“We worked in cramped conditions from seven in the morning until after midnight most days,” says Olga Cruz, a 31-year-old former sweatshop worker, as she hacks away at dozens of chicken carcasses sending splashes of meat juice in my direction.
She is preparing lunch for the 120 regulars who overrun the Alameda soup kitchen in Parque Avellaneda every day. Olga worked for six years fabricating clothes in a micro-sweatshop. With the help of the Alameda, a cooperative set up by local initiative to fight against illegal textile workshops, Olga, along with many other textile factory immigrants in Buenos Aires, was able to free herself sweatshop slavery. She now works in the Alameda’s small textile production unit and soup kitchen.
As the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which prohibits slavery in all its forms, celebrated its 60th anniversary in December last year, sweatshop labour in the Argentine capital continues to flourish.
In Buenos Aires city there are an estimated 25,000 illegal immigrants working 16 hours a days in inhumane, unsanitary and crowded conditions in over 4,000 clandestine textile workshops fabricating clothes for the majority of Argentina’s high-street labels.
Olga, from Sucre in south Bolivia, recalls the conditions in the clandestine workshops. “We lived and worked in the factory and were only allowed to leave occasionally as the factory owner didn’t want us to be seen too much around the neighbourhood.”
These micro-sweatshops are conspicuously set up in houses and flats. They are small, overcrowded and as concealed as possible from the public eye.
“All the workers and their families slept and ate together amongst the machines,” says Olga ripping apart more chickens. The hygiene and safety levels of the factories are below standard meaning that disease spreads quickly and work accidents are commonplace.
“We were given bread, egg and sometimes a sausage for lunch. I had to share my portion with my children as they were too young to work.” Olga remembers the harsh rules set by the factory owner: those who don’t work, don’t eat.
The worker has no contract and no standard employment practices are adhered to. Sometimes workers receive pay, sometimes not. The only contract they may be forced to sign states that they will stick around for a minimum time, usually three years, and will not talk to the police.
The workers are isolated and victimised and have little option of escaping. Their documents are often taken away from them when they arrive; they are illegal immigrants with limited rights in Argentina. “We just kept silent about the workshop, as we knew we didn’t have any documents and we didn’t know where to go for help.”
Workshop owners bribe policemen to keep quiet. Olga describes how bribes were carried out in front of her and fellow workers. Seeing that the police were also against them made them realise the hopelessness of their situation.
Even the former Bolivian Consul, Álvaro González Quint, was accused of being in on the act and taking his share of pay-offs. Many Bolivian immigrants claim that when they went to the consul to report clandestine workshops they were told to sign an agreement of silence in exchange for a few pesos.
“I came here alone, but many Bolivians are brought here by the factory owners. They see adverts in newspapers in Bolivia, promising them work, a place to live and food,” says Olga as she throws the chicken pieces into a huge cauldron. Many workers who arrive in this way have to pay the owner for transport costs so their first months’ wages are used to pay off debts.
Another Bolivian lady, María Vásquez, from behind a mound of carrots, tells me how she arrived. “I came with my husband and new-born baby,” she begins. “One of my husband’s relatives owned a workshop and she wrote to us telling us we could come and work with her and that she would give us food and a home.”
Usually the owners of workshops are also illegal immigrants. They earn little more than the workers themselves and subject the workers to such horrific conditions because they, exploited by the big labels, don’t have the resources to do differently.
La Alameda
Olga and María are two of the hundreds of immigrant workers who have been able to escape the vicious circle of slave labour with the help of the Alameda.
The Alameda is a community organisation that was set up in the midst of the 2001 economic crisis. It opened initially as a soup kitchen to feed the Avellaneda residents who had lost jobs and were living without a wage.
Word spread about the soup kitchen and it began to attract the immigrant community, mainly Bolivians and mainly sweatshop workers.
As the workers became more confident they began to open up and talk about the conditions in which they were working and living. The Alameda facilitated an initiative to set up a textile workers’ union to help the sweatshop workers liberate themselves from exploitation.
By providing professional legal advice and the necessary resources, the Alameda has helped many immigrants create legal cases to report sweatshops, leading to their closure or legitimisation.
Olga tells me how she collected evidence to pull together a case against the factory where she worked. “I wore a hidden camera and recorded images of the working and living conditions.”
The Alameda also runs a small textile factory fabricating their own brand of t-shirts with the logo ‘Mundo Alameda’, as well as commissions from several local designers.
Gustavo Vera, a school teacher who runs the activities of the Alameda, explains how the situation of clandestine micro-sweatshops became so extended in Argentina.
Vera says that the government has knowingly tolerated the operation of clandestine workshops for years. “The government is capitalist, classist and bourgeoisie, therefore their interests lie in protecting the big labels who are making huge profit margins by fabricating their clothes in these workshops.
“Besides, the state wants to keep production of Argentine textiles inside the country, and clamping down on micro-sweatshops in Buenos Aires will undoubtedly mean fabrication moves to cheaper neighbouring countries.”
Additionally, a lack of awareness amongst the public has allowed workshops to exist without causing controversy. “There are two myths concerning micro-sweatshops, both supported by the media who also act favourably to large labels which they rely on for advertising. The first is that sweatshop production is associated with fakes, which are unfair competition to the real designers. And the second is that price reflects the fabrication process of clothes.
“However, in reality it is the big well-known labels that use sweatshops, and the price a consumer pays has no correlation to the wage the worker in a factory receives.”
Finally, Vera points out that the workers themselves are often unaware of their rights. “Workers don’t know how to escape and often reach a point where they find their situation normal and don’t realise they are enslaved.”
Last year the Alameda helped to process the closure of over 200 clandestine workshops. The organisation has reported cases against more than 80 high-street labels, mostly Argentine, including Kosiuko, Montagne and Cheeky.
The organisation has been threatened numerous times by workshop owners, who have even tried to burn down the community centre.
Although Vera is critical of the state’s tolerance of clandestine workshops in Buenos Aires, he recognises the change in attitude that occurred after a sweatshop fire in March 2006 resulted in six deaths.
The fire, at Luis Viale 1269 in Caballito, was triggered by a short circuit due to unsafe and excessive electrical wiring in the workshop where over 60 immigrants worked. Four of the six killed were children, who had been locked in a room so they would not disturb the work.
“The fire caused public outrage and the government could not continue turning a blind eye to the abundant clandestine workshops in the city.”
Although the Alameda works in collaboration with the government and justice system, the ideologically differing institutions have clashed on several occasions.
The forgotten law
Labour law 12.713, denominated ‘trabajo a domicilio’ (home-based work), effective since 1942, aims to protect workers in situations vulnerable to exploitation.
The law applies to those working under informal contracts either from home or in the home of their ‘employer’ and obliges both workers and ‘employers’ to adhere to certain labour practices. It states that hours of work and wages should be recorded and levels of hygiene and safety should be applied and even imposes fines and short prison sentences to those in breach of the law.
However, for such a law to serve any purpose it must be endorsed and implemented by a political and judicial system, which was not the case for many years in Argentina.
Following the accident at Luis Viale, the government tried to reform this law. Labour Minister, Carlos Tomada, wanted to modify the law to force workshop owners to turn their workshops into companies and the immigrant workers into formal employees.
The Alamada fought against this legal reform. Vera explains: “This reform intends to place all the responsibility for the workshop on the workshop owner. The owners, however, are in the same boat as the workers. They are exploited by the big labels and paid a pittance to produce clothes; in turn they have no choice but to exploit the workers.
“The reform aims to remove all liability from the labels, which would no longer be directly linked to the workers only the factory owners.”
The Bolivian Consul
Bolivian workers who manage to escape the micro-sweatshops often use the consulate as their first port of call.
They arrive with complaints of mistreatment or being owed wages by the factory owner. Consul Jose Alberto González tells me that the consulate does not act as an intermediary in disputes between the workers and factory owners. The consulate passes such reports directly to the authorities.
I ask him about the accusations that his predecessor, Álvaro González Quint, collaborated with workshop owners to keep workers quiet. “The former consul dealt with conflicts informally here in the consulate, which often resulted in the factory owner settling unpaid wages with the worker.”
González is not convinced of the effectiveness of any of the government’s proposals for resolving the situation of clandestine workshops.
Three years ago the government introduced a programme called ‘Patria Grande’ which aimed to facilitate workers to become legitimised. Workers with papers, it was suggested, would not be treated like slaves.
This year the government plans to initiate a new programme with a new name: ‘Buenos Aires Produce’. This time the programme is aimed at legitimising the factories. Workshop owners should participate ‘voluntarily’ (if they chose not to participate in the programme their workshop will be closed down) and will be given a year to bring health and safety standards up to scratch and create separate spaces for working and living.
“The fire at Luis Viale didn’t change anything, Patria Grande didn’t change anything, and Buenos Aires Produce wont change anything either,” says González.
“‘Buenos Aires Produce’, along with other state initiatives to combat the problem, presents the workshop owner as the only baddy. As I understand it, the big labels – who fix the prices taking the greatest slice of the profit for themselves and leaving the workshops, owners and workers, the crumbs – are the real baddies.
“Of course, the workshop owners treat the workers badly and even subject them to slavery, but that is just one side of the reality.
“If ‘Buenos Aires Produce’ goes ahead, the factory owners won’t be able to afford to make the necessary changes to their workshops. They will either be closed down or will move out to the province where the law does not apply.”
Like Vera, González holds the labels responsible for the existence of clandestine workshops, as they are the ones hauling in the huge profits.
According to statistics published by the Alameda, if an item of clothing is sold in a shop for $100, the workshop receives $3.12, of which $1.87 goes to the worker, $0.30 is profit for the workshop owner and $0.95 covers the workshop’s costs. $10 cover the shop’s expenses and $22 are lost to tax. The clothes label takes a profit of $64.88.
González believes that until bosses of the clothes labels that use clandestine workshops to produce their branded garments are present in discussions and reform programmes nothing is going to change.
However, he is not optimistic that this will ever happen. “We live in a capitalist society where everything is about money, money, money. The rich are greedy and the poor have no choice but to be exploited.”
The Bolivian consulate withdrew from the committee organised by the government of Buenos Aires to discuss the clandestine workshops as the committee refused to listen to their request to include the clothes manufacturers in the proposals.
Equality and dignity
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights… No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” Articles one and four of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Having adopted and proclaimed the declaration, the UN General Assembly called on the governments of member states to “disseminate, display, read and expound” the message.
For the sweatshop workers in Buenos Aires as much as this declaration is read and expounded and disseminated, their daily reality will only change if profits are fairly distributed.