Copyright America Press 2000. Charles Kernaghan is the executive director of the National Labor Committee for Worker and Human Rights, based in New York City. The interviewer was George M. Anderson, S.J., an associate editor of America . Five years ago, there was no sweatshop movement in the United States.
Today there is a growing coalition of religious, student and labor groups.
Their work has increased awareness of the conditions of millions of workers in factories in developing countries around the world who are producing goods for export to this country. In most cases, they are stripped of their human rights in terms of both working conditions and wages. In Mexico, for example, over one million people work in so-called maquilas , which produce goods exclusively for export to the United States. In China there are four million apparel workers spread out across the country in 44,000 factories. I was there just this past summer, and we've done a report on what we found.