Daisy Fuentes' Sweatshop Scandal

Daisy Fuentes, TV host and actress, has been caught in the seamstress act. Fuentes has reportedly been using a Guatemalan sweatshop labor to fuel her clothing line, which is found exclusively at Kohl’s department stores.

Charles Kernaghan, who is the executive director of the New York City based National Labor committee, said that the conditions at Fuentes’ apparel factory, Fribo, S.A, in Santiago Sacatepequez are inhumane and illegal under Guatemalan law.

The workers are paid only twenty-five cents to make Fuentes’ blouses which sell for $22 to $38 in the U.S.

The twenty-five cents provides a below-sustenance standard of living for the women who labor over the clothing. In fact, the laborers are forced to work sixty hour weeks, but of course are not paid any sort of overtime compensation.

As usual, which comes with all sweatshops, the workers do not have healthcare or any other form of pension benefits. Yet, the owner does deduct the fees from the workers’ pay. In all honesty, this is most appalling and extremely illegal.

Fuentes, meanwhile, is not the only contributor to the labor horror that exists at the Fribo factory, as other companies such as Wet Seal, Filia, and Dress Barn’s Maurice’s all utilize the illegal labor.