Table of Contents 1 Preface by Charles Kernaghan 3 Executive Summary Betting Against American Workers: Mr. Romney and Bain Capital Invest in a Brutal Sweatshop in China 5 6 7 8 10 10 12 13 15 19 20 20 21 22 24
Mr. Romney and Brookside Invest up to $23 Million in Global-Tech Sweatshop in China Mr. Romney Was Investing in the Outsourcing of U.S. Jobs and Production Mr. Romney Is Responsible Chart: Global-Tech Workers Paid Pennies an Hour Misery Updated: Brutal and Illegal Sweatshop Conditions Persist at Global-Tech in China Grueling 105- to 112-Hour Work Weeks Below Subsistence Wages Child Labor Persists Primitive and Filthy Dorms at Global-Tech The Workers’ Cafeteria Is Beyond Filthy: Barely Edible and Frequently Rotten Food Global-Tech Workers Have No Hope for Their Future And See No Possibility of Change Workers Can Easily Join the Global-Tech Factory, But Getting Out Is Another Story Global-Tech Workers Also Cheated of Healthcare and Other Benefits Gross Violation of Guandong Province’s Regulations on Payment of Wages Would You Like Your Son or Daughter to Work at Global-Tech?
27 About the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
September 2012 Author Charles Kernaghan Research Barbara Briggs, Cassie Rusnak, Elana Szymkowiak, Antoinette Carcia, Aaron Freudenthal, Cara Hagen, and Curt Thomas Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (Formerly National Labor Committee) 5 Gateway Center, 6F, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 , U.S.A. +1-412-562-2406 | inbox@glhr.org | www.globallabourrights.org
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Preface “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
When Mr. Romney remarked excitedly, “And uh, as we were walking through this facility, seeing them work, the number of hours they worked per day, the pittance they earned, living in dormitories with uh, with little bathrooms at the end of maybe 10, 10 room, rooms. And the rooms they have 12 girls per room. Three bunk beds on top of each other. You’ve seen, you’ve seen them? (Oh…yeah, yeah!) And, and, and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers. And, and, we said gosh! I can’t believe that you, you know, keep these girls in! They said, no, no, no. This is to keep other people from coming in. Because people want so badly to come work in this factory that we have to keep them out. Or they will just come in here and start working and, and try and get compensated. So we, this is to keep people out.” Does Mr. Romney seriously believe that young men and women in China are racing to climb over fortress-like walls topped with barbed wire, just to get a poorly paid job at Global-Tech? Or is it possible that the barbed wire and armed guards are meant to lock the Chinese workers in and strip them of their legal rights?
Charles Kernaghan
2 Global-Tech factory in Dongguan, China.
Twelve workers share each primitive and filthy dorm room. To wash, they use small plastic buckets to fetch water, which they splash on themselves, standing next to the toilet in the tiny bathroom. Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
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Executive Summary
Betting Against American Workers Mr. Romney and Bain Capital Invest in a Brutal Sweatshop in China •
“When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there.” Mr. Romney was a pioneer of outsourcing U.S. jobs and production to China.
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At its peak, for two and a half years from April 1998 through August 2000, Mr. Romney and his Brookside Capital Partners Fund invested approximately $23 million in the Global-Tech sweatshop in Dongguan, China.
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Mr. Romney was there when the Race to the Bottom in the global sweatshop economy was launched. Mr. Romney noted “the pittance they earned”— just 24 cents an hour in 1998 and less than $2.00 a day. Wages in Global-Tech were less than 2 percent of U.S. wages.
•
Despite his investment and power as Bain Capital’s CEO, Mr. Romney apparently failed to urge Chinese management to even modestly improve Global-Tech’s gross working and living conditions or the pitifully low wages of its workers.
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If Mr. Romney had spoken up, conditions at Global-Tech might be far better today. Sadly, in 2012, GlobalTech remains a brutal sweatshop, where workers are paid starvation wages of $1.00 an hour and have no rights.
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Today at Global-Tech, every single labor law in China is violated: primitive, filthy dorm conditions are the norm; routine 15- to 16-hour shifts prevail, along with grueling 105- to 112-hour, seven-day work weeks.
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Eight hundred student interns — many exhausted children, just 16 years old — are forced to work the grueling 15- to 16-hour shifts with no overtime pay.
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In the context of Mr. Romney’s present “get tough on China” stance, it would be critical for Mr. Romney to clarify exactly what he and Bain Capital did at the Global-Tech factory in Dongguan, China to push back against the evident abuses in the factory and to assure respect for human, women’s and workers’ rights.
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High school students forced to work 15 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
Student interns, sitting on backless stools hunched over their assembly line, must complete the same operation every 13 seconds, non-stop, cleaning 3,920 circuit boards in 14 hours.
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Mr. Romney and Brookside Invest up to $23 Million in Global-Tech Sweatshop in China
“
When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there.
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“When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there. It employed about 20,000 people. And they were almost all young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23.... And they work in these huge factories, they made various uh, small appliances. And uh, as we were walking through this facility, seeing them work, the number of hours they worked per day, the pittance they earned, living in dormitories with uh, with little bathrooms at the end of maybe 10, 10 room, rooms. And the rooms they have 12 girls per room. Three bunk beds on top of each other. You’ve seen, you’ve seen them?.... And, and, and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers.”
— Mitt Romney Boca Raton, FL, May 17, 2012
Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. Galaxy Industrial Area Qinxi, Dongguan Guangdong, China 523565 •
2 million square feet of manufacturing space.
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In 2008, Global-Tech Appliances Inc. changed its name to Global-Tech Advanced Innovations, Inc.
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Global Appliances Holdings Ltd. incorporated in British Virgin Islands 100%.
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Global Lite Array (BVI) Ltd. incorporated in British Virgin Islands.
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Photo from Lite Array
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Mr. Romney Was Investing in the Outsourcing of U.S. Jobs and Production For two and a half years, from April 17, 1998 through the end of August 2000, at its height Mr. Romney and his Brookside Fund*, an affiliate of Bain Capital, invested an estimated $23 million in the Global-Tech sweatshop in Dongguan, China, where workers were paid as little as 24 cents an hour and less than $2.00 a day! Mr. Romney was clearly investing in the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and production. In 1998, Mr. John C. K. Sham, Global-Tech’s President and CEO said, “...we still believe that the long term trend toward outsourcing will continue.” By mid1998, Global-Tech reported fiscal year sales of $118.3 million, which was an astonishing 89 percent increase over the year before. Global-Tech factory management was deeply steeped in the manufacture and export of well-known U.S. electrical appliances such as Sun Beam, Hamilton Beach, Mr. Coffee, Proctor Silex, Revlon and Vidal Sassoon. Mr. Romney had to be aware of this. In its 2001 Annual Report, Global-Tech again focused on outsourcing: “Household appliance companies are focusing on their primary strengths of marketing and distribution, while increasingly outsourcing product development and manufacturing....Our ability and commitment to develop new and innovative high quality products at a low cost has allowed us to benefit from the increased outsourcing of product development and manufacturing by our customers.” According to a recent profile produced by Global-Tech: “The company has grown into the earliest large export-oriented investment business in Qing-Xi Town in Dongguan City...”
The company’s report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission noted on March 31, 2012: “The companies [Global-Tech’s factories] products are primarily sold to customers located in the United States of America (the “U.S.A.” or the “U.S.”) Europe and the PRC [People’s Republic of China].” “Global-Tech and its subsidiaries (hereafter collectively referred to as the “Company”) is primarily a manufacturer of consumer electrical products, including but not limited to, floor care products and small household appliances, electronic and optical components, and is also involved in the assembly of cellular phones.” Global-Tech refers to Motorola, Nokia, Sharp, LG and Lenovo as their “partners.” Also, on August 30, 2001, right after Mr. Romney’s partnership with Global-Tech management, GlobalTech purchased the U.S. Lite Array company in Novato, California, which became a subsidiary of Global-Tech Appliances Inc. Then in 2003, Lite Array’s research and development team was moved to Global-Tech’s facilities in Dongguan, China. The Lite Array company was then incorporated in the British Virgin Islands so as to avoid all corporate, capital gains and estate taxes. During its peak season, there are approximately 4,155 workers in Global-Tech’s Dongguan factories.
*Mitt Romney was the CEO of both Bain Capital and its affiliate, Brookside Capital Partners, of which he was also the sole director, president and shareholder.
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Mitt Romney is Responsible “Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brookside Inc. and thus is the controlling person of Brookside Inc. No person other than the respective owner referred to herein of shares of Common Stock is known to have the right to receive or the power to direct the receipt of dividends from the proceeds from the sale of such shares of Common Stock.” - Brookside Capital Partners Fund LP Form SC 13G/A filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission August 28, 1998
Despite being a major investor for 2 ½ years in the Global-Tech factory and despite his power, influence and wealth as Bain’s CEO, Mr. Romney apparently failed to speak out urging Chinese management to improve the gross working and living conditions or the pitifully low wages of its workers. Why didn’t Mr. Romney raise the International Labor Organization’s core, internationally recognized worker rights standards with Global-Tech management? If Mr. Romney had spoken up, conditions at Global-Tech might be far better today. Sadly, in 2012 Global-Tech remains a brutal sweatshop where workers are paid starvation wages of $1.00 an hour and have no rights whatsoever. On April 17, 1998, Mr. Romney and Brookside Capital Partners Fund filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting that they had purchased a 6.13 percent stake, or 748,000 shares in the Global-Tech sweatshop factories in China. At $19 per share, Mr. Romney and Brookside had invested $14.2 million in one of the earliest outsourcers of U.S. jobs and products. Just four months later, Mr. Romney and Brookside upped their interest in the Global-Tech factories to 10.3 percent, which, if the share prices remained the same, would be approximately $23 million. Then, on December 21, 1998, Mr. Romney and Brookside appeared to downsize their Global-Tech holdings to 4.63 percent of their purchased shares. However, it appears that Mr. Romney was now sharing Brookside’s stake in Global-Tech with his Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors. According to The Atlantic Wire, “Sankaty is the Bermuda-based company Romney failed to disclose on financial statements for a few years, and then transferred to his wife’s name when he became Governor of Massachusetts.” (The Atlantic Wire, July 12, 2012, Connor Simpson)
Forbes also confirmed that “by the end of 1998, Brookside was sharing its piece of Global-Tech with Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors, the mysterious Romney-owned Bermuda corporation...” (Forbes, July 12, 2012, Frederick E. Allen) By March 25, 1999, Romney, Brookside and Sankaty owned 9.11 percent of Global-Tech’s stocks. It was not until August 2000, after 2 ½ years of investing in Global-Tech sweatshop factories in China, that Mr. Romney, Brookside and Sankaty sold their remaining shares.
Mr. Romney and Bain...“owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories.” - Washington Post, June 21, 2012
Even after Mr. Romney left for the Salt Lake City Olympics in Utah, Securities and Exchange Commission filings “showed Romney remained Bain’s CEO, President and primary shareholder through 2002.” (Mint Press, July 17, 2012, Trisha Marczak) Mr. Romney’s Brookside Inc. includes: Brookside Capital Partners Fund L.P., Brookside Fund, Brookside Capital Investors L.P., and Brookside Investors.
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10 MISERY UPDATED: GLOBAL-TECH IN CHINA
Brutal and Illegal Sweatshop Conditions Persist at Global-Tech Imagine if Mr. Romney had spoken up regarding the deplorable and inhuman factory conditions he saw in China. But instead, he came and went with no impact, other than growing his investments and wealth.
Grueling 105- to 112-Hour Work Weeks
A
s of August 2012, workers at Global-Tech were still toiling grueling 15 to 16-hour shifts, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 or 11:30 p.m. seven days a week. Workers were routinely at the factory 105 to 112 hours a week! And all overtime is mandatory.
ing daily 14 ½ to 15 ½ hour shifts. They are now at the factory 101 ½ to 108 ½ hours a week.
Work Hours —Grueling and Illegal—
8:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Work, 3 ½ hours 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lunch, 1 hour 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Work, 4 hours 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Dinner, 1 hour 5:30 p.m. – 10:30 or 11:30 p.m. Work ½ regular hour, Overtime 4 ½ to 5 ½ hours
7:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. 5:30 p.m. – 10:30 or 11:30 p.m.
Work, 4 hours Lunch, 1 hour Work, 4 hours Dinner, 1 hour Overtime, 5 to 6 hours
Not including the two one-hour meal breaks each shift, the workers were toiling 91 to 98 hours a week, including the regular 40 hours of work each week, plus the added 51 to 58 hours of obligatory overtime — which exceeded China’s legal limit on permissible overtime by 514 to 598 percent! It was only in September 2012 that the standard work shifts were cut back by half an hour, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 or 11:30 p.m., meaning the workers are now toil-
Current Working Hours 87.5 to 94.5 Hour Work Week (as of September 2012)
The current obligatory working hours still exceed China’s legal limit on permissible overtime by 472 to 556 percent. Global-Tech also routinely violates China’s law on the “Regulation of Wages.” In Guangdong Province it is mandatory that workers’ pay stubs clearly document all regular and overtime hours — including weekend hours worked during the month, which GlobalTech management blatantly fails to do.
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Exhausted workers cut their lunch break short to sleep 15 minutes, slumped over their workstations.
Déjà Vu All Over Again -September 2012Due to excessive work load, several departments are especially busy. In these departments the lunch break has been cut back to just a half hour. This means the workers are back to working 15 to 16-hour shifts, seven days a week.
It’s Forced Overtime, No Matter How You Look at It
Workers have again confirmed that it is common, year-round for the workers to be forced to toil on both Saturdays and Sundays. Unlike other factories in China, Global-Tech does not experience slow and peak seasons. It is peak season year round.
We can imagine Global-Tech management saying: “Oh no. All overtime work is voluntary and in strict accordance with the law.” Of course, workers can opt out of working overtime any time they want. But we hope they are independently wealthy. No matter what the emergency, workers who cannot stay to work overtime hours are punished with a “major demerit point” and fined 90 RMB, or $14.26, which is the equivalent of losing 14.3 hours regular wages. No worker can possibly afford such crippling fines. Global-Tech management can pretend all they want that overtime is voluntary. Every worker knows that if they start skipping overtime, their wages and “rewards” will be slashed.
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Below Subsistence Wages China’s workers earn just $1.00 USD an hour, less than six percent of U.S. wages. As of 2012, U.S. wages for the manufacturing of electrical equipment and appliances are $17.93 an hour, while wages in China for similar work are just $1.00 an hour, which means that wages in China are less than 6 percent of U.S. wages. Workers at Global-Tech are also nickel and dimed and cheated of their legal overtime pay. According to China’s law, all overtime hours worked on weekdays must be paid at a premium of 9.48 RMB per hour, which amounts to $1.50. On weekends, all working hours are classified as overtime and must be paid at a premium of 12.64 RMB, which is the equivalent of $1.99 per hour. But Global-Tech management still finds a way to nickel and dime the workers, cheating them of eight cents an hour on weekday overtime and ten cents on weekend overtime. At a minimum, workers must toil at least three hours of overtime each weekday after their regular eight-hour
Wages at Global-Tech 2012
shift. So for their three hours of overtime, five days a week, the workers are cheated of $1.20 each week. (3 hours x 5 days = 15 hours OT; 15 x 8 cents = $1.20.) On weekends, the workers are required to toil the same standard 13 hours of work on both Saturday and Sunday, which adds up to 26 overtime hours. As the workers are cheated of 10 cents per hour of their legal overtime pay, they are losing another $2.60 per weekend. So, routinely each week, working a grueling seven-day work week, the workers are rewarded by being cheated of $3.80 a week, which amounts to taking blood money from some of the hardest working and poorest workers in China. The overtime wage that was paid on weekdays at Global-Tech was set at 9 RMB ($1.42) an hour, in violation of China’s Labor Contract Law, which stipulates that all weekday overtime must be paid at 9.48 RMB ($1.50) and hour. It was not until mid-September 2012 that Global-Tech began paying the legal overtime premiums.
U.S. Manufacturing Wage 2012
1,100 RMB per month $ 1.00 an hour $8.02 a day (8 hours) $40.08 a week (40 hours) $173.67 a month $2,083.99 a year
$17.93 an hour $143.47 a day (8 hours) $717.35 a week (40 hours) $3,108.52 a month $37,302.20 a year
Exchange rate: 6/334 RMB = $1.00 USD Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Electrical Equipment, Appliance, and Component Manufacturing: NAICS 335
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The students must solder a circuit board onto a monitor every 13 seconds. First they clean the monitor using ethanol. Then they place it onto a mold. Pressing down using both hands, they operate the machine that solders the circuit board onto the monitor. Then using a microscope they inspect the monitor for quality and place it back on the assembly line. They do the same operations over and over again, one every 13 seconds, 280 monitors an hour, 3,920 in 14 hours of work.
Child Labor Persists There are approximately 800 high school student “interns” — aged 16 to 18 years old — working at GlobalTech during the summer months. The “student interns” are typically at Global-Tech for two to three months, and work right alongside the regular workers. The only difference is that the student workers — no matter how many hours they work at night or on weekends — always get paid the same standard hourly wage. There is no holiday or overtime premium wage for them. By law, student interns are strictly prohibited from working more than a regular eight-hour shift, Monday through Friday. But this does not stop management
from forcing the exhausted young students to toil 14 ½ to 15 1/2 –hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 or 11:30 p.m., seven days a week. The students are routinely in the factory over 100 hours a week, while toiling 87 ½ to 90 hours. Many students curse their teachers and call them “liars.” They say their schools and teachers “tricked us to come to this place.” Their teachers told them they would “learn important skills here” and “easily make enough money to pay for [their] upcoming school tuition. All of it was a lie.”
Exhausted students work seven days a week. Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
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Student Interns Denounce the Gross Violations at Global-Tech •
“Now we know this place is hell. We can’t leave. Otherwise we’ll have trouble getting our high school diplomas. And we won’t get paid for our work. The schools and teachers get money from the factories. The schools, teachers and factories are together drinking our blood.” (Student Intern A)
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“With the help of our teachers, they [Global-Tech management] are even more ruthless with us than with regular workers. Because we are young, we don’t have any job experiences. “We get so tired every day that we just want to die. We never get enough sleep. Every day we go to work without getting rid of the tiredness in our bodies. And we start a new tiring day. We are tired and sleepy every day. Sometimes we really want to doze off on the assembly lines. But the supervisors walk around the assembly lines all the time. Nobody gets a chance to take a nap. I really want them to get a stroke and pass out so that I can take a nap on the assembly line. Even just a minute would be great! “We dare not tell our parents about this. My parents love me so much. If they knew I suffered like this here ever day, they would be heartbroken. “Sometimes I think to myself: Doesn’t our boss have kids? If he has kids, are his kids forced to live such a poor and difficult life as we do?” (Student Intern B)
“
Sometimes I think to myself: Doesn’t our boss have kids? If he has kids, are his kids forced to live such a poor and difficult life as we do?
”
A student intern working on cell phone circuit boards. She picks up a printed circuit board, wipes it with ethanol, blow dries it for two to three seconds, checks the circuit board for contaminants to make sure it is clean, puts on a protective sticker, places the circuit board on an assembly line, and moves on to the next piece. She has to complete 280 circuit boards in one hour.
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Primitive and Filthy Dorms At Global-Tech Twelve workers share each primitive dorm room, sleeping on narrow, double-level bunk beds, most without even the thinnest of mattresses. The dorms are filthy, and it is common for workers to find dead rats in their rooms and hallways. Two 40-watt bulbs dimly light the room. Each dorm room has a “bathroom,” and a squat toilet which is right next to the “shower.” To bathe, the workers must queue up with their small plastic buckets and wait their turn to fetch hot water at the spigot in the hallway. It takes more than an hour for all 12 workers to bathe, which they do by splashing water on themselves right next to the squat toilet. Frequently the hot water runs out and the workers near the end of the line must wash with cold water. After everyone has washed, the workers spend another hour washing their clothes by hand. This means that if the workers are lucky enough to get out of work at 10:30 p.m., it still takes another two and a half hours or so for everyone to bathe and wash their clothing. They can finally stumble to their bunk beds to sleep at 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. The dorms do not have air conditioning. There are just two small ceiling fans in each room, which provide little relief. So during the long, humid summers, workers are drenched in their own sweat, making it very difficult to sleep.
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Bunk beds and a shelf are the only furniture workers have in their dorms.
Two 40-watt bulbs dimly light the room. Without air conditioning, the workers are drenched in their own sweat during the long, humid summer in southern China. They have difficulty falling asleep even though they are exhausted.
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Twelve workers share each primitive and filthy dorm room, sleeping on double-level bunk beds without mattresses.
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Workers complain that the food at the cafeteria is awful. It has little taste, and is often contaminated with bugs, sand and “juice� from rotten vegetables. On days when the food is especially bad, the workers protest by dumping it on the cafeteria tables.
The cafeteria is filthy and rarely properly cleaned.
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The Workers’ Cafeteria Is Beyond Filthy; Barely Edible and Frequently Rotten Food
Often the food is inedible. No matter how hungry they are, the workers cannot stomach it.
Management does not bat an eye, and has no intention of improving the food.
In the photographs smuggled out of the cafeteria, you can see piles of rotten food dumped on almost every dining table.
ch
Di n
t fas ak
Lu n
So workers protest nearly every day by dumping uneaten food on the cafeteria tables.
Br e
All the workers complain that management cheats them of sufficient cooking oil, leaving their food with little taste. But what is far worse is that they often find bugs, sand and leftover “juice” from rotten vegetables in their food. The cafeteria is filthy, and rarely if ever properly cleaned. Flies are everywhere.
ne
r
Workers wake up to a breakfast of watery noodle soup. Lunch consists of cabbage, stir fried pickles, regular and pickled vegetables and green beans. Dinner is comprised of noodles, vegetables and seaweed. The only serving in the cafeteria which is not limited is the rice. Other than rice, workers are limited to a single serving of all the other food dishes. Despite their hunger, it is common for the workers to dump their rotten food on the cafeteria tables in protest.
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Global-Tech Workers Have No Hope for Their Future And See No Possibility of Change Our researchers asked two workers: “Do you think life will be this hard in the future? Are you going to live like this for the rest of your life?” One worker responded, “We can’t think about it. Because if we do, we might not have the courage to live to see tomorrow’s sunrise.” The other worker responded, “Maybe we don’t make as much back home, but we don’t work so hard and
life isn’t so difficult. We wouldn’t be ordered around by others as if we are livestock and slaves. At the very least we would have family that care and console us. Here we do not know other people well. We are not respected. We work so hard around the clock to live a pitiful life. My parents worked so hard for most of their lives to raise me and let me go to high school, hoping I would have a better life. Turns out my life isn’t much better than my parents’!”
Workers Can Easily Join the Global-Tech Factory, But Getting Out Is Another Story This is how the system operates: Wages are withheld. For example, after working through the month of August, the workers are not paid at the end of the month, on August 31, but rather must wait another three and a half weeks to be paid their August wages on September 25. Similarly, after working through the month of September, the workers are not paid until October 25, and so on. Workers can quit, but management will do everything it can to keep the workers waiting for weeks to receive their last month’s wages including all forced
overtime — and they may never see their final three and a half weeks’ wages. Few workers can afford to walk away and forfeit so much of their time, grueling workloads and wages. One worker told us that of eight workers who were hired together at Global-Tech, six fled within a month, and the remaining two are only waiting to get August’s salary before quitting. The workers may escape, but they will still have to forfeit 25 days’ wages for September.
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Global-Tech Workers Also Cheated of Healthcare and Other Benefits China’s labor laws are very clear. It is mandatory for the Global-Tech management to inscribe its workers in the social insurance programs within 30 days of a worker’s employment. The mandatory insurances cover: pension, unemployment, occupational injury, maternity, medical insurance and a housing stipend. It is a flat-out lie for Global-Tech management to say
that it is “legal” to delay a worker’s inscription in these mandatory insurances until they complete at least one full year of work. As a cover, Global-Tech management does inscribe its workers in an extremely limited and cheap private social insurance scheme which costs 6.7 RMB, or a whopping $1.06 a month.
“Bathroom Democracy” As in most factories across China, the workers have no voice or legal rights. However, when they are alone in the bathroom, they can use magic markers to vent their rage and sorrow.
The security guard is a SOB. Nothing but a watchdog? Acting all puffed up. Damned security guard watch dog!
Sigh! Still a long time before I go home. Run away from this place!
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Time to go. Sigh. These two days have been so difficult. Damned bosses are not human beings.
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Gross Violation of Guandong Province’s Regulations on Payment of Wages Global-Tech management intentionally and illegally fails to list all regular and overtime hours worked each month. Nor are the regular and overtime wage rates clearly stated.
Management deducted 150 RMB ($23.68) from the worker’s wages each month, despite the fact that the food management served was often inedible and frequently rotten.
We estimate the workers toiled 173.33 regular hours in June, and 205.8 overtime hours, for a total of 379.13 hours.
Management’s blatant failure to note all regular and overtime hours worked each month or the wage rates applied is illegal, meaning that Global-Tech management must have powerful friends in local government who take care of them.
This worker earned $271.68 in take-home pay in June and approximately $62.70 for the week, including the excessive forced overtime.
Global-Tech Lite Array pay stub (June 2012)
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[Translation. Currency: RMB] Lite Array
[Work ID number and name]
Work:
21 days
Wage:
1100.00
Overtime stipend:
794.03
2012 June Pay Stub
Seniority:
0
Night shift stipend:
0
Owed wages from last month:
0
Reward:
0
Complimentary stipend:
0
Housing stipend:
0
Travel stipend:
0
Year-end bonus:
0
This Pay (gross):
Food:
150
Utility:
15
TV and telephone:
0
Deposit for uniforms:
0
Reward and fine:
0
Social insurance:
Medical deduction:
0
Fund:
Income tax:
0
Fees:
0.5
Actual income:
1894.03
1720.83
Social Insurance System in China The Social Insurance system in China is controlled at the municipal or provincial level. Here too, sweatshop factories like Global-Tech’s in Dongguan can routinely violate the regulations, which exist on paper but not in reality. The Global-Tech company is 100% responsible for:
• Work-related injury insurance, —Violated • Maternity insurance, —Violated Mandatory insurances for which management and employees are jointly responsible:
• Personal insurance —Violated • Medical insurance —Violated • Unemployment insurance —Violated
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6.7 0
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Would You Like Your Son or Daughter to Work at Global-Tech? Global-Tech management: “Our manufacturing personnel are paid a monthly salary and periodic incentive bonuses and are provided with housing, medical care and subsidized meals in our dormitory complex adjacent to each factory. We have not experienced any significant labor stoppages and we believe that relations with our employees are satisfactory.” - Global-Tech Form 20-F filed with United States Securities and Exchange Commission For fiscal year ended March 31, 2012
Global-Tech in China “One of the Strictest Labor Laws in the World!” This is certainly a “Tale of Two Cities” where Global-Tech management states that the Chinese government’s Labor Contract Law is “considered one of the strictest labor laws in the world!” But this would come as a shock to Global-Tech’s over 4,000 workers, who are forced to toil grueling hours, seven days a week, under brutal sweatshop conditions, where every single labor right on paper is grossly violated. China’s Labor Contract Law went into effect on January 1, 2008, and was meant to “regulate the hours employees may work on a daily and weekly basis; regulate working conditions such as safety and hygiene; and provide for various social welfare and employment benefits,” all of which is a complete fantasy given the brutal sweatshop conditions the Global-Tech workers endure.
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“They steal our technology, they hack into our computers — they also steal our know-how, our patents. This is wrong. We are going to crack down on China when they manipulate their currency, when they steal our goods, and when they don’t protect intellectual property. We’re going to make sure China understands we mean business.”
- Mitt Romney, September 13, 2012 Speech in Fairfax, VA “We will not let China continue to steal jobs from the United States of America.”
- Mitt Romney, February 16, 2012 Speech in Farrington Hills, MI
But Mr. Romney and Bain Capital were investing millions in China....
The New York Times reported that late last year “...a Bainrun fund in which a Romney family blind trust has holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese company.”
“Mr. Romney’s “fortune is still closely linked to the [Bain] company.” - New York Times, September 15, 2012
Such surveillance companies are often used to spy on the Chinese people. - New York Times, March 15, 2012
The Boston Globe is now reporting: “Romney also has between $500,000 and $1 million invested in a Bain Capital fund that has been used to purchase shares of GOME, a Chinese electronics company, according to financial disclosure form Romney filed in June. That company — in which Bain has been one of the largest outside shareholders — is being sued by Microsoft Corp. for selling computers with pirated versions of its Windows and Office software.” - The Boston Globe, September 15, 2012
Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
Dark Beginnings: When Mr. Romney launched Bain Capital in 1983, 40 percent of the initial outside funding was provided by two families who were part of the Salvadoran oligarchy, and allegedly with ties to the Salvadoran Death Squads. - Huffington Post, August 8, 2012
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Global-Tech’s Hong Kong Headquarters: Global-Tech Advanced Innovations Inc. 12/F., Kin Teck Industrial Building 26 Wong Chuk Hang Road Aberdeen, Hong Kong Tel.: (852) 2814-0601 Fax: (852) 2873-0591 www.global-webpage.com
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About the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights is a non-profit 501(c)(3) human rights organization dedicated to the promotion and defense of internationally recognized worker rights in the global economy. Founded in 1981 as the National Labor Committee, the Institute’s research, in-depth reports, high profile public campaigns and widespread media coverage have been instrumental in creating the anti-sweatshop movement in the United States and internationally. The Institute is headquartered in Pittsburgh with regional offices in Dhaka and San Salvador and research/advocacy partnerships in China, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Central America, Mexico and many other countries. The Institute’s director, Charles Kernaghan, testified before the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on July 31, 2012 regarding human and worker rights abuses in Chinese factories producing for the U.S. and European market.
Mission We believe that worker rights are human rights. The mission of the Institute is to promote and defend human, women’s and workers’ rights in the global economy. With a widespread and highly experienced team of international researchers and advocates, the Institute responds to appeals for support from exploited workers all over the developing world who produce goods for export to the U.S. and Europe. The Institute undertakes in-depth research, public education and popular campaigns that empower consumers and citizens to speak up for workers struggling to defend their most basic rights. As workers across the developing world fight for their right to work in dignity, to earn a living wage and to organize independent unions, the Institute will provide solidarity and international visibility, and we will continue to demand that corporations be held legally accountable to respect core internationally recognized worker rights standards. Other reports on China by the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (partial list) VTech Sweatshop in China: AT&T, Motorola, Wal-Mart and others endorse the China model JUNE 2012
Holiday Toys for Hasbro and RC2— including Bratz Dolls Made in Abusive Chinese Sweatshop DECEMBER 2008
New Balance Goes to China - A Rare Glimpse Inside the Emerging New Corporate World Order FEBRUARY 2006
Holidays by Hasbro: Transformers from Hell DECEMBER 2011
Nightmare on Sesame Street JULY 2008
Sweatshop Toys Made in China DECEMBER 2005
A Wal-Mart Christmas DECEMBER 2007
Disney in China AUGUST 2005
Today Workers Bear the Cross NOVEMBER 2007
Timberland in China DECEMBER 2004
Toys of Misery NOVEMBER2007
Made in China. The Role of U.S. Companies in Denying Human and Worker Rights MAY 2000
Dirty Parts/Where Lost Fingers Come Cheap: Ford in China MARCH 2011 U.S.-Owned High Tech Jabil Factory in China Runs Like Minimum Security Prison Producing for Whirlpool, GE, HP JUNE 2010
Olympic Sweatshop OCTOBER2007
China's Youth Meet Microsoft APRIL 2010
Broken Lives FEBRUARY2007
High Tech Misery in China FEBRUARY 2009
The Sweatshop Behind the Bratz DECEMBER 2006
Toys of Misery Made in Abusive Chinese Sweatshops DECEMBER 2008
Goodyear and Bridgestone in China NOVEMBER 2006
Behind the Labels: Made in China MARCH 1998
Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights