48-hour work week," the cable said. "The lowest paid workers are trainees who receive 5,000 kyat per month or about U.S. 8 cents an hour." The cable also noted another reason that garment manufacturers are flocking to Myanmar -- labor unions are prohibited there. Describing a visit to a factory capable of producing one million shirts per year, the cable states, "The factory owners claimed that the Government of Burma Ministry of Labor adequately protected the workers and that there was no need for unions in Burma." Earlier this week, the State Department denounced Myanmar in its annual human rights report, finding that the military government deprived the most basic social and political rights. Last November, the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, recommended, in its strongest sanctions ever, that the organization's 175 member states review their business dealings with Myanmar because of the widespread use of forced labor there. "It's criminal that at the moment the administration is talking about increased repression in Burma, our government is allowing a huge increase in apparel imports from Burma under a very lax quota," said Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee, a New York-based group that promotes workers rights. Jessica Moser, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the company's American stores stopped importing apparel from Myanmar three years ago, although she added that Wal-Mart stores in other countries only stopped such imports about a year ago. Michele Jasukaitis, a Kmart spokeswoman, said, "We do not import directly from Burma, and we double-check our distribution centers for any indirect imports from Burma." Kenneth Cole officials acknowledged that one of the designer's subcontractors had been importing sweaters from Burma, but the company said it terminated such imports from Myanmar as soon as it learned about them several months ago. Nautica and Jordache officials did not return telephone calls. END
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