White House Task Force Issues Sweatshop Plan

By a narrow majority, a White House task force that includes representatives of Nike and Liz Claiborne issued recommendations Tuesday for eliminating sweatshop labor around the world.

Among the recommendations, approved by 10 of 18 task force members, is a call for creation of an industry-run body that would monitor labor practices of U.S. companies here and abroad.

But it wasn’t clear Tuesday whether the garment industry would support the White House proposal. The American Apparel Manufacturers Assn. and eight task force members, including the labor union Unite, haven’t taken a position on it. The AAMA, an influential trade group, is working on its own plan.

The task force recommendations, developed after two years of often heated debate, come as Nike faces continuing bad publicity for alleged worker abuses at production sites in Vietnam and China.

Roberta Karp, co-chair of the task force and a vice president of Liz Claiborne, said task force members would implement the recommendations with or without the support of the remaining eight members.

“It’s been an arduous and contentious process, but we think this will be the basis for change around the world,” Karp said. “We can’t be effective unless we get other companies to sign up, but we believe we’ll get others on board.”

The task force calls for creation of the Fair Labor Assn., an industry-run body that would inspect labor conditions at factories where goods are being produced by companies participating in the program. Participation is voluntary.

The Fair Labor Assn. would use as a yardstick a code of conduct adopted by the task force last year. The code bans child labor, sets limits on working hours and requires companies to pay the minimum wage and allow independent monitoring. Reports by the Fair Labor Commission would be made public.

President Clinton applauded the recommendations Tuesday. He created the task force, made up of representatives of industry, labor and human rights groups, after a series of scandals, such as the 1995 discovery of Thai nationals enslaved at a sweatshop in El Monte and the 1996 disclosure of child labor at a Honduras plant that produced some of Wal-Mart’s Kathie Lee Gifford clothing.