A few days ago, I received the below from friend Pierig Vezin of WethicA.  The founder of this company, Pierig is someone I have come to refer friends to who are in needed of ethical supplier audits, and his letter below shows why.  It is an excellent piece that I encourage everyone to read.

During the past month, we broke our yearly “record” of weekly working hours in one factory. The record number was 106 hours in a single week for these workers. Breaking it down, these workers labored more than 15 hours a day for a straight 7 days a week. But placed in the context of an average week consisting more than 80 or 85 hours a week (12 hours a day, 7 days a week), the severity of their working hours become all the more clear. Even worse, these workers have not been given a day off in more than 2 months.

Fortunately, if only marginally better, not every factory keep workers laboring those hours, but the majority of factories work more than 70-75 hours a week with one to two days off a month. When owners are asked for explanation for these labor-intensive hours, the common one is still: “They are migrant workers, they want to work. If we don’t let them make enough overtime, they will quit.”

This statement seems reasonable enough to most people because it is partly true. The legal cap on working hours is at 40 hours a week. But as the workers are far from their home, they are often willing to work those intensive hours in hopes of earning as much as possible in the shortest period. There is however a very important difference to note. Workers prioritize wages over working time, but believing workers want to work more than 40 hours a week of their own volition is hardy true at all. Looking carefully at factory policies, we often find hefty penalties for workers for not working each hour expected, or even those asking for a day of leave. As most of the workers are paid on a piece rate, not working already means losing the potential wages of that day, but with the factory polices, it serves to double penalize the workers ensuring they lose twice the wages they would have earned working that day.

From a different angle, if workers would have been happy with the working hours, factory penalties to limit absenteeism and leave request would not be necessary. Often complaints from workers in interviews confirmed about being forced to work long, excruciating hours.

Whenever you hear that common justification for imposing long working hours on workers, know that the incentive to earn more is not the sole motivator for overtime; often times, the penalties keep these workers glued to their stations.