Jesse Stewart, Researcher, SweatFree Communities
As part of collecting worker testimonies for SweatFree Communities' garment industry report Subsidizing Sweatshops (2nd Edition) to be released in April, I recently met with Eagle Industries
workers in New Bedford who manufacture tactical equipment for the US Military. I spoke with a group of about ten workers regarding conditions in the factory and recent worker efforts to unionize the factory in the face of harassment and intimidation by management. I was struck by the eloquence and courage of the workers in publicizing their struggle despite firings and company reactions to worker organizing which have included threats to shut the factory and move operations out of New Bedford.
When I asked workers what changes they have noticed in the factory since US Immigration officers raided it in 2007 and US Attorney Michael Sullivan labeled it "the type of sweatshop you'd read about from the early 1900's," workers responded that conditions have deteriorated further still. "When Eagle bought the factory, everyone thought things would change, but it has been worse," said one worker, a line repeatedly echoed by others. In August of 2008, shortly after management found out that workers where trying to unionize, the company began shutting down some production units and moving them to Puerto Rico. One worker told me that "when the union went public, that is when they started to break up the 400 section [a production unit that was strongly pro-union], and since then there has not been peace in this company, everything has been intimidation, fear, job loss."
In the months that have followed, workers who have publicly voiced their support for the union have been systematically isolated, harassed and threatened with losing their jobs. One woman told me, "If you speak to the person sitting next to you, the supervisor gives you a warning." Another worker was moved from her workstation amidst other workers and isolated in the back of the factory against a wall, where she is unable to talk with anyone, apparently because she was considered pro-union. Workers report that the company institutes a pay scale where employees that do not publicly support the union and friends of the management are given raises and offered overtime work before others, regardless of performance or seniority.
Many workers also have health concerns, especially regarding the operation of heavy machinery in their work areas while they are sewing. One man told me, "they [management] don't care about the health of workers, all they are interested in is production, but they are not checking the machinery, they are not interested in that. They have spoken a lot about security, but they don't put it into practice, because they don't care about worker security." To change all this, workers only see one solution, as one women who has been working for at Eagle for nearly two years said, "our only hope is the union…at the negotiating table the owner will have to give us the time to understand the suffering we have endured for so long, making money for him so he can pocket it and have a good future when our future is bleak." How bleak the future is depends on Eagle Industries staying in New Bedford and respecting worker rights to a union.
For more information on Eagle Industries in New Bedford, please read the complete 2008 report in Subsidizing Sweatshops, or look for the new report to be released in April.
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