Group: Churches Sell Sweatshop Crosses
NEW YORK - A labor rights group alleged Tuesday that crucifixes sold in religious gift shops in the U.S. are produced under “horrific” conditions in a Chinese factory with more than 15-hour work days and inadequate food.
“It’s a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.
Kernaghan held a news conference in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong, where he said crosses sold at the historic church and elsewhere are made.
Spokespeople for St. Patrick’s and another New York landmark, the Episcopal Trinity Church at Wall Street, said the churches had removed dozens of crucifixes from their shops while they investigate the claims.
“I don’t think they have a clue where these crucifixes were made - in horrific work conditions,” Kernaghan said.
Kernaghan said the factory’s mostly young, female employees work from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week and are paid 26 cents an hour with no sick days or vacation. Workers live in filthy dormitories and are fed a watery “slop.”
Kernaghan said factory workers took photos and smuggled out documents detailing practices there. While none of the crucifixes sold in New York were identified as made in China, they bore serial numbers matching products made at the factory in question, Kernaghan said.
Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for St. Patrick’s, said church officials had not heard about the issue before Tuesday. Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been “under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy.”
St. Patrick’s and Trinity bought the crosses from the Singer Co., a religious goods company based in suburban Mount Vernon. Co-owner Gerald Singer said the religious objects were made in China and purchased through a Chinese manufacturer called Full Start.
“Whether they came out of a sweatshop, we do not know,” Singer said. “We asked Full Start to sign off that there are no sweatshop conditions involved, and no children and that they abide by Chinese law. This is a black eye for us.”
An after-hours call to a U.S. office of Full Start Ltd. in East Providence, R.I., was not immediately returned Tuesday.
A man at the Full Start factory in Dongguan said the allegations were “totally incorrect.”
The working conditions at the factory were “fine,” said the man, who refused to give his name. The 200-plus employees work from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day, with an hour and a half break for lunch, he said.
The employees were rarely asked to work overtime, but were compensated when they did, he said. When pressed for more details, the man said he wasn’t in charge of those issues and hung up the phone.
Kernaghan said the crosses were exhibited at an annual trade show organized by the Association for Christian Retail, a Colorado-based trade association that works with thousands of religious stores across the country.
Bill Anderson, president and chief executive of the Christian trade association, issued a statement saying: “While we occasionally hear this issue raised, and believe there are factories in China where human rights are violated, we believe claims that products sold through CBA member stores are made in these shops are irresponsible and unfounded.”
Dongguan lies at the center of China’s export manufacturing industry, which relies heavily on low wages to remain competitive. Factories there have been accused in the past of labor abuses, including those making products for McDonald’s, Disney, Mattel and the Beijing Olympics.
Associated Press Writer Anita Chang in Beijing contributed to this report.
On the Net:
National Labor Committee: http://www.nlcnet.org/
Full Start: http://www.fullstartltd.com/
© 2007 The Associated Press
Well, my friends, does it get any clearer? The signs are all around us to see. Gotta have them crosses. Jesus was the quinesstential victim/scapegoat. Worship torture and death and then use that same flawed and twisted belief to support more of the same in it’s name. WOW! have we humans created a multitudse of distortions, or what?
I believe this is the time to clear out the victim archtype once and for all, and embrace our co-creative power to do so. Lord knows we have any number of examples to hone our fledgling skills.
I find this darkly humorous (I am sympathetic to the Chinese factory workers). It’s so illustrative of the Potemkin world in which we live. Behind the facade of democracy and freedom we find fascism. Behind the facade of civilization we find the death penalty, wars for profit, and students protesting against peace! And now behind the facade of religiosity we find exploitative commercialism, religion without principles.
Dave
I think it’s horrifying. I wonder if the workers were being this severely exploited before capitalism came to China?
Free trade forces us to compete on a level playing field with workers making $.26/hr, 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, no time off, no benefits, and eating watery slop. Since corporate “persons” have no conscience or social responsibility, they’re fine with that. Besides making a profit, they will only do what they are forced to do.
More free trade, anyone?
No wonder the Religious and Market FUNDIES make the strangest bedfellows !
daveEriqat wrote:
It’s so illustrative of the Potemkin world in which we live…
Good remark.
Your “Potemkin world” a great phrase - says it all.
Of course, what percentage of USAns these days have even heard of the original phrase “Potemkin Village”?
But how blessed are the Chinese teenage workers who get the wonderful opportunity to produce such holiness! Truly God works in mysterious ways and we should not make the same mistake as Job and second guess his ways.
- Son of Job (sarcastically)
I wonder if the communion wafers and wine come from China too.
The wafers always tasted like cardboard. Some Chinese have been found to be adding cardboard pulp to their dumplings to make the dough go farther.
Now if somebody would just get upset about the conditions of the American worker…
you gotta love those religions. they sure know how to make a buck. tax free too. i think i’ll start one. donations anyone?
It’s pretty sad and wearying to hear that churches representing, or which are supposed to be representing, concern for others, pays no attention to where their religious items are being manufactured. The incurious nature of those who are moral or ethical leaders strikes me as the most heart wrenching part of all this. But this is just one example of many concerning the corporatization of america. There is less and less intention to look into the causes and conditions that have made the products we use, whether it is for eating, drinking or consuming. There is some vague belief that others are taking care of the problems and such is not the case, especially when government regulating bodies have been gutted for ideological reasons.
A lot of us do not get sick time or paid time off here. That is so jobs can be sent over there and ceos can recieve big bonuses.
How many religious people really care where the crosses come from? They will tell us we do not get health care from our employeers because we do not deserve too.
Religion is based on selective compassion.
evelyna—love your screen name and love that sentence. “Religion is based on selective compassion.” And don’t know, “if you’ve attained gret wealth, it’s because you’re in good favor with God.” The poor are just “shit outta luck.” How do I go about joining that church? NOT!!!!!!
Just to complete my own follow-up of this story, I tried to access the website fullstartltd.com and for the first time in my life on the Internet, I received the message:
FORBIDDEN
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
It looks like the churches, like others who want to ensure their products do not come from sweatshop factories, will have to do their own inspections, or find a middleman inspector that is truly reliable.
Oh but…don’t Jeeesuss look good?
Are these supposed to be Halloween trinkets? Jebus looks like a skeleton. As the late great Bill Hicks said, wearing a crucifix for a real Christian is like a member of the Kennedy or Martin Luther King family wearing a little plasic rifle on a chain around their neck.
Do you mean that the catholic church is involved in something unsavory??
The sweatshops are corporate sponsored torture and the victims are making little statues of a man being tortured, which is supposed to show us how much God loves humanity, by illustrating man’s inhumanity to man.
I think we have gone full circle here.
Beforekids asked:
“I think it’s horrifying. I wonder if the workers were being this severely exploited before capitalism came to China?”
I cannot answer that, but I think China has been a ‘capitalistic nation’ for quite some time. I was thumbing thru Mao’s Little Red Book not too long ago, and came across a quotation that I’ll have to paraphrase as I have given my copy away.
Mao was asked how long it would take to purge the Chinese of the remnants of Capitalism? His reply was that he was afraid it would take many generations…
I don’t think the Chinese Communists had enough time to accomplish the task!
He had to cross his feet, the Roman crew only had three nails left.
starofthesea, You’ve been reading Rene Girard haven’t you?
To everybody in general, Jesus Saves
No matter what you buy today, you can be sure the article wasn’t made in the USA but in some sweat shop either in China, Thailand, India, etc. So the Church isn’t really guilty as is the proponents of Free Trade. Free Trade has only enabled dictatorships to force people to work at horrendous slave shops. This criminal act lands squarely on the steps of Corporations and in this example, the U.S. that supports NAFTA and CAFTA.
There is nothing wrong with Jesus he was a man that knew where his power was and couldn’t be convinced he didn’t have any. He said, you can do what I do, see. Don’t worship me but use your own abilities. Ah, now that was incredible. He also taught one prayer that is how to communicate with spirit. You should know though that there are powerfull forces that would rather see you buying sweatshop crosses and giving your power and money to those in charge of your destiny than for one second have you realize you are spiritually free from birth. Born with all the gifts and ablilies of spirit.
With the risk of being unoriginal and redundant, I will simply ask if this is not the most fitting of metaphors for our contemporary “society”?I’m afraid that at this point I am so desensitized by all the chicanery and curruption that all I can do is laugh (although there is nothing funny about what those poor souls in the sweatshop have to endure) at the obsurdity of it all!
Maybe they should have a church-wide ban on engraven images.
Clearly SATAN gave the lazy workers cameras and caused them to conspire like godless heathens. They obviously have wages that are too high and too much leisure if they have time and money to consort with the DEVIL.
Brother Guliani and Pat Robertson will conduct an exorcism to root out the devils infecting these workers.
Child abusing priests don’t care about slave laborors making crosses of Jesus to be sold to the devout. Hail Mary and rub them beads, burn a candle and I will please. I wear my collar to show I’m right, but show your me your butt for my delight. ___ Oh, BTW, the dollar store candle is five bucks here kid.
I wonder if these crosses were made by the same people that make stuff for Walmart?
And K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Hallmark, Sears, Toys R we, the Dollar stores and the swap meets. Any I forgot?
The ‘Cold War’ is over and China won.
So this is news? All of the shams, known as religions, that parades as a front for god are notorious and flagrantly known for being more involved with commerce than it is in the truth of “god.”
judi, you can bet on it that what ever product you buy these days wasn’t made in the USA. And if it does have a sticker on it made in USA, some part of it or it’s packaging is from beyond our borders. That is the risk of the global market. It is important that we have commerce with the rest of the world but the control for safety and quality is next to nonexistent. Much is hidden. If you find an item made here, better save it as an investment rare treasure because it will be worth an auction on eBay some day. What is really horrifying, BeForKids, is that the corporate world is so labyrinthine the truth is never known of how products come to our stores. The fiasco and horror of the dangerous products that are being revealed almost daily has most of the corporations involved looking like a deer caught in the headlights. The mea culpa in every case brought out these last few months is distressing. It is our trade policies, it’s the money honey. It is caveat emptor in capital letters CAVEAT EMPTOR. The government we have is more interested in the rapidly devalued US dollar (not that they shouldn’t be, but it is a matter of degree) than in our population’s safety. Those crosses will not save anyone’s ass except the Catholic church’s coffers. And as someone said, they are crosses they will have to bear at their prophesied judgment day. Too bad they can’t wear the sweat of those who made them. That would be justice.