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1 These reports have been requested by the Appropriations Committees of the United States Congress. See Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, P. L. 104- 208 (September 30, 1996); S. Rpt. 104- 368, Depart- ments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 1997. ILAB's first three reports are: By the Sweat and Toil of Children (Volume I): The Use of Child Labor in U. S. Manu- facturing and Mining Imports (1994) [hereinafter By the Sweat and Toil of Children, vol. I]; By the Sweat and Toil of Children (Volume II): The Use of Child Labor in U. S. Agricultural Imports & Forced and Bonded Labor (1995) [hereinafter By the Sweat and Toil of Children, vol. II]; and The Apparel Industry and Codes of Conduct: A Solution to the International Child Labor Problem? (1996) [hereinafter The Apparel Industry]. In addition, in March 1996, ILAB published Forced Labor: The Prostitution of Children , the proceedings of a symposium held at the Depart- ment of Labor in September 1995 on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Return to Document 7 See Child Labour: What is to be done? (Geneva: International Labor Organization, June 12, 1996) 27. The minimum age standard is largely unchanged from the earliest ILO child labor conventions in 1919. Return to Document 8 See Child Labour: Targeting the Intolerable (Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1996) [hereinafter Target- ing the Intolerable]; Trade, Employment and Labour Standards: A study of core workers' rights and international trade (Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, May 14, 1996) 19- 21. Return to Document 9 International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) Brochure (Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1996). Return to Document 10 Targeting the Intolerable at 7. Return to Document 11 Child Labour Today: Facts and Figures (Geneva: International Labor Organization, ILO/ CLK/ 1, June 10, 1996) 1 [hereinafter Child Labour Today: Facts and Figures]. Return to Document 12 Child Labour Today: Facts and Figures. The ILO is currently working to develop better statistical information on child labor. Experimental statistical surveys have been carried out by the ILO in Ghana, India, Indonesia and Senegal. See Child Labor Surveys, Results of Methodological Experiments in Four Countries 1992- 93 (Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1996). The ILO's IPEC program has completed national child labor surveys in other countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Turkey. Return to Document 13 Status Report on the Use of Environmental Labels Worldwide (Washington, DC: Environmental Protection Agency, 1993) 9. See also ILO Labeling Report at 3. Return to Document 14 In the United States, a number of labels are mandated by statute, such as country of origin for imports, the labeling of tobacco products and alcoholic beverages with respect to health, and nutritional labeling for packaged foods. There is now legislation pending in the U. S. Congress that would establish a "Child Labor Commission" and require the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations governing the use of child labor- free product labels. See "Child Labor Free Consumer Information Act of 1997," S. 554 (105th Congress, 1st Session) introduced on April 10, 1997. Senator Tom Harkin (D- IA) and Representative George Miller (D- CA) are the sponsors of the legislation. Return to Document 15 "A Hard- Headed Look at Labor Standards" at 28. Return to Document 16 John Graham Brooks, "The Trade Union Label," Bulletin of the Department of Labor 15 (March, 1898) 197. Brooks also observes that while there was some interest in the union label in Canada, there was little interest in it elsewhere. Return to Document 17 Ernest R. Spedden, "The Trade- Union Label," Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science , no. 2 (1910) 10 [hereinafter Spedden]. Return to Document 18 Spedden at 10. The San Francisco union continued to use the white label until 1884, when it was replaced by the label of the Cigar Makers' International Union. Spedden at 12. Return to Document 19 The union also printed a circular to encourage the public to buy their cigars and purchase only those bearing the union label. In addition, the label was not to be used on cigars made in tenement houses or penitentiaries. Spedden at 13- 14. Return to Document 20 Spedden at 14- 15. Return to Document 21 The Order of the Knights of Labor was an early national labor organization founded by a Philadelphia tailor, Uriah Stephens, in 1869. The Order believed that the power exercised by workers as consumers, if they could be united, would be far greater than just as employees. In 1884, the Order adopted a white label which bore the legend that the goods had not been made by convict, contract, or slave labor. The label was used by a variety of associations affiliated with the Order, including cigar, shoe, garment, button, bakery goods makers. The Order, which advocated the legal prohibition of child labor, gained some prominence in the 1870s and 1880s under the leadership of Terence Powderly, but eventually waned with the rise of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions led by Samuel Gompers. Return to Document 22 "The term sweatshop then was peculiar to the clothing industry; manufacturers often sent out sewing to be done in an employee's home or in a subcontractor's loft or basement. The wages were low, the hours long, and the conditions of work frightful: a small, dark, dirty room crowded with women and children, all trying desper- ately to earn enough to survive." George Martin, Madam Secretary Frances Perkins: A Biography of America's First Woman Cabinet Member (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976) 52. A more current definition of a sweatshop is "An employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers compensation or industry regulations." See Garment Industry: Efforts to Address the Prevalence and Conditions of Sweatshops , Letter Report, GAO/ HEHS- 95- 29 (Washington, DC: U. S. General Accounting Office, November 2, 1994). Return to Document 23 National Consumers Committee for Research and Education, Consumer Activists: They Make a Difference; A History of Consumer Action Related by Leaders in the Consumer Movement (New York: National Consumers Com- mittee for Research and Education, 1982) 344 [hereinafter NCCRE Report]. The predecessors of the National Consumers League included the Consumers League of New York City and other local leagues formed in the 1890s in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Return to Document 24 Cited in Maud Nathan, The Story of an Epoch- Making Movement (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1926) 129 [hereinafter Nathan]. Return to Document 25 Id. at 27. Return to Document 26 Id. at 46. Return to Document 27 In 1907, nine years after the White Label came into use, the problem of child labor in the garment industry persisted. A reporter described it this way: "In the rush times of the year, preparing for the changes of seasons or for the great 'white sales, ' there are no idle fingers in the sweatshops. A little child of 'seven times one' can be very useful in threading needles, in cutting the loose threads left on, or for any stitch broken by the little bungling fingers. The light is not good, but baby eyes must 'look sharp. ' In New York City alone, 60,000 children are shut up in the home sweatshops. This is a conservative estimate, based upon a recent investigation of the Lower East side of Manhattan Island, south of 14th Street and east of the Bowery. Many of this immense host will never sit on a school bench." Edwin Markham, "Labor Force: Children," from Cosmopolitan Magazine (January 1907), re- printed in Out of the Sweatshop: the Struggle for Industrial Democracy , Leon Stein, ed., (New York: The New York Times Book Company, 1977) 24. Return to Document 28 Nathan at 67. Return to Document 29 See generally , Jean- Paul Sajhou, Business Ethics in the Textile, Clothing and Footwear (TCF) Industries: Codes of Conduct (Geneva: International Labor Organization, Industrial Activities Branch, 1997). Return to Document 30 The term "code of conduct" is used generically in this report to refer to various types of corporate documents establishing policies and standards on child labor and other working conditions. These instruments take different forms — codes of conduct, statements of company policy in the form of letters to suppliers, provisions in purchase orders or letters of credit, and/or compliance certificates. See The Apparel Industry for further discussion. Return to Document 31 Members of the Apparel Industry Partnership are: Business for Social Responsibility; Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; International Labor Rights Fund; Kathie Lee Gifford; Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; Liz Claiborne, Inc.; LL Bean; National Consumers League; Nicole Miller; Nike, Inc.; Patagonia; Phillips Van- Heusen; Reebok International Ltd.; Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union; Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights; Tweeds Inc.; and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). Return to Document 32 See By the Sweat and Toil of Children, volumes I and II. The legislative mandate for this report (Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, P. L. 104- 208) states that "the sectors reviewed shall be based upon those products identified in volumes I and II of By the Sweat and Toil of Children." Return to Document 33 Federal Register (Vol. 62, No. 57, March 25, 1997) 14164-14165. Return to Document 34 Of the 49 companies, there were 23 importers/ manufacturers, 22 retailers and 4 importers/ retailers. Return to Document 35 Of the 36 companies responding to the survey, there were 22 importers/ manufacturers, 10 retailers and 4 importers/ retailers. Over half the retailers surveyed chose not to respond. Return to Document This report was produced by the staff of the International Child Labor Program and is published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs.
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