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The Guardian has spoken to more than a dozen workers at the fashion label's factory in Subang, Indonesia, where employees describe being paid one of the lowest minimum wages in Asia and there are claims of impossibly high production targets and sporadically compensated overtime.
The workers' complaints come only a week after labour activists investigating possible abuses at a Chinese factory that makes Ivanka Trump shoes disappeared into police custody.
The activists' group claimed they had uncovered a host of violations at the plant including salaries below China's legal minimum wage, managers verbally abusing workers and "violations of women's rights".
In the Indonesian factory some of the complaints are similar, although the wages paid to employees in Subang are much lower.
[...] PT Buma, a Korean-owned garment company started in Indonesia in 1999, is one of the suppliers of G-III Apparel Group, the wholesale manufacturer for prominent fashion brands including Trump's clothing.
[...] When Alia was told the gist of Ivanka Trump's new book on women in the workplace, she burst out laughing. Her idea of work-life balance, she said, would be if she could see her children more than once a month.
[...] Carry Somers, founder of the non-profit Fashion Revolution said: "Ivanka Trump claims to be the ultimate destination for Women Who Work, but this clearly doesn't extend to the women who work for her in factories around the world."
In March, Indonesia was called out by President Donald Trump for having an unfavourable trade balance with the US. The president took issue with Indonesia's $13bn surplus last year and vowed to penalise "cheating foreign importers".
Bad pay, unrealistic production requirements, unpaid overtime and verbal abuse are among the complaints of the workers. Ivanka has factories in China, and Indonesia where wages are even lower. Does textile production really have to be like this? Can we really not afford buying clothes made in humane conditions?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday June 17 2017, @01:23PM
Third, what exactly is supposed to be bad about sweatshops in developing world countries? The entire developed world went through that phase and became the developed world. It's a necessary transition from primitive society to far better modern one. Further, people wouldn't work at sweatshops, if better work was available. Sweat shops are among the best work available for low skilled workers.