Corruption at Gap Inc.
Gap Inc. was founded in 1969 by Donald and Doris Fisher in San Francisco, California, with a single store and a handful of employees. Today, they're one of the world's largest specialty retailers with three of the most recognized and respected brands in the apparel industry - Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy. Gap Inc. has more than 153,000 employees supporting over 4,200 stores in more than 3,100 locations in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Japan and Germany. Their 2004 Sales were well over $15 billion, bringing in a net income of $1.03 billion, a 115.7% income growth from previous year. Gap Inc contracts factories in 64 Countries, allegedly also making clothes within the US . And by "Made in the USA," they mean, "Made in the indigenous countries that, out of desperation, joined the United States in hopes of gaining more stable government regulations, yet remain excluded from basic employment rights and minimum wage laws." The "guest workers" from countries like Saipan, who joined the United States in 1975 to be citizens of the "land of the free," commit themselves to conditions that are simply shameful to basic human rights. Once committed, workers who toil for 12 hours daily behind barbed-wire fences, eat infested food, sleep on cots in dormitories that they are forced to pay more "fees" for, and work "off the clock" hours that they aren't paid for, can't escape from the madness, unless they can pay a mandatory $10 thousand dollar fee for this "privilege." Despite over 1,000 citations over a mere 5 years in Saipan, GAP remains stern on their refusal to pay a settlement with exploited workers. One worker was quoted:
"Before 1997, we called for the strike because we were forced to work overtime with no opportunity to take a holiday, we wanted to go home for the holiday. But now we have so many holidays, and we have no money to go home. There is nothing in balance I have no question why people commit suicide." Of course, not all of the
"Before 1997, we called for the strike because we were forced to work overtime with no opportunity to take a holiday, we wanted to go home for the holiday. But now we have so many holidays, and we have no money to go home. There is nothing in balance I have no question why people commit suicide." Of course, not all of the