Today the President announced an effort to reduce the use of sweatshops to manufacture products purchased by Americans. According to President Clinton, the agreement establishes "a workplace code of conduct that companies will voluntarily adopt, and require their contractors to adopt, to dramatically improve the conditions under which goods are made." Following a background report by Charles Krause, three experts debate the code.
SPOKESMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.
CHARLES KRAUSE: Today's agreement, aimed at eliminating sweatshops both in the United States and around the world, was announced at a White House ceremony this afternoon.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: As important as the fabric apparel workers make for us is the fabric of their lives, which is a part of the fabric of our lives here at home and around the world. Their health and their safety, their ability to make a decent wage, their ability to bring children into this world, and raised them with dignity, and had their children see their parents working with dignity. That's an important part of the quality of our lives.
CHARLES KRAUSE: Sweatshops have long been a part of America's industrial landscape. At the turn of the century European immigrants provided the cheap labor, but many of the early sweatshops vanished in the 1920's, after a deadly fire at New York City's Triangle Shirt Factory, prompted reforms.
Today, 
sweatshops are again proliferating because of the emergence of a global economy and the ready availability of low-cost labor both in the United States and around the world. This garment factory East of Los Angeles, for example, was the target of the 1995 raid by the Department of Labor. Here, Thai immigrants toiled for 17 hours each day earning 60 cents an hour to produce clothing eventually sold to national chains.
NIKE shoes and other American manufacturers overseas
have also come under fire for allegedly forcing employees to work long hours for minimal wages, for hiring children, and for sometimes abusing workers. About 75 percent of NIKE's shoes and clothing are produced in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam. Last month, in response to labor groups' growing concern about worker abuse, the company hired former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young to review NIKE's international labor code.
Under the new accord released today clothing and shoe companies would voluntarily abide by certain rules, regardless of whether their factories are in this country or abroad. The new workplace code of 
conduct includes the following provisions: No forced labor, whether prisoners or indentured servants; no harassment of abuse of any workers; no discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, or age; a safe and healthy workplace; certain rights for workers, including freedom of association and freedom to participate in collective bargaining; a guarantee of a minimum wage and some benefits; no workers younger than 15 years old; a maximum work week of 48 hours, plus 12 hours of overtime. On the last two provisions, which are the most contentious, compromises were made which could allow workers as young as 14, in some cases, and a longer work week if workers volunteered for it.
The presidential task force included representatives of labor unions, human rights organizations, and apparel leaders, including Liz Claiborne, Incorporated; L.L. Bean, Patagonia; Reebok International; and NIKE. Among the corporate task force members was talk show celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford, who became a crusader after it was revealed that her own line of clothing was made by underpaid teenagers in Central America. She attended today's ceremony at the White House and spoke to reporters afterwards.
KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: If you could have told me a year ago that something good could have come out of all this, I think I would have been a cynic. But I'm delighted and very, very proud to be a part of this association and thrilled that so much good has come out of it. And as I said, it's the beginning, but it's a very important beginning. And I know that I can rest assured because of the independent monitoring system that we put into effect about eight or nine months ago that when something is made that bears my name, it's extremely important to me that it's made with the dignity of the worker in mind.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
