Reported By: Tom Porter

Some of Maine's tax dollars are being spent on garments made in sweatshops.  That's among the findings of a study released today by the non-profit group SweatFree Communities. The report, Subsidizing Sweatshops 2, is the follow-up to a study released last summer into conditions at some of the factories where police and military uniforms are made. 

It finds that Maine state police uniforms are made in factories in the Dominican Republic which operate under sweatshop conditions, says Jesse Stewart, who helped compile the report.  "Workers at this factory told us that they are forced to toil for poverty wages in unhealthy working conditions and must meet productions quotas to earn desperately-needed bonuses."

The factory in question is run by a manufacturer called Suprema, which is owned by Missouri-based Propper International.

Stewart says the report found that workers who complained too much were fired.  And, he adds, this is exactly what seems to have happened to one female worker who gave evidence for the study.  "According to reports from our investigators, she was fired for associating with members of the legally registered union at the company. Sonia was a single mother with four children who had worked seven years at the Suprema factory."

Workers at the three Suprema factories in the Dominican are able to earn about $300 a month if they earn a production bonus, and as little $124 dollars a month if they don't, according to the study.  A living wage for a family in the Dominican is estimated to be around $550 a month.

Closer to home, another company under fire in the report is Eagle Industries which operates a factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where, among other things, workers have expressed concern over the harassment of union supporters. Propper International and Eagle Industries did not return calls seeking comment for this story. In all, the 60-page report includes interviews with 100 workers from eight factories in five countries.

"This report is a call to action," says Bjorn Claeson, the report's principal author.  Sweatshops, he says, are both ethically and economically wrong.  "It is time that we use our tax dollars to support decent jobs and industries manufacturing uniforms and other products bought by government agencies. This is not just a moral imperative. It also an economic necessity, especially in an economic crisis, because the best stimulus for our economy and the global economy is higher wages and better conditions for low income workers."

The purchase of state trooper uniforms notwithstanding, Claeson says Maine is leading the way in making companies accountable for goods made in sweatshops.  "Here in Maine we're pleased that our state government has long been in the forefront of the sweat-free movement, passing the first ethical purchasing law in 2001, and leading the development of the sweat-free purchasing consortium."

"The law has helped to create a more transparent garment industry through its requirement that vendors disclose the names and locations of the manufacturing facilities where the goods they sell to the state were made," says Lee Sharky, who heads the University of Maine at Farmington's Purchasing Policy Practices Committee. "This information can be used to connect the dots between factories where sweatshop abuses occur, and garments that the state may have purchased or be considering purchasing."

Maine's comparatively firm stance on the sweatshop issue caused Betty Lamoreau, the state's procurement director, to fire off a letter this week to the company that supplies the state police uniforms, requesting an investigation of worker conditions at the Dominican factories, and if necessary the re-instatement of  the dismissed employee.

Maine is doing pretty much everything it can on its own to combat sweatshops, says Bjorn Claeson.  What it must do now is lean on other states to follow suit.  "What we need to address this issue effectively is collaboration among different states who can pool their resources and purchasing power, so we can monitor the factories and so we can press for improvements."

Maine is among eight states that, along with around 40 cities, have made a commitment to stop purchasing from sweatshops.