International Trade committee  I would respond by saying that when we released our report, it was very directed at the U.S. government's failure to monitor the situation. In fact, the core ILO labour standards are violated in Jordan right now. Guest workers have no right to organize, so you can't possibly impl

International Trade committee  Very quickly, we asked the Jordanian government to allow NGOs in from the countries where the workers are from, from Bangladesh and from Sri Lanka--and that would be the single biggest element--so that the workers would have advocates. They flat out refused. They said that you ca

International Trade committee  Well, corporations have what they call corporate codes of conduct or charters, and they do say they investigate the factories to make sure they are in compliance with those codes. It never works. As a matter of fact, not long ago, Professor John Ruggie, the Harvard professor who

International Trade committee  In 2008, 86% of the exports from Jordan to the United States were garments. In 2009 it dropped a little bit, to 83%. The trade with the United States is almost entirely garments. Those garments are made by 30,000 foreign guest workers, so it hasn't spurred much production in any

International Trade committee  I've been to Jordan many times. We generally go to the poorest neighbourhoods surrounding these free trade zones or industrial parks. We meet with the workers in locations where business people would never show up. They are just not the kinds of places they would go. All of our r

International Trade committee  Well, they can leave.... The particular factory I was talking about is a different case.

International Trade committee  At this Classic factory, the women are locked in, but the men can leave. Of course, they're working until 10:30 or 11 at night, so it's very difficult to meet with them. But they can leave at 11 after their shift and meet us in some rundown tea shop. In those places--and Tim ha

International Trade committee  When the United States government negotiated the free trade agreement, they had to know that the Jordanians wouldn't work in the factories, because they just don't. The women aren't allowed to. So there were guest workers from the very beginning. The owners of the factories are n

International Trade committee  Okay.

International Trade committee  At this Classic factory--there are six factories in the Al-Hassan industrial zone--there are 4,500 workers, all of them guest workers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. With regard to production, 60% is for Walmart. Hanes is another big producer. Now, Walmart is the bi

International Trade committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. I'm going to mention our experiences with the U.S.-Jordan free trade agreement. I had never heard of the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement until mid-2005, when guest workers started calling us from Jordan, begging for help and