wfn.org | Partnership agreement falters on wage issue

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 20, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York     {683}

NEW YORK (UMNS) - An agreement reached by the White House Apparel
Industry Partnership to eliminate sweatshops and reduce the exploitation
of workers does not provide for a sustainable living wage, according to
the Rev. David Schilling.

That's one reason the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
(ICCR), which the United Methodist pastor has represented in the
partnership, has not signed on to the Nov. 3 agreement.

"It's a moral issue," Schilling explained. "It's an issue of whether
human beings can live healthy and sustained lives."

Created in 1996, the partnership consists of companies, human rights
organizations and labor groups. But Schilling said official negotiations
for an agreement stalled last spring. The November pact is the result of
informal conversations among nine of the 18 members. It excluded input
from the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the
nation's leading apparel union, and other groups, including ICCR.

While the agreement does provide for the establishment of a Fair Labor
Association and sets up a monitoring process, it lacks a system for
determining a living wage and fails to provide credible independent
monitoring, Schilling said.

A legal minimum wage or prevailing industry wage is not necessarily one
that meets the basic needs of the workers,  he said. He noted that
providing a living wage is an issue of human dignity, one "that goes
beyond economic arguments."

But ICCR believes that companies can pay a sustainable living wage if
they consider a fair distribution of profits. "There never seems to be a
question of coming up with the money to pay management or (celebrity)
endorsers," Schilling added.

The monitoring process outlined in the agreement depends heavily on
internal controls. Only 10 percent of a company's factories would be
independently monitored each year. The company would select and pay the
monitors and choose the facilities to be inspected.

The ICCR's concerns about monitoring include the lack of "outside eyes"
in the process and the fact that workers are less likely to trust and
confide in a monitor identified with the company, Schilling said. Using
local community groups in the monitoring provides a more credible
process, but such groups are marginalized in the agreement, he added.

The ICCR still considers itself a member of the partnership, according
to Schilling, and it will work to strengthen the agreement as much as
possible. But it also is working on these issues with a number of other
companies in the apparel industry that do not belong to the partnership.

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