Date of publication: April 15, 2009
Source: Maine Public Broadcasting Network
Author: Tom Porter
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Excerpt from article:
Some of Maine's tax dollars are being spent on garments made in sweatshops. That's among the findings of a study released today by the non-profit group SweatFree Communities. The report, Subsidizing Sweatshops 2, is the follow-up to a study released last summer into conditions at some of the factories where police and military uniforms are made.
It finds that Maine state police uniforms are made in factories in the Dominican Republic which operate under sweatshop conditions, says Jesse Stewart, who helped compile the report. "Workers at this factory told us that they are forced to toil for poverty wages in unhealthy working conditions and must meet [excessive] production quotas to earn desperately-needed bonuses."
The factory in question is run by a manufacturer called Suprema, which is owned by Missouri-based Propper International...