Labor groups hit New Balance

Firm says it never contracted with alleged sweatshop

By Chris Reidy, Boston Globe

A watchdog group that once publicized the sweatshop conditions of overseas factory workers who made a clothing line under Kathie Lee Gifford's name has made similar charges against New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc., but the Boston sneaker maker said the group is mistaken.

The National Labor Committee, working with China Labor Watch, said yesterday that workers were forced to work overtime at regular wages of 41 cents an hour at a Chinese factory sometimes contracted by New Balance. At the Hongyuan factory, women must shower in front of men, and the workplace reeks of fumes, the groups said.

But New Balance spokeswoman Katherine Shepard said, ''New Balance does not contract, nor has ever contracted product at the Hongyuan factory."

The factory is owned by Likai, a company that owns several Chinese factories, including a separate one in the Houjie section of Dongguan City regularly contracted to make some New Balance products, Shepard said; New Balance employs a compliance specialist at the Houjie site to monitor working conditions, which she said bear no resemblance to those described in the groups' report.

Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, said his group obtained its information about the Hongyuan factory after China Labor Watch researchers secretly interviewed about a dozen workers last month. According to the workers, much of the product in the factory bore New Balance's label, he said.

Kernaghan suggested that Likai could be using the Hongyuan factory to fulfill some of its New Balance contract orders without New Balance's knowledge.

New Balance has long prided itself on the fact that many of its shoes were partly or fully made in its US factories.

As sales steadily rose, hitting $1.5 billion in 2004, privately owned New Balance has relied more on overseas manufacturing to augment US production.