Parmita works in a garment factory in Bangladesh making underwear for U.S. prisoners. One day Parmita was sick. She worked all day but then refused to also work the nightshift, which would have kept her up until 3 in the morning. “The following day,” she says, “my supervisor shouted at me and slapped my face. He forced me to stand up a full day as punishment.”

You can find Parmita’s story in a report released this summer by SweatFree Communities. The study, Subsidizing Sweatshops: How Our Tax Dollars Fund the Race to the Bottom, and What Cities and States Can Do, includes case studies of 12 different factories in nine different countries. Worker abuse is the norm. Workers in these factories sew uniforms for public employees and clothing for prisoners. They supply eight major uniform brands for many cities, counties, and states in the U.S..

Most state and local governments do business with companies that use sweatshop labor in order to provide cheap products. But behind the lower costs are wages, working hours, and working conditions that are not acceptable, because they deny a decent life for workers like Parmita.

Corporate responses to the report show we have a long way to go to end sweatshop conditions in the uniform industry. Several companies not only denied the report findings, but claimed that there were no labor violations in any of the factories that sew their uniforms. Companies usually get their information from their own factory auditors, but the most accurate information comes from the people who work there, day in and day out.

When companies are in denial about sweatshops, we need to demand a change. A recent BEN (Business Ethics Network) commentary showed how we can use our individual buying power to move cocoa producers away from child labor; we can buy fair trade chocolate. States and cities can use our collective buying power to move brands away from sweatshop labor; we can insist that our tax dollars reward those companies which treat workers decently.

181 U.S. states, cities, counties, and school districts already have made a commitment to “sweatfree” purchasing because local activists demanded an end to taxpayer subsidies for sweatshops. These state and local governments can have a positive impact on working conditions of their suppliers.

For example, thanks to the work of Los Angeles activists and SweatFree Communities’ report, the City of Los Angeles got one of its contractors to commit to improving conditions in one sweatshop, and cut its contract with another company that refused to even acknowledge the poor working conditions.

Governments respond to pressure from voters and apparel companies respond to pressure from buyers. As people who care about the working conditions our tax dollars support, we need to make our voices heard. To see if your state and city are sweatfree, or for a toolkit to get them there, please visit our website at sweatfree.org.

About Bjorn Claeson

Bjorn Claeson is the Executive Director at SweatFree Communities.

This commentary is part of a partnership between CSRwire and Corporate Watchdog Radio.