Calling it an “appalling practice,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on President Obama‘s administration to stop contracting with foreign sweatshops to produce official federal government uniforms and other clothing.
Trumka said it “should outrage American taxpayers … that their hard-earned tax dollars are funding factories with documented abusive and inhumane conditions.” He added:
He was responding to a front-page report in Monday’s New York Times that said the U.S. spends $1.5 billion to buy clothing at sweatshop factories in Bangladesh, Haiti, Mexico, Vietnam and other countries. Many factories had a “pattern of legal violations and harsh working conditions,” the Times said.
Although the federal government publicly opposes purchasing from such sources, the Times report found that the “American government has done little to adjust its own shopping habits.”
