Consumers pay a lot of money for expensive designer clothes. These clothes are expensive to purchase but usually cheap to produce. The American consumer is so naïve about cheap labor, that it is frustrating to have any discussion about labor on an international scale. So it was no surprise to me that the public seemed genuinely shocked, to hear that P-Diddy was alleged to be using sweatshops in Latin America for his Sean John Clothing line. In reality, P-Diddy runs the closest thing to a sweat shop for artist in the music industry. I can't imagine he would turn away profits to do what's right, especially in a company someone else runs (the garment factory), when he doesn't run his own ship properly.

The brouhaha started last month when a 19-year-old Honduran apparel worker came to the United States and said that the factory she worked in, producing Sean John clothes had awful working conditions, in other words, it was a "sweatshop". She said Sean Combs was using a sweatshop in Honduras to produce tens of thousands of shirts for his Sean John fashion company. The worker, Lydda Eli Gonzalez, said the factory's managers yelled and cursed at workers, forced them to work unpaid overtime and fired employees for being pregnant. Ms. Gonzalez said employees were ordered not to talk during work hours, needed passes to go to the bathroom, and were generally limited to two bathroom visits a day. Managers also called workers on the loudspeakers if they were in the bathroom more than a few minutes. "They yell at you with gross words. They call you `dog,' `lazy,' `burro.' " There is also a lot of dust in the air. You breath it in, and you go into the factory with black hair, and come out with hair that is white or red or whatever the color of the shirts we are working on." Ms. Gonzalez said the workers earned 90 cents an hour, far too little to support an individual, much less a family. Many afternoons the seamstresses were forced to work two extra hours to try to meet production goals, she said. The workers invariably failed to meet that goal, she said, because Sean John standards were so exacting. As a result, she said, the workers received neither a production bonus nor pay for the extra hours. She said that when workers sought to unionize last summer to improve conditions, she and 14 other outspoken union supporters were suddenly fired.

RESPONSE

Jeff Tweedy, executive vice president of Sean John, the New York-based apparel company run by Mr. Combs, said: "We have absolutely no knowledge of this situation. However, we take these matters very seriously, and we will have our director of compliance look into the matter immediately. That was a political statement that meant little and had no feelings of attachment to the situation. But the boss, P-Diddy seemed more sincere and posed as shocked to hear the allegations against his company. Charles Kernaghan, president of the National Labor Committee (NLC), said that his organization has tried to contact Sean John several times without response. The NLC record shows that Sean John ignored these inquiries until the press came around (The tabloid press has a way of making people respond that others do not). Oddly enough the report that the media chose to use, to decry Sean John business practices also mentioned Rocawear but the press only focused on Sean John and only P-Diddy had a press conference. According to the report, about 80% of the factory production is used for the Sean John clothing line. The other 20% is for Jay-Z and Damon Dash's Rocawear line. Sean John is one of the factory's biggest customers. The plant, in Choloma, Honduras, employs 380 workers who produce long-sleeved T-shirts with "SJ" or "Sean John" emblazoned on them.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT 

P. Diddy promised to launch "his own investigation" into these issues. When Speaking at his news conference , Combs said, "If there is any proof of any wrongdoing, we will terminate our relationship with this factory immediately. I will not tolerate any violation of labor laws at any facility where Sean John is manufactured." This statement was very effective because it appeared P-Diddy was going to the plant in person to see the conditions, or at least going to hire an independent investigator. He did neither. Instead about 48 hours later we hear that the Honduran factory that manufactures the Sean John line of clothing for Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, has been cleared of charges alleging it was a sweatshop. The Honduran Labour Minister German Leitzelar said that the charges were overblown and that the conditions in the factory did not match what he and his inspectors found after a six-hour inspection tour. It was reported that the inspectors toured the facility and uncovered no proof of the sweatshop allegations made by the U.S. based National Labour Committee. Once the press heard that, the story was over for them.

The naïve public apparently does not understand that this is what they were expected to say. The labor minister's prime function is to protect the company and sweatshop owner, not the worker. Negative press means that these foreign companies may pack up and leave, and take the money with them. There are millions of dollars to be made by high-ranking officials of the governments of countries where substandard labor conditions exist. For P-Diddy to say he will investigate the matter and then rely on a report from the labor minister of Honduras is equivalent to Enron paying its auditors millions of dollars, to hear the auditor say everything looks fine.

Steve Hawkins, owner of the factory, added that the factory strictly complied with the laws of the country and maintained good conditions. However, the labor laws of Honduras are much looser and harder on the workers, than the labor laws of America. Mr. Hawkins said, "I never mistreated anybody," but admitted he moved his operation from North Carolina to Honduras because of "pressures" from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Instead the factory owner shifted the focus of complaints to the factory's manager, Delia Cruz, whom he said had recently left the company. "She was much hated and resigned two weeks ago," according to him.

Those of us familiar with working conditions in Latin America understand what the young Honduran worker, Ms. Lydda Eli Gonzales spoke of, and it is nothing strange or new. To dismiss it as some fabrication seems to fly before all the facts. These charges don't just come out of thin air, her description of the work conditions are typical for many working in Latin America. The conditions are often illegal but the law is rarely enforced because the government is fearful that various corporations may leave. In addition, many workers will not complain over the slave like conditions because they just wanted to keep a job and allegations like this don't usually help them. Sometimes the conditions stop altogether because the company moves somewhere else in Latin America or Asia for even cheaper labor. They are then out of a job and the media is gone. The public realizes but does not truly understand the tremendous profit to be made by exploiting cheap labor in other countries. For owners and companies the benefits of globalization mean you don't even have to bring them (cheap laborers) over to your own country on ships anymore. The press is gone but things remain the same. Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee, defended his group's conclusions about Southeast Textiles, saying he and other committee officials had interviewed about 20 workers from the factory. "It's a factory where the workers have zero rights," he said. "It shows the whole charade of monitoring. The workers were ordered not to tell the truth to the monitors, and they knew if they did they would be fired". In the end it boils down to who you believe. Kernaghan and history or the Honduran Labor Minister.

Also Keep in mind that Ms. Gonzalez traveled to New York from Honduras to ask Mr. Combs to pressure the factory's owner to treat the workers better, NOT to shut the factory down. Her trip was sponsored by the National Labor Committee(NLC), a New York-based group that embarrassed The Gap, Kathie Lee Gifford and other major fashion names in exposing sweatshop conditions at factories they used. After several failed attempts at trying to talk with Sean John without the media. It was now time to embarrass yet another company for exploiting slave like labor conditions overseas.

Kathie Lee was embarrassed when a 15-year-old Honduran girl came to the United States in 1996 to describe conditions at a factory making goods for the Kathie Lee line, which was sold at Wal-Mart. Mr. Combs' use of such a factory was more shocking than Kathie Lee Gifford's because the level of profit is much greater. The president of the NLC added, "Sean Combs obviously has a lot of clout, and he can literally do a lot overnight to help these workers, this isn't Kathie Lee selling shirts in Wal-Mart for $5.99. He is selling T-shirts for $40, and you'd expect the workers to be treated better and earn a little more. Unfortunately this is how many of these clothing companies get rich. You must remember: Why have the rich gotten richer while employee income has stagnated? Because that's the way the corporation is designed." What is wrong with immense aggregations of wealth? Isn't that the American way: rags to riches? The problem is that in the corporate world those who hold the wealth (stockholders, owners) do little to create it, while those who actually do the work, the employees of these corporations, get less and less for their labors. Equally as important, if not more so, is the fact, that "corporate capitalism embraces a pre-democratic concept of liberty reserved for property holders, which thrives by restricting the liberty of employees and the community".

Image is everything and anything of substance is either dismissed or flipped on its head, contradictions work for people even when they are obvious. In the end people love Sean John more because of the wealth and opulence of the companies owner, despite how it was garnered. Meanwhile, Rocawear never addresses the sweatshop issue but Ironically, Latin America's greatest martyred freedom fighter Che Guvera has become a symbol of Rockafella's co-founder and greatest artist Jay-Z A.K.A., Sean Carter. Nobody cares that Che Guvera was anti-Rockefeller (the man that the label was partially named after). In the end I think Che summed it up best some years ago, when he said "The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this. "

Released: December 10th, 2003

Editors Note: On 2/14/2004 Charlie Kernaghann International Labor Law advocate announced on Pacifia station that Sean Combs has made "some unprecedented moves in his clothing line practices". He said Combs has been very supportive to many changes unlike Kathie Lee Gifford or Russell Simmons who he has dealt with in the past. Some of the official changes agreed to by Combs include, air conditioning in the factories, 1 day off a week, the firing of the most oppressive managers, and the biggest one, a UNION recognition.

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.