Human cost behind bargain shopping

It turns out not all of his promises were true, something we'd discover only with our hidden cameras and from candid conversations with some of his employees who were introduced to us by a local labor group, like this young woman:

Masuma: “My name is Masuma.  I work for the Wills Garment Company. I am a sewing machine operator.”

Masuma says she's around 21. She doesn't seem to know for sure. Like most women here she's barely literate.

Masuma: “I went to school for first grade. Then my parents could not afford to keep me in school any longer.”

On a typical day, she heads to the factory by 7:30. She has to be at her sewing machine by 8 a.m. sharp. 

Masuma: “If I am one minute late, my supervisor scolds me and gives me a hard time.”

Remember those striped pants that sell for $12.84 at Wal-Mart? It's Masuma who sews the stripes on them. And she sews them, hour after hour with only a few breaks sitting on a stool that has no back. 

Masuma: “I have to sit in front of the machine the whole time. I can't move. I can't even go to the bathroom without my supervisor's permission. After sitting for so long, I feel pain throughout my body.”

Conditions like these might seem unacceptable to Americans, but they're common in a poor place like Bangladesh. Extreme heat for instance. Factories like Masuma's aren't air conditioned, and even in a well-ventilated factory, we found temperatures can easily exceed 90 degrees.

Masuma says she has a quota: 80 stripes an hour. That means more than one stripe every minute, and they have to be  perfectly straight. If she doesn't meet the quota, she says, she has to work extra for no pay. The factory director said his employees work a maximum of 10 hours a day and get out by 7 p.m. But Masuma told us her typical day ends later than that.

Masuma: “Usually I work until at least 8 pm, but often they will keep us and make us work until 10 p.m.”

And she says she frequently has to work Fridays, the Muslim holy day, which by law is supposed to be a day off. On average, she says she works more than 70 hours a week. At least 10 hours more than allowed by the local law. It's not hard to confirm that many factories exceed that limit. 

Kernaghan: “You can see them working right up here.”

Just take a drive at 10 p.m., says labor activist Charles Kernaghan.

Kernaghan: “It's 10 o'clock at night and they're still going.”

We see lights on, people still at work at factory after factory, including the one that happens to be the first factory we visited as Hansen Fashions. A few days earlier they told us they don't overwork their employees. Yet on the night we check, quitting time is three hours later than they said, 10 p.m., and the workers are being frisked to make sure they haven't stolen anything.

If you think 10 p.m. is late, try 1 a.m. That's when video was taken with our hidden cameras inside a factory that makes clothes that end up at KMart and Wal-Mart. The workers, who are racing to meet a production deadline, have been on the job since 8 a.m. the previous morning and they won't get out until 3 a.m.

Kernaghan: “So they'll be working 18 to 19 hours straight and they have to be at work the next day at eight o'clock in the morning.”

And one man, introduced to us by a local labor group, asked us to protect his identity. He is a supervisor at a large factory in Bangladesh. He says that when American companies send inspectors to check on the codes of conduct, they don't always get the real story because some workers are coached to lie.

Factory Supervisor: “You're supposed to say that this factory is closed on Fridays and that no one works here at night.  If anyone tells the buyer otherwise, then the company will fire them.”

He says they go so far as to make up phony records, including time cards showing a normal 10 hour shift ending at 7 p.m., even though the workers themselves say they were on the job until much later -- something he says they don't want American companies to know.

Factory Supervisor: “They hide the extra overtime from the buyer. The reason is that they want to show the buyer that they treat the workers well and follow all the rules.”

And when they do work those extra hours of overtime, sometimes into the middle of the night, many workers complain that they are short-changed, not paid all the additional wages the local law requires. Some are so exhausted during the day they grab sleep whenever and wherever they can, even at their machines. And some say they face verbal and physical abuse on the job. One man says when he took too long to return from a break, his boss struck him with a shoe.

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