by Tula Connell, Nov 21, 2007

Looks like literally nothing is sacred.

A new report by the National Labor Committee reveals that crucifixes for sale at major religious institutions such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Trinity Church in New York City were made in Chinese sweatshops.

Distributed by the Association for Christian Retail, the items are not labeled “Made in China.” In fact, they sometimes seems to be labeled “Made in Italy,” according to National Labor Committee Director Charles Kernaghan.

Following a National Labor Committee press conference yesterday outside St. Patrick’s announcing the report, Kernaghan said both St. Patrick’s and Trinity pulled the items from their store shelves.

The Association for Christian Retail, which last year did $4.63 billion in business, according to the National Labor Committee, is far less conciliatory. In a report today on Democracy Now, host Amy Goodman reported that the association accuses the National Labor Committee of providing no documentation for its charges—a claim Kernaghan easily denied when he provided a production receipt with the same serial number as a crucifix sold in the United States.

The report, “Today Workers Bear the Cross: Crucifixes Made Under Horrific Sweatshop Conditions in China,” notes that the workers who make the crucifixes are paid just 26½ cents an hour, less than half China’s legal minimum wage of 55 cents, which is itself set at below subsistence levels. After mandatory deductions for primitive company dorms and food, the workers’ take-home wage drops to a shocking nine cents an hour, 74 cents a day and $3.70 a week. Workers toiling 91 hours a week are paid just $30.61, which is only 43 percent of the $70.71 they are legally owed.

The report also finds:

• At the Junxingye factory in China, the mostly young women—including several 15- and 16-year-olds—making crucifixes are forced to work 14 hours to 15½ hours a day, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. or 11:30 p.m., seven days a week.  They also work frequent 18-hour and 19-hour shifts ending at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.  Before shipments of crucifixes must leave for the United States, there are even mandatory, all-night 22½-hour to 25-hour shifts, from 8 a.m. straight through to 6:30 a.m. or 9 a.m. the following morning. Workers are routinely at the factory more than 100 hours a week, including being forced to work 51 hours of overtime, which exceeds China’s legal limit by 514 percent. Young women go for months on end without a day off.
• Workers are not provided an employment contract, which is illegal under China’s labor laws. As a result, they do not have the legal rights for which they would be qualified as full-time workers. The crucifix workers have no paid sick days, no paid maternity leave, no paid holidays and no health insurance—all of which are mandated under China’s laws. Anyone missing a day will, as punishment, be docked 2½ days’ wages. 
• Workers fear they may be handling toxic chemicals, paints and solvents—whose fumes sting their eyes and skin contact causes rashes—but management refuses to provide even the names of the chemicals, let alone their potential health hazards.

According to the report, after being forced to work a 19-hour shift, one worker cried out, “Jesus, take pity on me!  I’m going to die of exhaustion.” 

Kernaghan points out the bitter irony of this worker’s plea:

It appears that the $4.63 billion Association for Christian Retail has decided, en masse, to follow Wal-Mart to China, where they can exploit defenseless workers and pay them pennies an hour to produce their religious goods.  The workers in China have no freedom of religion.

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