The Godfather's Daughter

China factory for Ivanka Trump brand shoes criticized for labor violations
By Kevin McCoy

File photo taken in June 2017 shows men at the entrance gate of a Huajian Group shoe factory in Ganzhou, in southeastern China's Jiangxi Province.

A China factory that has produced shoes for the Ivanka Trump brand is the worst labor rule violator among dozens of similar production facilities checked by undercover investigators, an advocacy organization said Wednesday.
Workers at the Huajian factory in Jiangxi, a province in southeast China, typically put in 15-hour days, with just two days off each month, according to a report by China Labor Watch, a group that since 2000 has investigated workplace conditions at Chinese facilities that supply many of the world's best-known companies and brands.
Workers assigned to produce shoes for Easy Spirit's brand were forced to remain at work until 1:30 a.m. making changes in late May after a representative of the U.S. company complained that the manufacturing work was of "inferior quality," the report said.
The factory's employees were verbally and physically abused, and had to wait until late April to receive payment for hours they worked in March, the report said.

Additionally, the workers were paid roughly $352 for 350 monthly work hours, below that China's labor law stipulates, the report added.
Along with producing shoes for the Trump brand and Easy Spirit, the factory has done work for such well-known U.S. companies as Marc Fisher Footwear, Nine West, Karl Lagerfeld, Naturalizer, and Guess, the report said.
Nonetheless, the factory "is the worst among the dozens of factories we have investigated over the past year," the report concluded.
Factory representatives could not be located for comment.
Three undercover investigators for China Labor Watch who checked the production center and interviewed workers in March or April abruptly disappeared in May and are believed to have been arrested by Chinese authorities. 

“We urge China to release them immediately and otherwise afford them the judicial and fair trial protections to which they are entitled,” Alicia Edwards, a U.S. Department of State spokeswoman, said in a statement earlier this month.
China has rejected calls for the men's release.
"So far, we haven't heard anything," Li Qiang, the advocacy group's executive director, said in a telephone interview conducted through a Mandarin translator on Wednesday. 

He repeated previous entreaties for Trump's company and other U.S. manufacturers to help win the investigators' release.
Trump removed herself from day-to-day involvement with her brand in January. 

Her spokeswoman did not respond to an email seeking comment. 

In a written statement, Ivanka Trump President Abigail Klem said the company's shoes had not been produced at the factory since March.
"Our licensee works with many footwear production factories and all factories are required to operate within strict social compliance regulations," the statement said.
Marc Fisher, Trump's footwear licensee, said it "does not comment on its business procedures or strategies." 

Other companies cited in the China Labor Watch report did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Ivanka Trump's brand distances itself from Chinese shoemaker

By ERIKA KINETZ

Ivanka Trump's fashion brand sought to distance itself from a Chinese manufacturer that has come under scrutiny after activists investigating labor conditions there were detained, saying the company last made its products three months ago.
In a statement released Wednesday, the brand's president, Abigail Klem, said Ivanka Trump shoes, which are made by licensing partner Mark Fisher, have not been produced since March at the Huajian Group factory where labor abuses occurred. 

She added "our licensee works with many footwear production factories and all factories are required to operate within strict social compliance regulations."
But it is unclear whether that was really the end of the relationship.
China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit, began scrutinizing Ivanka Trump supply chains more than a year ago, according to Li Qiang, the group's executive director. 

Three China Labor Watch investigators went into Huajian Group factories undercover posing as workers in March, April and May of this year and found Ivanka Trump merchandise inside, Li said.
He said the investigators also found evidence of planned production, namely an April production schedule indicating pending orders for nearly 1,000 pairs of Ivanka Trump shoes due by the end of last month.
Now all three men are in jail, accused of using illegal recording devices to disrupt Huajian's business. The U.S. State Department and Amnesty International have spoken out against the arrests. 

So far, Ivanka Trump and her brand have not.
China Labor Watch laid out its initial allegations in an April letter to Ivanka Trump. 

It said workers regularly put in more than 15 hours a day, with just two days off a month. 

It said most were paid by the piece, taking home just $363 a month for 300 hours of work, and that managers verbally abuse workers.
"China Labor Watch expects you, as an assistant to the president and an advocate for women's rights, to urge your brand's supplier factories to improve their conditions," Li wrote in the letter. 

"Your words and deeds can make a difference in these factory workers' lives."
The Huajian Group says the undercover activists were out to steal trade secrets and denies the allegations of poor working conditions.
The arrest of independent monitors threatens to hamper the ability of global companies to adequately monitor their Chinese suppliers. 

China has rebuffed the State Department's request to release the activists, saying the men will be dealt with under China's own sovereign laws.
China has swept up hundreds of human rights lawyers and labor activists in recent years and has scrutinized groups with foreign ties, like China Labor Watch, much more closely.
Alicia Edwards, a State Department spokeswoman, said this week that the U.S. is concerned by "the pattern of arrests and detentions." 

Labor activists, she added, are instrumental in helping American companies understand conditions in their supply chains and holding Chinese manufacturers accountable under Chinese law.

The Chinese Connection

Arrested, missing China activists spark criticism of Trump

By ERIKA KINETZ

China Labor Watch investigator Hua Haifeng
SHANGHAI — The arrest and disappearance of three labor activists investigating a Chinese company that produces Ivanka Trump shoes in China prompted a call for her brand to stop working with the supplier and raised questions about whether the first family’s commercial interests would muddy U.S. leadership on human rights.
“Ivanka’s brand should immediately cease its work with this supplier, and the Trump administration should reverse its current course and confront China on its human rights abuses,” Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a Wednesday email. 

Ivanka Trump must decide, she added, “whether she can ignore the Chinese government’s apparent attempt to silence an investigation into those worker abuses.”
Amnesty International called Wednesday for the release of China Labor Watch investigator Hua Haifeng, as well as his two colleagues, who are feared to have been detained.
The men were working with an American nonprofit group to publish a report next month alleging low pay, excessive overtime and misuse of student labor, according to China Labor Watch executive director Li Qiang, who lost contact with the investigators over the weekend. 

The investigators also witnessed verbal abuse, with one manager insulting staff about poorly made shoes and making a crude reference in Chinese to female genitalia, according to Mr. Li.
China Labor Watch has been exposing poor working conditions at suppliers to some of the world’s best-known companies for nearly two decades, but Mr. Li said his work has never before attracted this level of scrutiny from China’s state security apparatus.
The arrest and disappearances come amid a crackdown on perceived threats to the stability of China’s ruling Communist Party, particularly from sources with foreign ties such as China Labor Watch. Faced with rising labor unrest and a slowing economy, Beijing has taken a stern approach to activism in southern China’s manufacturing belt and to human rights advocates generally, sparking a wave of critical reports about disappearances, public confessions, forced repatriation and torture in custody.
China Labor Watch’s investigation also had an unusual target: a brand owned by the daughter of the president of the United States.
Ivanka Trump’s lifestyle brand imports most of its merchandise from China, trade data show. 

She and her father both have extensive trademark portfolios in China, though neither has managed to build up a large retail or real estate presence here. 

The sister of Jared Kushner, a Trump adviser and husband of Ivanka, traveled to China this past month to court investment from Chinese families for a real estate project in New Jersey.
“The eagerness of members of the family to do business in China while airbrushing very troubling human rights and labor rights records of the country is troubling,” said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director for Amnesty International. 

He said it is only a matter of time before it is known “to what extent business is trumping any kind of consideration of the diplomatic capital of the U.S. in promoting human rights, labor rights and democracy.”
White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks referred questions to Trump’s brand. 

The Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment.
Abigail Klem, who took over day-to-day management when the first daughter became a White House presidential adviser, has said the brand requires licensees and their manufacturers to “comply with all applicable laws and to maintain acceptable working conditions.”
China tightened control over foreign NGOs starting this year by requiring them to register with state security. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing Wednesday that she was not aware of the arrest and disappearances. 

She said China welcomed international NGOs to carry out research, but added, “we also hope that NGOs can also observe Chinese laws and regulations and don’t engage in any illegal actions or behavior.”
Mr. Hua was accused of illegal surveillance, according to his wife, Ms. Deng Guilian, who said the police called her Tuesday afternoon. 

Ms. Deng said the caller told her she didn’t need to know the details, only that she would not be able to see, speak with or receive money from her husband, the family’s breadwinner. 

The crime carries a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment.
Mr. Li said China Labor Watch asked police about Mr. Hua and the two other investigators, Li Zhao and Su Heng, on Monday but received no reply.
The Associated Press was unable to reach the other investigators’ families. 

China’s Ministry of Public Security and police could not be reached for comment Tuesday, which was a national holiday in China. 

Calls went unanswered Wednesday morning.
The men were investigating Huajian Group factories in the southern Chinese cities of Ganzhou and Dongguan. 

Ms. Su had been working undercover at the Ganzhou factory since April, Mr. Li said.
In January, Liu Shiyuan, then spokesman for the Huajian Group, told the AP that the company makes 10,000 to 20,000 pairs of shoes a year for Ms. Trump’s brand — a fraction of the 20 million pairs the company produces a year. 

A current spokeswoman for the company, Long Shan, did not reply to questions Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
Mr. Li said investigators had seen Ivanka Trump-brand merchandise, as well as production orders for Ivanka Trump, Marc Fisher, Nine West and Easy Spirit.
“We were unaware of the allegations and will look into them immediately,” a spokeswoman for Marc Fisher, which manufactures Ivanka Trump, Easy Spirit and its own branded shoes, said in an email Tuesday. 

Nine West did not respond to requests for comment.

Banana Republic: The Chinese Collusion

Activist probing factories making Ivanka Trump shoes in China arrested
By John Ruwitch | SHANGHAI

Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump speaks at The MISK Event on the second day of his visit to Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 21, 2017. 

A man has been arrested and two are missing in China after conducting an investigation into a Chinese company making Ivanka Trump-branded shoes, China Labor Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, said on Wednesday.
Labor activist Hua Haifeng was arrested in Jiangxi province on suspicion of illegally using eavesdropping equipment, according to Li Qiang, executive director of the group China Labor Watch.
The three men had been investigating labor conditions at factories that produce shoes for Ivanka Trump, the daughter of  Donald Trump, and other Western brands, he said in an email.
"We appeal to Trump, Ivanka Trump herself, and to her related brand company to advocate and press for the release our activists," China Labor Watch said in the email to Reuters.
The Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment while the White House and Ivanka Trump's lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Calls to provincial police in Jiangxi and Ganzhou city police were not answered.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she did know anything about the situation and declined further comment.
The reported arrest and disappearances come at a time of sustained pressure on labor activists in China amid a crackdown on civil society under Xi Jinping.
In recent years, many labor rights activists have reported being intimidated and harassed, detained, or restricted in their movement.
Li said in 17 years of activism, including investigations of hundreds of factories in China, his group had never had anyone arrested on suspicion of having committed a crime.
"This is the first time we've come across this kind of situation," he said, adding the accusation against Hua had "no factual basis".

'PROTECTION NOT PROSECUTION'
Rights group Amnesty International called for the release of the three if they were held only for investigating possible labor abuses at the factories.
"Activists exposing potential human rights abuses deserve protection not persecution," said William Nee, the group's China researcher.
"The trio appear to be the latest to fall foul of the Chinese authorities’ aggressive campaign against human rights activists who have any ties to overseas organizations, using the pretence of 'national security'."
China Labor Watch's Li said Hua and another investigator, Li Zhao, had worked covertly at a shoe factory in the city of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, that was owned by the Huajian Group.
The third investigator, Su Heng, had worked at a related factory in the city of Ganzhou in Jiangxi but went incommunicado after May 27. 

Both factories produced Ivanka Trump-branded shoes, Li Qiang said.
The investigators had discovered evidence that workers' rights had been violated, Li said.
Hua had been investigating a vocational school in Jiangxi affiliated with Huajian Group when he was arrested.
A woman surnamed Mu who said she was in charge of recruitment at Huajian said she had not heard about the case.
A switchboard operator at Huajian's headquarters declined to transfer Reuters to company officials in a position to address questions about the situation.
Hua and Li Zhao had been warned by authorities weeks ago that they were suspected of having broken the law, and were barred from crossing the border into Hong Kong in April and May, Li Qiang said.