Daisy Fuentes was notified by the National Labor Committee that her clothing line distributed by department store Kohl’s uses sweatshop labor. The NLC reports that the Daisy Fuentes blouses are made by workers in Guatemala that earn 25 cents for every blouse that retails for $25 in the US! The workers are forced to work overtime, cheated on overtime pay and defrauded out of health care and pensions; they only have access to filthy drinking water, have no toilet paper in the bathrooms, and are locked in during work hours—the list goes on and on.
After the jump, you will find the original letter to Daisy Fuentes from the factory’s workers urging her to do something, an interview with one of workers about the awful working conditions, and the original diagram of the sweatshop blouse in question.

Excerpt from Letter from the factory workers to Daisy Fuentes:

Carta de Trabajadores/as de Fribo S.A. a Daisy Fuentes 16 of June, 2007

Dear Ms. Daisy Fuentes:

They have told us that you are a famous, good person. We write to you to ask to please help us. We are simple people from Guatemala that sew your Daisy Fuentes blouses in the Fribo S.A. factory located in the kilometer 36.5 of the Interamericana Santa María Cauque de Sacatepéquez highway in Guatemala. As workers of this business, which you hire for the manufacturing of your blouses, we are tired of suffering problems and abuses inside the factory—especially the women; they humiliate us, and they scold and shout at us every day. The supervisors say that we are useless animals and that we have trash in our head. What they really tell us we do not want to even to write here.”

The Original Letter:

Excerpt from NLC Interview with a Daisy Fuentes Worker in Guatemala:

NLC: Tell me about the pressure to produce. Especially with the Daisy Fuentes lines, what is it like working on them
Ms. R: There’s a lot of pressure. They yell hurry up, hurry up to finish the production, or you’ll have to stay until 10:00 [pm].
NLC: How is it when you are producing the Daisy Fuentes clothing? Is there anything different or distinct about it?
Ms. R: We think the clothing is very pretty…

Breaks your heart!

Diagram of the Daisy Fuentes blouses factory workers are currently making:

Thanks Ivelisse for pointing out another example of celebrity negligence in the name of cute clothing!
Shocker: Daisy Fuentes’ Clothing Line Produced In Sweatshops [Jezebel]
Daisy Fuentes Clothing Sewn in Guatemalan Sweatshop [NLC Website]