Spanish authorities bust sweat shop ring

The World’s Gerry Hadden has details on a major sweat shop bust in Barcelona, where Spanish authorities freed more than 300 Chinese immigrants working in appalling conditions. But the immigrants are protesting the move.
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LISA MULLINS: In Spain, police have freed hundreds of Chinese laborers working and living in textile sweatshops and living in them The Chinese had been working in deplorable conditions, 12 hours days, seven days a week. The workers that the police liberate are now protesting. As the World’s Gerry Hadden reports from the coastal town of Mataro, they’re not angry with their bosses, but with Spanish authorities.

GERRY HADDEN: After a yearlong investigation, Spanish police raided dozens of sweatshops in this beach community near Barcelona.  Some 450 Chinese, most here illegally, were stitching clothes under what a police spokesman described as slave like conditions.

POLICE SPOKESMAN: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: He says, the boss in one sweatshop had mirrors on the walls so he could monitor the output of workers, even when he had his back to them.  Most of the places had virtually no ventilation; they were very hot and without natural light. Just hours after the raids, the liberated Chinese were on the streets picketing, not for better conditions but for their old jobs back.  Lam Chen Ping is a leader among these now out of work immigrants.  He lashed out at the police, saying they’d disrupted many lives.

LAM CHENG PING: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: He says, in china what would these people earn?  Seventy dollars a month.  Here they earn thirty to forty dollars each day, therefore these people want to be allowed to return to their sewing machines. That reaction has surprised authorities and ordinary Spaniards. Why would anyone want to return to an illegal and exploitive sweatshop?  First of all, because it’s all relative, as Lam Chen Ping implied.  The Chinese workers tend to compare conditions here with those back home.  And also, says Begonia Ruiz de Infante, these workers have obligations.  Ruiz de Infante is a mediator between local government and the area’s growing Chinese community.

RUIZ DE INFANTE: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: The Chinese, she says, have to repay the money they borrowed to reach Europe.  And then they need money to bring other family members over, this acts as a powerful motor to keep them working. Ruiz de Infante says this has been going on for a generation, and often with great success.  Chinese bar owner Joana Yeh Yeah is an example. Yeh Yeh says she arrived two decades ago speaking no Spanish, and with no work experience.

JOANA YEH YEAH:  [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

GERRY HADDEN: She says, “A Spaniard might say I have my house and my car, I’m not going to work for 7 dollars an hour. But me, I’ll work for that wage for 12 hours, because the more I earn, the more I have, and my child will have a roof over his head. Yeh Yeah actually worked 18 hours a day when she first arrived here. Now with her successful bar, she’s supporting her two kids, and hopes they’ll go to college one day. No doubt, many Chinese see better opportunities in Europe, but Europe has its labor laws, say unions and prosecutors.  The Chinese can’t be allowed to exploit recent arrivals arguing that things are worse back home.  Pedro Nueno is an economist and China expert at Barcelona’s IESE business school.   He argues that European laws must be enforced, but he says in the long run, they must be changed.  If not, even more jobs will move to China. The Chinese, he says, have an old fashioned work ethic, while Europeans are lazy.

PEDRO NUENO: What happens with us Europeans when we lose a job, then we go to the unemployment rolls, and then we try to exhaust all the unemployment potential we have.  And then when we find a job, and then we want to work only a few hours.  We want free healthcare, we want pensions from when we retire at 55, until we die at 105. And this is not sustainable.

GERRY HADDEN: Nueno suggests Europe adopt 12 hour work days and lower salaries.  He says the reality of global competition leaves no other choice, but for the time being, no European State is willing to consider such options. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden Mataro, Spain.

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