Sussan's sweaty clothes

BY KIM BULLIMORE

SYDNEY — Protesters picketed Sussan's fashion store in Pitt Street
Mall on February 8, chanting "this sweat goes with clothes at Sussans".
The picket was part of the campaign, an initiative of Fairwear, aimed at
protecting wages and working conditions of Australia's 30,000 garment outworkers.

On the January 18, Sussan Corporation retail chief, Amanda Brooks, told
The Australian newspaper that her company did not need to take part
in Fairwair's labour standards accreditation program as the company's existing
clothing contracts required manufactures to use legal labour sources.

On the day of the picket however, an outworker who had previously made
clothes for the Sussan's label, described how she had been paid only $2.10
for each pair of pants she had sewn, which had taken an hour and half to
complete. She told the picket, "recently I went into a Sussan store and
saw the pants I sewed were selling for $50. I was shocked, and kept asking
myself why did I only get $2.10, when Sussan sells these pants for $50".

Another outworker told the rally that she had sewn clothes for Sussan,
Suzanne Grae and Sportsgirl. She said she received $1 for doing the overlocking
on a garment (which is about half of all the total sewing) which later
retailed in Sussan for $50.

"In addition to these low rates of pay, I did not receive any superannuation,
holiday pay, sick pay, overtime pay and I am not covered by workers compensation",
she told the picket.

In addition to claiming that it did not super-exploit its outworkers,
Sussan's argued that being part of the accreditation program and "no sweat
shop" labelling system would increase the price of its clothes. This,
argues Fairwear, is a strange claim to make if Sussan's is already paying
workers decent wages. According to Fairwear, outworkers often get paid
less than 5% of the retail cost of a garment.

Fairwear activists noted that February 8 marked the second anniversary
of NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr's promise to "stop the exploitation of women
and children working in the textile, clothing and footwear industries in
NSW". In the last two years however, the NSW Labor government has not
announced any measures to achieve this goal.

For more information on the No Sweat Shops campaign and Fairwear visit
their web page at <www.awatw.org.au/fairwear>.]

From GLW issue 436