"Fast-food workers face problem: Who’ll fund pay raises?" by Candice Choi and Jonathan Fahey | Associated Press, September 02, 2013
They could do it for a nickel in additional cost, you corporate pos.
NEW YORK — US fast-food workers often earn about $7.25 an hour to make the $3 chicken sandwiches and 99-cent tacos that generate billions of dollars in profit each year for McDonald’s and other chains.
Oh, yeah, or they could get it out of that.
Btw, isn't that stuff unhealthy?
Thousands of the nation’s many millions of fast-food workers and their supporters have been staging protests across the country in the past year to call attention to the struggles of living on or close to the federal minimum wage. The push raises the question of whether the economics of the fast-food industry allow room for a boost in workers’ pay.
I $u$piciou$ of any protests that are amplified by my agenda-pu$hing media.
Think of it as the Buffett rule, and in this case it is a no-power class of workers so its safe to give it attention because nothing will be done. You have already been hoodwinked with the tax increase; what makes you think money-serving politicians care about your wage? They will spew flowery calls for higher minimum wage, but Congre$$ won't be doing anything.
The industry is built on a business model that keeps costs — including those for labor — low so companies can make money while satisfying America’s love of cheap, fast food. And no group along the food chain, from customers to companies, wants to foot the bill for higher wages.
Even if it's garbage.
Customers want a deal when they order burgers and fries.
I want good healthy food, not fat-filled crap.
But those cheap eats squeeze franchise owners, who say they survive on slim margins. And corporations increase profits to keep shareholders happy.
I $uppo$e the elite that never have to worry about the buffet can say that and feel that way.
‘‘There’s no room in the fast-food business model for substantially higher pay levels without raising prices for food,’’ said Richard Adams, a former McDonald’s franchisee who runs a fast-food consulting business.
Caught in that triangle are the workers.
The median hourly wage for a fast-food cook last year was $9, up from about $7 a decade ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But many workers make the federal minimum wage, which was last raised in 2009. At $7.25 an hour, that’s about $15,000 a year, assuming a 40-hour workweek. It’s less than half the median salary of an American worker. Massachusetts’ minimum wage is $8 per hour.
It already is less than 40, and will be a lot less under Obamacare.
The protests come as President Obama has called for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. And the fast-food workers’ movement is getting financial support as well as training from organizers of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 2 million workers.
Like he is leading. Where's your bill? He's busy flooding the zone on Syria.
Workers protesting in cities like New York, Chicago, and Detroit are pushing for $15 an hour, or $31,000 a year. But the figure is seen as more of a rallying point; many say they’d be happy with a few bucks more.
Yes, can the corporate kings making record profits in this golden age of bankers plea$e give us a few more crumbs? Of course, bankers aren't going to McDonald's
‘‘Anything to make it more reasonable,’’ said Jamal Harris, 21, who earns $7.40 an hour working at three fast-food restaurants around Detroit — a Burger King, a Long John Silver’s and a Checkers — because he’s never sure how many hours he’ll get at any one job.
The guy works three jobs?
The same is true for Robert Wilson, a 25-year-old McDonald’s employee in Chicago. ‘‘It was never a consistent check,’’ said Wilson.
Wilson said he got one 10-cent raise in the past four years. That brings his pay to $8.60 an hour after seven years of working at the restaurant.
It's a career now. Either that or babysitting.
Low wages and a lack of benefits aren’t new in the fast-food industry. It’s why ‘‘McJob’’ has been a pejorative term for so long.
What’s changing is that such jobs are playing a bigger role in the economy, bringing the protests closer to home for many. Nearly 70 percent of jobs added since the recession have been in low-paying industries such as fast-food and retail.
Ain't globali$ation grand?
Yet half the jobs lost during the Great Recession were in industries that paid between $38,000 and $68,000 a year....
Also see: US wealth gap grew during recovery
Turns out there WAS NO RECOVERY! You were and ARE being LIED TO ALL the TIME!
The tilt toward low-wage jobs is what makes it so critical for fast-food and retail jobs to provide better pay, said Robert Reich, an advocate for workers who served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration.
‘‘It’s impossible for the economy to run on all four cylinders unless consumers have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going,’’ he said.
Still, raising wages for fast-food jobs means figuring out where the money would come from.
Franchisees say their profit margins are thin — they make 4 to 6 cents, on average, for every dollar they take in — and that they can’t afford to increase pay, particularly when companies are trumpeting value menus amid tougher competition.
See: McDonald’s poised to launch new value menu
It's a dollar menu, but things cost more than a dollar. Go figure.
Kathryn Slater-Carter, who owns two McDonald’s in California, said what franchisees can pay depends ‘‘on what money you’ve got left after all [the company’s] interference.’’
Slater-Carter said that in addition to emphasizing low prices, the company has been putting more costs onto franchisees for things such as software licenses and service contracts for restaurant equipment.
Honestly, I don't want to hear it, and if that is corporate McDonald's it is best not to eat there. I never do. Nothing against the workers, but.... I don't like bad food in my body and it's all bad food now.
Aslam Khan, chief executive of Falcon Holdings, which owns 165 Church’s Chicken and 44 Long John Silver’s locations, said his employees start at $8 to $8.50 an hour. To keep the best workers, he pays $10 to $13 per hour. He recognizes that’s still not much.
‘‘These days the whole family has to work to support the family. In order to put bread on the table, you have to do whatever,’’ he said.
Over the past three years, Khan said, his profit margins have declined from 5 percent to 1 percent as food and other costs have climbed and menu prices have remained flat.
Like the bank revenues that are still growing?
Many labor groups point to the profits of the companies — and the pay packages of CEOs — when trying to assign blame for low wages.
Last year, the five big publicly traded fast-food companies together earned 16 cents in profit for every dollar of revenue. That was 73 percent better than at the average big US company, according to FactSet, a research firm.
Gobbling down that profit like a Big Mac, 'eh?
McDonald’s, for example, reported profit of $5.5 billion last year on $27.6 billion in sales. CEO Don Thompson got a pay package worth $13.8 million.
I'm not against a guy getting good dough, but.... that makes me as sick as their food.
Still, publicly traded companies feel pressure from shareholders and creditors to maintain or improve profits; even a slight change from quarter to quarter can send stock prices moving in either direction....
Oh, it's the FINANCIAL WORLD that IN$I$T$ upon POVERTY WAGES, 'eh? The same ones that designed globali$ation!
Labor organizers dismiss the idea that companies can’t influence pay. They say companies have near total control of every other aspect of operations through their strict franchise agreements, down to which napkins and computer systems are used, as well as the prices that are charged for the food.
‘‘Corporations try to insulate themselves legally and morally by dictating everything but working conditions,’’ said Stephen Lerner, a longtime union organizer.
If franchisees and companies can’t or won’t pay more, that leaves the people who buy fast food.
‘‘This all comes back to the consumer,’’ said Adams, the former McDonald’s franchisee turned consultant.
Yeah, blame us penniless f***s.
Although many Americans say they support higher wages for workers, the reality is that people flock to the cheapest meals.
Like my lying, war-promoting, agenda-pu$hing corporate pre$$ pos knows anything about reality.
If prices went up noticeably at McDonald’s, for example, 23-year-old Eugene Santos said he would probably find someplace else to eat.
That would probably be such a good thing.
And the weak job market tilts the power in favor of employers, who can easily find replacements who are willing to work for low pay.
Organizing workers has been notoriously difficult in the fast-food industry, given the high turnover rates and ranks of younger workers who see the jobs as temporary gigs.
Garrett Mattson, 24, from Warren, R.I., started working at McDonald’s when he was in college and stayed because he couldn’t find another job. He earns $7.75 an hour.
He said he would probably support the effort to raise pay if it came to the restaurant where he works. But even though the job is important, he doesn’t consider it a career path.
My printed paper says he doesn't he see himself there at 30. I asked in the margin if he saw himself there now.
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Related: May I Take Your Order?
Do you want fries with that?
"Fast-food, retail workers call for national strike; Aug. 29 walkout sought to press for higher wages" by Michael A. Fletcher | Washington Post, August 21, 2013
WASHINGTON — Emboldened by an outpouring of support on social media, low-wage fast-food and retail workers in eight cities who have staged walkouts this year are calling for a national day of strikes Aug. 29.
The workers — backed by community groups and national unions, they have held one-day walkouts in cities such as New York and Detroit — say workers in dozens of cities have pledged support.
They are calling for a wage of $15 an hour and the right to form unions. Organizers of the walkout say cashiers, cooks, and crew members at fast-food restaurants are paid a median wage of $8.94 an hour.
Since some 200 workers walked off their jobs at fast-food restaurants in New York City in November, the strikes have moved across the country, drawing attention to a fast-growing segment of the workforce that until recently had shown no inclination to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining.
I was always told unions were bad.
The planned August walkout — timed for the aftermath of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the lead-up to Labor Day — is expected to touch 35 or more cities and involve thousands of workers, organizers said. The walkouts have not led to widespread changes, though some workers say they have gotten small pay increases and better hours.
Related: Racing Through This Post
‘‘The top executives in these companies make huge salaries and the corporations make record profits every year,’’ said Terrance Wise, 34, a father of three who earns $9.30 an hour at Burger King in Kansas City. He has a second job at Pizza Hut that pays $7.47 an hour. ‘‘How about them cutting a little off the top? CEOs are taking home millions, and many workers are struggling.’’
We need an intervention.
Wise said he has looked for better-paying work but has had no luck. ‘‘The options aren’t as plentiful as people think.’’
Fast-food workers are expected to be joined by retail workers from stores such as Macy’s, Dollar Tree, and Sears. Many of them said they have received pledges of support on Facebook and the websites of local organizing groups.
Although he has not commented on the fast-food walkouts, President Obama has called on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage to $9 a hour, from $7.25. The idea has broad support from voters, but opponents say it would hurt job creation. A recent Public Religion Research Institute survey found that nearly three of four Americans favored raising the minimum wage to $10.
As if jobs were actually being created.
The fledgling movement, which has been aided by the Service Employees International Union and other labor groups, as well as religious groups, argues that many fast-food and retail workers are forced to rely on government aid, even as fast-food corporations rake in $200 billion a year in revenues.
Moreover, organizers say, most fast-food workers are adults relying on the jobs to support themselves and their families, not teenagers looking to earn pocket money. The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group, says roughly eight of 10 workers in the country earning minimum wage are 20 or older, and half of them work 40 hours a week.
It's a CAREER!
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"Local fast-food workers to join nationwide protest" by Katie Johnston | Globe Staff, August 27, 2013
Kyle King made $8 an hour when he started working as a cashier at the Burger King across from Boston Common. Nine years later, he is up to $8.15, logging fewer hours and living with his brother in Roxbury because he can’t afford a place of his own.
King’s worsening economic condition has prompted him to make a bold decision that could cost him even more money: He plans to skip his scheduled Thursday afternoon shift at the chain’s Tremont Street restaurant.
But King isn’t quitting. Instead, he is taking part in a nationwide demonstration of fast-food employees demanding $15-an-hour wages and the right to unionize. Thousands of workers in 50 cities are expected to take part in the one-day strike. In Boston, as many as 200 fast-food employees are expected to form rolling picket lines outside nine chain restaurants — including Burger King, McDonald’s, and Dunkin’ Donuts — culminating in a rally on Boston Common.
King, 45, said he realizes low-skilled workers like him are easily replaceable and that he could be fired over Thursday’s act of defiance. But he is more worried that nothing will change for those who work behind fast-food counters unless more attention is called to their cause.
“I don’t know what I’ll lose first, lose my job or lose my sanity,” said King, who took computer maintenance classes but hasn’t been able to find a job in the field. “I feel just worthless.”
21st century AmeriKa!
The fast-food employees’ uprising has been gaining momentum since a few hundred workers staged a one-day strike in New York in November, followed by demonstrations in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and several major Midwestern cities this summer.
Their movement is part of a mounting wave of actions by low-wage-workers, including picketing at more than 1,000 Walmart stores on Black Friday last November and an appeal by airport contract workers for better working conditions.
In Harvard Square last week, a four-person crew at the late-night delivery chain Insomnia Cookies walked off the job, calling for higher wages, health care, and the right to unionize. They were all fired, according to the Boston branch of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union.
Insomnia Cookies did not respond to a request for comment.
Fast-food industry representatives say large numbers of the demonstrators around the country have actually been union organizers, not restaurant employees.
Angelo Amador, vice president of labor and workforce for the National Restaurant Association, said many restaurants being targeted are run by franchisees who can’t afford to pay more money and remain profitable.
“We would imagine that a lot of the people would rather have a job than have these businesses close down,” Amador said.
Two years ago, New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement spread to other cities — including Boston — and reignited awareness of inequality in the nation’s economic structure, but didn’t have an apparent impact on workers’ paychecks.
Yeah, Occupy was a failure.
About a quarter of all US employees earn less than $11 an hour, and the bulk of new jobs added during the recovery from the recession have not been high-paying positions. Meanwhile, many companies are reporting improving profits and soaring productivity.
Try RECORD PROFITS!
But salaries haven’t budged, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, and pay for low-wage earners has actually gone down.
Related: Children of working poor caught in pinch of recession
Also see:
The Vanishing Middle Class
The American Dream is Dead
The money-junkies killed it.
The Obama administration is pushing to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour, and in Massachusetts, legislators are considering a bill to raise the hourly minimum wage from $8 to $11 by 2015.
Not pushing as hard as they are for their god-damn war on Syria!
Still, with the unemployment rate remaining stubbornly high and college graduates snapping up many entry-level jobs, employers have the upper hand, as the labor-force supply outstrips demand.
I hope the life-en$laving debt was worth it.
“We are going up against a $200 billion annual industry,” said Darrin Howell, deputy director of the local labor coalition MassUniting, which is organizing Thursday’s demonstrations in Boston. “The reason they’re able to have profits that high and make the money that they do is the fact that they have a labor force. And that labor force’s hourly wages are less than some of the ‘value meals’ associated with these companies.”
The Service Employees International Union has also been providing logistical and financial support for the protesting fast-food workers, in coordination with local labor groups.
Several fast-food companies and restaurant owners did not respond to requests for comment. Michelle King, a spokeswoman for Canton-based Dunkin’ Donuts, said in a statement that the chain’s restaurants are “owned and operated by individual franchisees who are responsible for making their own business decisions, such as hours of operation, employee wages, and the benefits they offer their employees.”
Just send the money back to corporate.
Across the United States, 3.6 million people work at more than 200,000 fast-food restaurants. They are paid about $9 an hour, on average — often with no benefits and irregular schedules. But the perception that they are mostly teenagers cooking burgers and fries is no longer accurate, said James Green, a labor historian at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Related: Lazy American Kids
Maybe you should just get a master's degree.
Parents and retirees who cannot find employment elsewhere now sign up for such positions, including Maria de La Cruz, a 33-year-old Burger King cook in Dorchester. The single mother said she brings home $200 a week, and gets by with the help of food stamps, free health care from the state, and a subsidized apartment.
I get the health care, but I can't afford to use it.
De La Cruz, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, said her workload has doubled since the restaurant recently started making deliveries. More than ever, Cruz said, she and her colleagues deserve pay raises.
The restaurant franchise’s owner could not be reached for comment.
Green said the one-day work stoppage could cause enough chaos to affect customers, which would get the industry’s attention.
“If there was some consumer support for these protests, it might have an impact because these are industries that are very, very competitive and rely a great deal on consumer habits,” he said. “If these are disrupted, it could cause some changes in how people are paid or how they are treated.”
But Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, said it is hard for low-wage workers to win significant concessions without a collective voice. And in an industry with high turnover and a mostly part-time workforce, he said, efforts to organize employees prove daunting.
“A lot of people are there because they can’t find a regular job,” Sum said. “It makes it difficult for people to want to invest their time and money to make their case if they don’t see themselves as being there for that long.”
Still, labor groups say they are heartened by the number of fast-food workers willing to speak out.
Those are not good words for a report.
“The mark of a real movement is when workers begin to adopt a tactic on their own,” said Russ Davis, executive director of Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group.
In an effort to make sure participants in Thursday’s walkout are not disciplined by their employers, MassUniting has called on community leaders, Boston City Council members, and mayoral candidates to walk protesters back into their restaurants Friday.
Jussara Dossantos, 19, who has worked for four years at a KFC in Roslindale, said she is willing to risk her job security to make a point.
“I think that $15 an hour would make sure that everybody has a better life,” said Dossantos, who helped MassUniting organize people for the demonstration. “It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but we’re going to make sure it happens somehow. They need to hear our voice. They need to hear about our struggles.”
Not hearing us on Syria so I don't want to hear it, sorry. I want my cheap crap food!
--more--"
Also see:
Globe Loves Labor
Fast-food strikes set for cities nationwide
Boston fast food workers strike for higher wages
Squeezing the laborers
Senators Warren, Markey to attend Labor Day breakfast
Labor leaders, politicians champion workers
"In New York, big crowds gathered along one of Brooklyn’s busiest streets to watch the annual West Indian Day Parade. The festivities were raucous, highlighted by elected officials furiously pressing the flesh with crowds just a little more than a week before Primary Day. The parade celebrates Caribbean culture, with colorful costumes, indigenous foods, and music and dancing."
Talk about pushing an agenda.
Related:
"Grief and outrage over Antiq’s shooting loomed over the annual West Indian Day Parade about a mile and a half away."
"Boston’s annual India Day celebration will not return to the Charles River Esplanade this Saturday after the higher cost of increased security imposed since the Marathon bombings forced organizers to cancel the event. The event appears to be the highest-profile Esplanade gathering to be canceled as a result of the additional, costly security required by the Department of Conservation and Recreation and Massachusetts State Police following the Boston Marathon bombings. India Day has been held for some 20 years, organizers say, and more than 10,000 people have attended in years past."
Also see: Extra security costs: Bring back India festival
Setting Up on the Esplanade
Speaking of lunch:
"Without paperwork, school lunch free in Boston; Officials seize opportunity to join new federal meal program" by James Vaznis | Globe Staff, September 03, 2013
Boston public schools will begin serving free lunches to all students this school year even if families have the financial means to pay, school officials are expected to announce Tuesday.
The meal program, more than a year in the making, is part of an experimental federal initiative that aims to make it easier for students from low-income families to receive free meals by eliminating the need to fill out paperwork, including potentially invasive questions about income.
It's okay when it's for Obamacare.
Cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago have been or will be participating in the free-meal program. Starting next school year, the program will be open to any school district across the country with high concentrations of students from low-income families. The cost of the free meals will be covered by the federal government.
“Every child has a right to healthy, nutritious meals in school, and when we saw a chance to offer these healthy meals at no cost to them, we jumped at the chance,” said Mayor Thomas M. Menino in a prepared statement. “This takes the burden of proof off our low-income families and allows all children, regardless of income, to know healthy meals are waiting for them at school every day.”
Anybody check the date on that slop?
The change, Boston school officials say, is a natural outgrowth of a decision last school year to offer all students free breakfasts.
Related: Breakfast, Brought to You By....
It eliminated an awkward socioeconomic divide that unfolded in some schools every morning, where low-income students would receive free milk, pastries, or other items in their classrooms, while more affluent students often went without.
That would be a first. They wouldn't have eaten at home?
At lunch, such a divide is generally less obvious because students use an ID card or a number when going through the cafeteria line, making it difficult for classmates to know whether meals are free or being charged to an account. In some cases, though, students pay with cash.
About three-quarters of Boston’s 57,000 students last year qualified for a free or a reduced-price lunch. A discounted lunch cost just 40 cents, compared with the full price of $2.25 in elementary schools and $2.50 in middle and high schools.
Then the economy is s***.
School officials say more students would have qualified for the perk if their parents had filled out an application.
Parents fail to do so for a variety of reasons, such as the forms being printed in a language they cannot read — more than 100 languages are spoken among Boston school families — or getting lost in a mountain of paperwork and notices that students bring home.
That is what happens when you are a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants.
The problem can come with a steep financial price for families and the School Department alike.
Because many schools are reluctant to turn away students if they do not have the money, cafeteria workers charge the lunch to an account set up for the family. A principal or another school employee will eventually seek payment from parents or guardians — putting them in the awkward position of becoming bill collectors.
That's what AmeriKan ejewkhazun is becoming.
Related: Students Starved at Attleboro School
Last year, the School Department amassed $350,000 in losses from unpaid lunches, representing more than a third of the nearly $1 million that Boston sold in full- or reduced-priced lunches for the year. The loss had to be covered by other parts of the school budget, potentially diverting money from educational purposes.
Hey, banks, corporations, and the wealthy are doing fine, kids.
“We are caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Michael Peck, the School Department’s director of food and nutritional services. “Many principals have told me, ‘The family doesn’t have the money; what do I do?’ ”
The US Department of Agriculture, which oversees school food programs, started experimenting with universal free breakfasts and lunches three years ago, as part of the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act, a centerpiece of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative to end childhood obesity.
Maybe the kid could start exercising earlier.
Related: Michelle Obama Wants to Carve Up America's Kids
Is hypocrisy fattening? Is that where she has been because she has not been seen or heard from in a while.
To participate, a certain percentage of students in a district must qualify for free meals. That threshold — in light of the absence of student applications for free meals — is developed through a complex formula that includes such factors as the percentage of families in a community who receive food stamps.
Initially, the Agriculture Department selected only nine states and the District of Columbia to participate in the pilot program and Massachusetts was not among them. But Boston school officials pushed to add the state, achieving that goal this summer.
It remains unclear whether any other Massachusetts school districts will participate in the program this school year, but Boston school officials are hoping more students will eat the lunches now that they are free, instead of bringing something from home....
The Food Research and Action Center, an organization that promotes in-school meals, says more students have been taking advantage of the free lunches in other states that have begun the program.
The organization declined to release statistics because it will be putting out a report on the issue in the coming weeks.
“Whether those kids were packing lunches or doing without or running to a corner store — I don’t know,” said Madeleine Levin, senior policy analyst for the organization’s school breakfast and lunch program. “But more kids are eating the meals after this model is put into place. . . . It kind of levels the playing field and lets all kids get free meals without the stigma.”
It's nice to know it's the benevolent Jew that makes sure you get a good breakfast and lunch.
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Back to work:
"Foreign factory checks often flawed; Rushed or tainted reviews can omit basic problems" by Stephanie Clifford and Steven Greenhouse | New York Times, September 02, 2013
Inspectors came and went from a Walmart-certified factory in Guangdong province in China, approving its production of more than $2 million in specialty items that would land on Walmart’s shelves in time for Christmas.
But unknown to the inspectors, none of the playful items — including reindeer suits and Mrs. Claus dresses for dogs that were supplied to Walmart — had been manufactured at the factory.
Chinese workers sewed the goods, which had been ordered by Quaker Pet Group, a company in New Jersey, at a rogue factory that had not gone through the certification process set by Walmart for labor, worker safety, and quality, according to documents and interviews with the officials involved.
To receive approval for shipment to Walmart, a Quaker subcontractor just moved the items over to the approved factory, where they were presented to inspectors as though they had been stitched together there. Soon after the merchandise reached Walmart stores, it began falling apart.
That's why I never buy anything at Walmart.
Fifteen hundred miles to the west, the Rosita Knitwear factory in northwestern Bangladesh — it made sweaters for companies across Europe — passed an inspection audit with high grades. Four monitors gave the factory hundreds of approving check marks. In all, 12 major categories, including working hours, compensation, management practices, and health and safety, the factory received the top grade of “good.”
“Working Conditions — No complaints from the workers,” the auditors wrote.
Ten months later, Rosita’s workers rampaged through the factory in February 2012, vandalizing machinery and accusing management of reneging on promised raises, bonuses, and overtime pay. Some claimed they were sexually harassed or beaten by guards.
As Western companies turn to low-wage countries to produce apparel, electronics, and other goods, inspections have become a vital link in the supply chain. An extensive examination by The New York Times reveals how the inspection system intended to protect workers and ensure manufacturing quality is riddled with flaws. Inspections are often so superficial they omit the most fundamental workplace safeguards, such as fire escapes.
Even when inspectors are tough, factory managers find ways to trick them and hide serious violations, like child labor or locked doors. Dangerous conditions cited in audits frequently take months to correct.
Dara O’Rourke, a global supply chain expert at the University of California Berkeley, said little has improved in 20 years of factory monitoring, especially with increased use of the cheaper “check the box” inspections at thousands of factories.
“The auditors are put under greater pressure on speed, and they’re not able to keep up with what’s really going on in the apparel industry,” he said. “We see factories and brands passing audits but failing the factories’ workers.”
Still, major companies, including Walmart, Apple, Gap, and Nike, turn to monitoring not just to check that production is on time and of adequate quality but to project a corporate image designed to assure consumers they do not use Dickensian sweatshops.
We are no longer fooled by the imagery and illu$ion, sorry.
Moreover, Western companies depend on inspectors to uncover hazardous conditions, like faulty wiring or blocked stairways, that have exposed some corporations to charges of irresponsibility and exploitation after factory disasters that killed hundreds of workers.
The Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed 1,129 workers in April, intensified international scrutiny of factory monitoring and pressured the world’s biggest retailers to sign agreements to tighten inspection standards and upgrade safety measures.
See: Getting Back to Business in Bangladesh
While many groups consider the accords a significant advance, some longtime auditors and labor groups voice skepticism that inspection systems alone can ensure a safe workplace. After all, they say, the number of audits at Bangladesh factories has steadily increased as the country has become one of the largest garment exporters, and still 1,800 workers there have died in workplace disasters in the last 10 years.
“We’ve been auditing factories in Bangladesh for 20 years, and I wonder, ‘Why aren’t these things changing? Why aren’t things getting better?’” said Rachelle Jackson, at Arche Advisors, a monitoring group.
I've only been blogging for seven years.
Monitoring companies have established a booming business. Each year, they assess more than 50,000 factories that employ millions of workers. Spurred by heightened demand for monitoring, the share prices of three of the biggest publicly traded monitoring companies, SGS, Intertek, and Bureau Veritas, have all increased about 50 percent from two years ago.
The inspections carry enormous weight; factory owners stand to win or lose millions of dollars in orders. With stakes so high, managers have been known to try to trick or cheat auditors. Often notified beforehand about an inspection, they will unlock fire exit, unblock cluttered stairwells, or tell underage laborers not to show up.
Greg Gardner, CEO of Arche Advisors, said retailers seek different levels of audits. Some, like Levi’s and Patagonia, want rigorous — and costly — audits. Others pick inexpensive audits that won’t jeopardize relationships with suppliers.
Auret van Heerden, chief executive of the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit Apple uses to monitor its Foxconn factories in China, said many inspectors are too rushed. “They’re on a plane and going to a new city the next day. They don’t have much time to think about it or dwell on it.”
Neither do I right now, but I will at some point later.
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