USA
2015 Factory Assessment Cycle
14
3,334
factories
assessed
product types manufactured:
total
workers
COUNTRY CONTEXT
As of September 2016, around 12.3 million1 Americans worked in manufacturing, comprising about 7.7 percent2
of the total US workforce. Fifty years ago, nearly 17.8 million Americans worked in manufacturing, which at
that time represented 25.6 percent3 of the US workforce. Garment manufacturing has declined more sharply
in the US than manufacturing in general, with around 99,000 non-supervisory workers producing apparel in
September 2016, down from 794,000 in 1990.4 In 2015, the FLA assessed 14 US factories producing paper
products, jewelry, sports equipment, and other non-apparel items for the collegiate market. Of the factories
submitted by company affiliates to the FLA for potential assessment visits, 548 (or 11.5 percent) are located in
the US. Most produce non-apparel items for the collegiate market, and employ around 63,000 workers in total.
In general, US facilities tended to perform better overall on FLA assessments than any other single country in
2015. Of the ten assessed facilities with the fewest code violations, eight are located in the US.
TOP FINDINGS IN 2015
Fair treatment of temporary workers
In the US, the majority of factory assessments included three or more findings that procedures for hiring
temporary workers or for contracting with temporary employment agencies were inadequate. In 13 of the
14 factories assessed, temporary workers hired full-time were not provided with seniority and other fringe
benefits dated from the first date of their contract, as required by the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct. In 12
of the 14 facilities, employers did not ensure that fees charged by employment agencies would not be born by
the workers. Assessors found that 11 of 14 facilities did not maintain payment records for temporary employees
and could not immediately demonstrate documentation of equal pay for equal work between temporary
and permanent employees. As one way of safeguarding against unequal pay, agency fees, and other
noncompliances related to temporary workers, the FLA Code requires employers to provide direct payment of
wages to workers contracted from employment agencies; however, most US factories assessed in 2015 relied
on employment agencies to pay temporary workers.
14
C
Compensation
38
HOW
Hours of Work
45
HSE
3
FOA
Health, Safety,
and Environment
0
CL
F
4
H/A
7
9
ND
239
ER
0
50
100
150
200
250
Freedom
of Association
Harassment
and Abuse
Child Labor
NonDiscrimination
Forced Labor
Employment
Relationship*
*The “Employment Relationship” code element allows assessors to
review whether facilities maintain adequate policies, procedures, and
records to achieve exemplary performance on other parts of the FLA
Code. Remediation of findings related to the numerous “Employment
Relationship” benchmarks will support sustainable improvement across
all factory systems.
Number of Code Violations
Find the full FLA Workplace Code of Conduct and associated benchmarks at
www.fairlabor.org/our-work/code-of-conduct, and full factory monitoring
reports at www.fairlabor.org/transparency/workplace-monitoring-reports.
In two cases, assessors determined that factories
were using temporary workers continually to support
normal business functions, unfairly denying these
workers the seniority and benefits that accrue with
permanent employment. In one of these instances,
the assessor found that workers had been employed
on successive temporary contracts for more than five
years.
Mandatory overtime and denial of rest days
In three of the 14 factories, assessors found that
overtime hours were not voluntary for workers, which
for the FLA is a forced labor violation that must be
corrected by adjustments to the factory’s policies. The
FLA Code requires that all overtime be consensual
and voluntary, “including for overtime mandated
to meet exceptional circumstances.” In one case, a
factory was relying on mandatory overtime to meet
its regular production schedule, which is organized
around a 14-day production period requiring
12 continuous days of work. Not only does this
production pattern violate provisions against forced
overtime, but it also deprives workers of at least one
rest day in every seven-day period, as required by the
FLA Code.
Excessive overtime
Exactly half (seven of 14) of US factories assessed
were found at least occasionally to be violating
the FLA workweek limit of 60 hours per week. For
example, at one factory, overtime brought workers
over the 60-hour weekly limit in four months out
of the year, topping out at 94 hours in one week; at
other factories, overtime tended to exceed FLA Code
limits by around one to five hours per week.
NOTABLE FEATURES
Specific factory initiatives recognized by
FLA assessors for excellence
In two of the 14 factories visited in the
US, assessors noted exceptional worker
involvement programs designed to
provide workers with a voice in factory
management.
At one facility, the “Associate Driven Safety
(ADS) Program” is designed to encourage
worker participation in the development
of safety policy, procedures, and training.
During her visit, the FLA assessor
observed that workers involved in the
program had begun discussing proposed
recommendations for factory management
on how to make improvements to correct
for a health-and-safety violation found in
real-time during the assessment.
At another facility, the “Diversity and
Inclusion Council” offers compensated
training during work hours on diversity
and workplace leadership to any employee
who wishes to participate. Members of
the council meet with senior leadership of
the facility throughout the year to provide
feedback on workplace issues, and the
council communicates its activities to
the wider workforce through a company
bulletin, intranet postings, and regular
meetings.
REMEDIATION
As part of the assessment process, companies craft action
plans to address findings of noncompliance and work with
factories to implement them. For example, to control for
excessive overtime, one company’s action plan included
adding a new regular work shift to weekends, dividing
the necessary hours of work among more employees, and
reducing work hours for individual employees to fewer than
60 hours per week. Another factory has updated its employee
handbook to reflect that overtime is not mandatory, and that
employees will be offered the opportunity to work overtime
when customer requests increase the workload required in
production. Other remediation plans include strengthening
factory oversight of the processes for employing temporary
workers, ensuring equal pay for equal work, and providing
more immediate access to temporary workers’ records
for assessors. Find the latest progress on all remediation
activity in the “Workplace Monitoring Reports” section of
the FLA website.
1.
2.
3.
4.
A production facility in the United States
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001?data_tool=XGtable
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=LN_cpsbref1
http://www.bls.gov/fls/flslforc.pdf
http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag315.htm#workforce (note: 1990 is the most recent year for a comparable figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics)