Archive for November, 2007
BY EDGAR SANDOVAL and BILL HUTCHINSONDAILY NEWS WRITERS
Wednesday, November 21st 2007
Two of the city's iconic religious institutions - St. Patrick's Cathedral and Trinity Church - were slammed Tuesday for selling crucifixes allegedly manufactured in Chinese sweatshops.
The National Labor Committee claimed crosses sold in the churches' gift shops were made by women and children working under deplorable conditions for as little as 26 cents an hour.
Outside St. Pat's, the committee's director Charles Kernaghan held up a crucifixand said it was made by a girl forced to work 151/2 hours a day, seven days a week for 9 cents an hour.
Officials at St. Patrick's and Trinity Church said they were unaware of the allegations and removed the items from the gift shops.
Joe Zwilling, spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said an investigation is underway but blasted Kernaghan for not contacting the archdiocese before using St. Patrick's "as a prop."
"He's trying to exploit the cathedral, quite frankly," he said.
The crucifixes for both gift shops were supplied by the Singer Co. of Long Island City, Queens. Owner Gerald Singer said the items were manufactured by Full Start Ltd., a Chinese company that promised not to use child labor.
"If it turns out that they were made in a sweatshop then that's the end of our relationship," he told The News.
ST. PAT'S, TRINITY PULL ITEMS FROM 'SWEATSHOP'
By JOHN MAZOR and ANDY SOLTIS
November 21, 2007 -- St. Patrick's Cathedral and Trinity Church pulled crucifixes from their gift shops yesterday after an activist group charged the crosses were made in appalling Chinese sweatshops.
The National Labor Committee said girls as young as 15 made the wooden crosses, working up to 15½ hours a day - for 26.5 cents an hour - at the Junxingye factory in southern China.
The group's director, Charles Kernaghan, accused a Queens distributor of "sneaking these things into the United States."
He also charged that St. Patrick's and Trinity, two of the city's most prestigious churches, had failed to detect the "abusive and illegal conditions under which their crucifixes were made."
"If they can't get it right, who is going to get it right?" Kernaghan said.
Church officials said they were checking into the allegations.
Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Archdiocese, said officials at St. Patrick's gift shop have "removed the crucifixes while they try to gather facts."
Trinity Church also pulled the crucifixes. "We don't associate with sweatshops," said Diane Reed, a spokesman for the Episcopal church. "We're very selective about the products that we carry."
The church's supplier, the Singer Co. of Long Island City, said it had been dealing for seven years with a Chinese firm, Full Start Ltd., and not with the Junxingye factory.
"We told them from the beginning that we don't tolerate sweatshops," said the company's president, Gerald Singer.
The firm is contacting Full Start's office in Hong Kong to determine where the crucifixes came from, he said.
Reed said Trinity Church officials believed the crucifixes were made in Italy.
Singer officials said they didn't know how the church came to that conclusion.
"We know they're made in China," Singer said. "As far as we know, it is not in a sweatshop and has never been one."
Singer and church officials said they knew nothing about the charges until Kernaghan held a press conference in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral yesterday. "It seems to me as if this individual was trying to exploit the cathedral as way of calling attention to himself and his cause," Zwilling said.
The National Labor Committee issued a 73-page report describing how the factory workers live on "awful" company food and sleep in primitive dorms.
After being charged for the food and dorms, their take-home pay is nine cents an hour, the report said.
Kernaghan said the crucifixes were sold at markups of up to 1,000 percent.
By VERENA DOBNIK
NEW YORK (AP) — A labor rights group alleged Tuesday that crucifixes sold in religious gift shops in the U.S. are produced under "horrific" conditions in a Chinese factory with more than 15-hour work days and inadequate food.
"It's a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.
Kernaghan held a news conference in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong, where he said crosses sold at the historic church and elsewhere are made.
Spokespeople for St. Patrick's and another New York landmark, the Episcopal Trinity Church at Wall Street, said the churches had removed dozens of crucifixes from their shops while they investigate the claims.
"I don't think they have a clue where these crucifixes were made — in horrific work conditions," Kernaghan said.
Kernaghan said the factory's mostly young, female employees work from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week and are paid 26 cents an hour with no sick days or vacation. Workers live in filthy dormitories and are fed a watery "slop."
Kernaghan said factory workers took photos and smuggled out documents detailing practices there. While none of the crucifixes sold in New York were identified as made in China, they bore serial numbers matching products made at the factory in question, Kernaghan said.
Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for St. Patrick's, said church officials had not heard about the issue before Tuesday. Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been "under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy."
St. Patrick's and Trinity bought the crosses from the Singer Co., a religious goods company based in suburban Mount Vernon. Co-owner Gerald Singer said the religious objects were made in China and purchased through a Chinese manufacturer called Full Start.
"Whether they came out of a sweatshop, we do not know," Singer said. "We asked Full Start to sign off that there are no sweatshop conditions involved, and no children and that they abide by Chinese law. This is a black eye for us."
An after-hours call to a U.S. office of Full Start Ltd. in East Providence, R.I., was not immediately returned Tuesday.
A man at the Full Start factory in Dongguan said the allegations were "totally incorrect."
The working conditions at the factory were "fine," said the man, who refused to give his name. The 200-plus employees work from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day, with an hour and a half break for lunch, he said.
The employees were rarely asked to work overtime, but were compensated when they did, he said. When pressed for more details, the man said he wasn't in charge of those issues and hung up the phone.
Kernaghan said the crosses were exhibited at an annual trade show organized by the Association for Christian Retail, a Colorado-based trade association that works with thousands of religious stores across the country.
Bill Anderson, president and chief executive of the Christian trade association, issued a statement saying: "While we occasionally hear this issue raised, and believe there are factories in China where human rights are violated, we believe claims that products sold through CBA member stores are made in these shops are irresponsible and unfounded."
Dongguan lies at the center of China's export manufacturing industry, which relies heavily on low wages to remain competitive. Factories there have been accused in the past of labor abuses, including those making products for McDonald's, Disney, Mattel and the Beijing Olympics.
Associated Press Writer Anita Chang in Beijing contributed to this report.
By SARAH GARLANDStaff Reporter of the SunNovember 21, 2007
Crucifixes sold by some of New York's most prominent churches may have been made by children slaving in Chinese sweatshops, a new report by the National Labor Committee says.
The report accuses a manufacturer of religious goods, the Singer Co., of outsourcing production to China, where it says young women making the wooden crosses were forced to toil under harsh conditions for 100 hours a week. They were paid 26 cents an hour, according to the report, which is based on production orders and pictures smuggled out of factories gathered by an anonymous third party that the advocacy group declined to identify, citing human rights conditions in China.
"It's ironic these crosses are made by workers in China who have no religious freedom," the director of the National Labor Committee, Charles Kernaghan, said.
The report also accuses a major trade association for purveyors of religious goods, the Association for Christian Retail, of knowing about the practice.
The president and CEO of the trade group, Bill Anderson, called the report's accusations "irresponsible and unfounded."
"Most of our suppliers as well as many of our retailers make regular visits to the Orient to ensure quality control as well as inspect working conditions. While they cannot be 100% certain, our suppliers are confident they are offering products made in factories where workers are treated fairly," he said.
A woman who answered the phone at the Singer Co., who did not identify herself, said, "We do not deal with any sweatshops in China."
St. Patrick's Cathedral and Trinity Church both sell crucifixes made by the company, according to the National Labor Committee.
The labor group said it did not contact the churches ahead of releasing the report.
A spokeswoman for Trinity Church, Diane Reed, said the church had been told by Singer that the crucifixes were made in Italy.
"We're very selective about the products that we carry. We don't associate with sweatshops," she said, adding: "We're pulling the products from the shelves until we can determine the source of origin."
St. Patrick's Cathedral directed requests for comment to the Archdiocese of New York. A spokesman, Joseph Zwilling, said he believed the report "was an attempt to exploit the Cathedral."
"This is something that he did not attempt to discuss with us beforehand. At this point, it's not something we can say anything about," he said. St. Patrick's gift shop has removed the crucifixes while it checks into the allegations.
By JOHN SULLIVANNovember 21, 2007
A workers’ rights group yesterday accused St. Patrick’s Cathedral of selling religious items made under terrible conditions in sweatshop factories in China.
The group, the National Labor Committee, which has unearthed past examples of abusive work conditions, said it had bought crucifixes in the Roman Catholic cathedral that had been assembled by workers toiling under deplorable conditions. At a morning news conference outside St. Patrick’s, Charles Kernaghan, the group’s executive director, brandished one of the crucifixes from the shop.
“It is immoral, it is unjust and it has to change,” he said.
Mr. Kernaghan, a veteran of battles with industries over the treatment of foreign workers, said the six-inch wooden crucifix and other religious articles were frequently made by women who toiled for pennies an hour in an unrelenting grind of assembly work.
Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said yesterday that the archdiocese would investigate the charges. He said that Mr. Kernaghan’s news conference was the first time he had heard of the claim, adding that the gift shop buys its items from a variety of religious dealers.
“I am sure the cathedral gift shop directors will look into this now that it has been raised,” Mr. Zweilling said. “I don’t know at this point what the facts are.”
Mr. Kernaghan listed his charges of labor abuse: He said the women work seven days a week, 100 hours per week, with no days off, adding that they get meager soup to eat while staying in primitive dormitories with filthy walls and moss on the floor.
“I believe that St. Patrick’s Cathedral has no idea about the conditions under which these crucifixes are made,” he said. “I think now that they do, they will act immediately, decisively and with compassion to clean up these factories.”
A spokeswoman for the United Nations mission for the People’s Republic of China referred questions to the country’s embassy in Washington. The embassy did not respond to a voice-mail message left yesterday.
Mr. Kernaghan acknowledged that information on the factories was sketchy, particularly when it comes to matching particular products with specific factories. The only proof he had regarding the crucifix at St. Patrick’s is a serial number that matches a factory work order, and a picture that looks similar to the crucifix he held at the news conference.
“This stuff is all anecdotal,” he said. “It comes to us from the workers.”
Bill Anderson, president of the Association for Christian Retail, a trade group, said in a statement yesterday that Mr. Kernaghan’s claims about manufacture of religious items overseas were “unfounded and irresponsible.” He said the group has never received concrete proof that items sold by its members were manufactured in sweatshops. In fact, he said, the organization’s members make regular trips to overseas factories to “ensure quality control as well as inspect working conditions.”
Mr. Kernaghan said the crucifix from the cathedral’s gift shop appeared to have been sold by the Singer Company of Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Gerald Singer, whose family has owned the business since 1940, said that about 25 percent of his company’s items were made in China, and that the company had worked with a manufacturer there for the past seven years without any problems. He said the manufacturer was having trouble meeting an order earlier this year and might have sent out the work for another company to do.
Although Mr. Singer said there was no proof that the item had been made under poor conditions, he said, “We don’t condone nor would we allow any of our products to be made in a sweatshop.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASETUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2007, 10:30 A.M.
CONTACT: Barbara Briggs 212-242-3002 (NLC office) 412-417-9384 (cell)
We all know that fashion executives and supermodels live in excess on seven-figure salaries, while garment workers remain - systematically, across the world - mired in a poverty trap. This winter, LBL is calling on the fashion industry - and four companies in particular - to finally live up to its promise to pay workers a living wage.
Workers toil in misery at the Junxingye Factory in Dongguan, China producing crosses for Saint Patrick's Cathedral and Trinity Church.
Crucifixes Made Under Horrific Sweatshop Conditions in China
“Jesus, take pity on me! I’m going to die of exhaustion.”--Chinese worker after 19-hour shift
Sweatshop Crucifixes Sold at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Trinity Church, and Nationally by the Association for Christian Retail
November 2007
Click Here for a Printable Version of this Report
Click Here to a View a List of Recent Articles and Reports from China
Click Here to Read the November 20th Press Release on the Sweatshop Crosses
Press Coverage of the Sweatshop Crucifixes
NLC Response/Update (November 21, 2007)
Read Archdiocese's Letter to the National Labor Committee and NLC Director Charles Kernaghan's Response (12/16/2007)
LabourStart headline - Source: ICEM
