In our conversations with members of the Independent Monitoring Group, they stated that it has not been their intention to replace the role of the union, but that the particular circumstances at Mandarin forced them to assume a mediating role between management and the workers. To date, the GAP has not authorized independent monitoring at any of its other contract factories in fifty countries around the world, nor has it participated in the US Apparel Industry Partnership. The GAP is currently the target of class action suits and a consumer campaign concerning the use of indentured labour in Saipan. Independent monitoring has not been able to touch, in this one factory, the logic of how the industry works, the intensity of the work, which is linked to the production goals. Local factories producing under contract for big US retailers like the GAP or Eddie Bauer have set deadlines they have to meet to fulfill their orders.
Profit margins are very low.
For the maquiladora owners to survive under this system, they try to keep the pace of production up. They keep a small workforce and demand a lot of overtime when orders are heavy. We can only achieve so much in one isolated factory. The next great challenge is to see to it that all the companies are feeling the same pressure to improve conditions. Kimi The second example of local NGO involvement in independent monitoring took place at the Korean-owned Kimi maquiladora garment factory in Honduras.