WORKING CONDITIONS AT DAEWOOSA:

 

THE SYSTEMATIC VIOLATION OF EVERY FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT

 

 

·        Indentured Servitude:  Of the 313 employees at the Daewoosa factory, 251 people, or 80 percent, are “guest workers” from Vietnam.  They had to pay between $4,000 and $8,000 to quasi-government recruiting agencies in Vietnam and to Daewoosa management in order to secure a three-year work contract at the factory.   If they failed to remain at the factory until they completed their contractual obligations, they would be “severely punished” upon their return to Vietnam.  They could be fined $5,000.  They would be blacklisted as “troublemakers” and they and their family members would find it almost impossible to get work in Vietnam.  The workers and their families would be liable to pay off the balance of the $4,000-to-8,000 debt they had incurred to pay the contract fees.  Unable to pay such a staggering debt, they could face imprisonment.  Their lives would be ruined.  Indeed, three Vietnamese workers deported from American Samoa after leading a strike at Daewoosa in March 1999 over the nonpayment of wages were imprisoned upon their return to Vietnam.

 

As will be shown later on, many of the workers received only $1.22 an hour--less than one-half of Samoa’s legal minimum wage of $2.60 an hour--after illegal deductions for room and board.  Earning just $195 a month, it would take these workers over 2 ½ years just to pay off the cost of their contract.

 

·        Cheated on their wages:  The workers contracts stated that they would earn $408 to $416 a month net pay--$2.60 an hour for a 40-hour workweek.

Minimum wage in Samoa--   * $   2.60 an hour * $ 20.80 a day (8 hours) * $104.00 a week (40 hours, 5 days) * $416 a month (160 hours)

Police called after Daewoosa management claimed the workers were rioting.

However, right from the beginning, there was trouble.  For a six-week period in 1999, from February 11 to March 27, the Vietnamese workers were never paid, through the 50 Samoan workers in the factory were always paid on time.  Also, the Samoans’ piece rates were higher and they were not forced to work overtime.  Daewoosa owned the Vietnamese workers at least $795.60 each in back wages.  When the Vietnamese workers went on strike, the factory compound was locked down and the company stopped feeding the workers.  Three workers were imprisoned and deported.

 

It became a pattern at Daewoosa that the workers were only paid intermittently, if at all.  After two investigations in 1999 and 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor assessed the Daewoosa factory $604,225 in back wages and penalties.  Back wages alone came to $349,615, which means the factory had not paid the workers for over 137,000 hours of work.

 

 

A Typical Work Contract at Daewoosa Cost $4,000 to $8,000   The International Manpower Supply Company (IMS), a quasi-governmental recruitment agency which is part of the Ministry of Trade, Export and Import of the Government of Vietnam, charged the Vietnamese workers $4,600 for a three-year work contract at Daewoosa.  Daewoosa’s owner, Mr. Lee, tacked on another $1,500 charge for “immigration purposes,” which in this case would bring the total to $6,100.  IMS fees had to be paid before the worker left Vietnam.  Many of the families put up their homes and land as collateral for the loans.  The workers were not given receipts for any of these expenses.   IMS Fees * $1,000 one-way airfare from Vietnam * $1,000 special residency permit * $2,000 for Samoan sponsorship * $   420 service fee to IMS * $   180 administration fee * $4,600   Daewoosa then added another $1,500 charge for “immigration purposes.”   So, a worker earning $1.22 an hour, or $195.16 a month, would have to work more than 2 ½ years just to pay off the cost of the three-year contract.

 

Then, in June of 2000, the factory started to charge the workers $200 a month for room and board, despite the fact that their original contract stated that food and lodging would be provided free of charge. This essentially cut their monthly pay to $216, or $48.79 a week.  Approximately 9 ½ percent was deducted from the workers’ wages for Social Security (7.65%) and a Samoan withholding tax (2%).  This put their hourly take home wages at just $1.22.  For those who had paid $8,000 to get a job at Daewoosa, at this wage it could take more than three years--the length of the contract--to pay off the debt!

 

Actual take-home wage at Daewoosa (when the workers were paid)--

 

* $    1.22 an hour

* $    9.76 a day (8 hours)

* $  48.79 a week (40 hours, 5 days)

* $195.16 a month (160 hours)

 

Recently it has also been uncovered that Mr. Kil Soo Lee and the Daewoosa factory failed to pay into Social Security for his employees, despite the fact that this money was deducted from their wages.  This has left the beaten and injured workers, like the woman who lost her eye, without workers’ compensation.

 

 

 Back of a woman bruised and cut after being struck with pipe

 

·        Locked in the factory behind barbed wire:  After the Vietnamese workers arrived in American Samoa, they found themselves locked in the factory compound which was surrounded with barbed wire.  There was a 10 p.m. curfew, and any worker returning after that would be assaulted and slapped.  On their way in or out of the compound, the workers’ personal belongings were searched by factory security guards.  A court order eventually lifted the curfew.  On at least three occasions, during worker protests, the factory compound was completely locked down.

 

·        Twelve to eighteen-hour shifts and then no work at all:  The typical work week was eight hours a day, six days, or 48 hours, a week.  Eight of those hours should have been paid as overtime.  When rush orders came in, there were forced 12 to 18-hour shifts, seven days a week.  For example, on Thanksgiving Day in November 2000 there was a forced 12-hour shift from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.  Sometimes the workers were forced to work from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., putting in an 18-hour shift.  When no materials arrived and there was no work--which sometimes lasted for weeks on end--the workers were not paid, despite the fact that their contracts stipulated they would be paid.  (Since it was not their fault the factory had not planned the work well enough to have the materials there.)

 

·        Sexual harassment:  Over 90 percent of the workers at Daewoosa were women.  The Vietnamese women reported to U.S. Department of Labor investigators and to local missionaries that the factory owner, Mr. Kil Soo Lee, routinely entered the barracks to watch them shower and dress.  Mr. Lee propositioned several of the women, telling them it would lead to a better job.  He told the younger workers that he was like their father, and they should trust him.

 

·        Substandard living and working conditions:  According to the December 2000 report, Department of Labor investigators “discovered conditions including substandard housing and diet, sanitation, electrical hazards, fall hazards, fire protection hazards, machine guarding hazards, workplace violence and substandard food.”

 

·        Rat Infested Barracks:  The workers’ barracks are over crowded, and often two women are forced to share a single bunk bed just 36 inches wide.  At night, rats eat through the women’s clothing, which is stored right next to their beds.  Rodent feces is everywhere. There are no sinks, no hot water, no soap, no toilet paper, and feces backs up though the shower drains.  Many doors and windows lack screens, despite the fact that dengue fever is endemic.  Cockroaches are found everywhere, in the women’s purses and in their bedside lockers. 

 

·        Malnourished:  The workers are fed a diet which, according to the DOL, consists of “a watery broth of rice and cabbage” and “is of a type and quantity that may lead to malnutrition.”  At times, food is withheld as a punishment to counter complaints.  Hair is found in the food.  There are rats, flies, and cockroaches all over the kitchen.  Grease covers the utensils, but there is no detergent or disinfectant for cleaning.

 

According to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration report published on OSHA’s website, OSHA cited Daewoosa in 1999 because:

 

“The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to: (a)Cafeteria/Dining Room: Migrant workers were not fed or served with food on March 28, 1999, exposing these employees to hunger and starvation. Among other methods, one feasible and acceptable abatement method to correct this hazard is to provide sustenance for the employees."

     

A recent U.S. Department of Labor memo observed:

 

“Numerous workers are suffering serious health problems from the malnutrition.  Some are walking skeletons.  Almost all the others have either blood in stools, pruritis, continual headaches, irregular menstruation, hives, and constipation.”

 

 

 

·        Workers Beaten, Slapped, Kicked, and Injured:

 

U.S. Department of Labor investigations found that:   “This employer has exhibited a pattern of abuse to women, including assault and invasion of privacy.  Furthermore, there is an apparent policy of institutional workplace violence and corporal punishment.”

Welts and bruise on worker's arm from beating.

 

Consider the following testimony of a Christian missionary, Mr. Rob Stip, who ran the Seafarers’ Center in Pago Pago in American Samoa.

 

“On Sunday, March 28, 1999, at about 8:00 p.m., five (5) or six (6) young girls from Vietnam (employed by Daewoosa, Samoa), came to the Pago Pago Seafarers’ Center and asked if we could help them.  They told us that they were hungry and had not eaten since Friday, two days earlier.  After feeding them, they told us they had arrived in American Samoa in June of this year to work at Daewoosa, and had not been paid.  They also said that Mr. Lee, of Daewoosa, often had refused to feed the girls as punishment.  These girls also told us that the same Mr. Lee would come into their dormitory and shower to watch them shower and dress. We listened to the girls, found the number to their embassy in Washington D.C., and they telephoned said embassy.  After asking the girls to furnish us with copies of their contracts, we instructed them to return here with said copies the next morning Monday, March 29, 1999.

 

Samoan security guard with PVC pipe used to beat the workers

 

“On Monday, the next day, we received a phone call from a lady informing us that the girls could not come to the Center that day, because Daewoosa was locked down.  That afternoon at about 5:30 p.m., I (Captain Rob Stip), received a call from a young lady who said it was urgent that I would please come to Daewoosa.  I told her I would.  I had a friend of mine, Kevin Moushon, (who at that time was the Director of Youth for Christ here in American Samoa), ride with me to Daewoosa, we observed three (3) or four (4) girls sitting immediately inside the security gate.  When the Korean guards noticed Kevin and I approaching, they began kicking and hitting the girls.  About five (5) minutes later, approximately thirty Vietnamese girls came to the gate crying and begging for help. Many of the young women were scratched, bruised, and bloody.  When I asked what was going on, the guards started hitting the girls again.  A Samoan man drove up and told us he was Daewoosa’s attorney, and if we didn’t leave, he would call the police.  Kevin and I told him we were not going anywhere until someone told us why the girls were being hit.  The police were called, and we were again told to leave by Officer Dave Snow.  I had a chance to talk to Officer Snow and Mr. Lee denied hitting the girls and watching them disrobe, saying that the girls were hysterical because they had not been allowed to eat.  He said withholding their food was how he punished them.  With their threats of having Kevin and I arrested if we did not leave, and realizing that we could not accomplish anything sitting incarcerated, Kevin and I drove away.

 

“That evening, my wife, son, and I flew back home to North Carolina for a month.  Two days later, I (Capt. Rob Stip) received an urgent phone call from Kevin Moushon, who was running the Center in our absence.  He said that Dung had escaped form Daewoosa and had come to the Center for help.  He asked for my advice, and I told him to give her refuge and help Dung in any way he could.”

 

·        Women Loses Her Eye:  On November 28, 2000, the Vietnamese workers at Daewoosa were attacked. 

Woman who lost her eye after being struck by a security guard

A Samoan plant supervisor was upset that the Vietnamese workers sat idle as they waited for the fabric to arrive at the factory so they could begin working.  The supervisor attacked Ms. Troung Thi Le Quyen beating and dragging her from the factory.  When the other workers tried to come to her rescue, they were beaten by security guards swinging PVC pipes.  A woman security guard jammed the sharp, jagged cut end of a PVC pipe into Ms. Quyen’s left eye, causing her to lose that eye.  She was also cut on her back and arms.  Nine workers were beaten, bruised and bloodied.  Another worker, Mr. Nguyen Thai Quang, was struck several times in the face and head with a pipe.

 

He lost hearing in his left ear and needed ten stitches in his mouth.  The workers, including the young woman who would lose her eye, were taken to prison fired for two hours before they were taken to the hospital.The workers believe that the owner of the factory directed his Samoan employees to attack the Vietnamese women. 

 

·        Violations Continue For Nearly Two Years with Complete Impunity:  The U.S. Department of Labor concluded:

 

“This is an employer who has not been persuaded by DOL enforcement nor the orders of Samoan High Court to comply with basic minimum standards of safety and health and payment of wages.  He ignores court orders and Wage and Hour [DOL] orders to pay his employees, intentionally creates a façade of payment, and has paid virtually no penalties assessed by the DOL.  And somehow he happens to have $60,000 in a paper bag to flaunt in front of his investigators.  This employer provides substandard food and housing, and again, flagrantly ignores court orders to correct these problems.”