Walmart greenwashing: Workers pay the price

The workshop paid by the piece, and working eight-hour days for five or six days a week, Mamani and José took home only $40 a month — less than half of Bolivia's minimum wage.

Most of the workers were women, and José recalls supervisors verbally berating them. "When a woman didn't work fast enough, the supervisor would yell at her, calling her 'useless' and telling her that she was 'better suited for the red-light district' that was across from our workshop," remembers José. "Some of them would start to cry, and we'd be told: 'Don't console her. If she's crying, it's her own fault.' "

Noah Friedman-Rudovsky

The entrance to José and Mamani's former workplace. Inside, the workshops are barren except for some tables and chairs.

Noah Friedman-Rudovsky

The entrance to Aurafin's factory has no sign indicating it's one of the largest factories in Bolivia.

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• Eduardo Bracamonte
• La Paz
• Elvio Mamani
• Jewelry
• Fashion and Style

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In 2006, José, Mamani, and a few others decided to unionize their shop. At first, the 80 other workers were terrified — their meager pay in one of South America's poorest countries makes the difference between being able to feed and school their children or not. But with abuses mounting daily, the workers decided they had no other option. Once management got wind of their organizing, Mamani recalls, they were quickly visited by "Bracamonte's man," who tried to talk them out of their decision. The workers held their ground, and the next day they found their workshop door padlocked. The site had been closed, and all workers were fired on the spot.

Rojas, with the Center for Agrarian and Labor Development Studies, says that this double-manufacturing system is common in Bolivia. "The main factory is a sort of cover," says Rojas, explaining that many companies in La Paz have one central facility that minimally abides by labor laws but that supplements its production with off-site — and off-the-books — labor. "There is no doubt that conditions in these workshops are extremely precarious and constitute serious worker exploitation," he concludes.

Bracamonte's defense at the time of the 2006 firings was that the workshops were a separate, subcontracted entity. But according to Bolivian law, the Aurafin factory is responsible for the working conditions of those employees, confirms Rojas: "Our national law is clear on this. [Aurafin] is liable."

There is not yet a Spanish translation for greenwashing. But, José gets it: "They take our work and tell people that they treat us better than they do so that they buy it."

The soft-spoken man who's a strong power forward for his neighborhood soccer team, took several odd jobs to support his family after Aurafin. Two years ago, he was able to go back to school and is now a law student. He plans to open a small labor-law practice.

"My dream is to sit down at the table with the bosses [like Bracamonte] but this time knowing our rights as workers," he says. "I want to help out all workers in positions like we were," he says as he glances, perhaps inadvertently, in the direction of the Aurafin factory. "You know, so they have someone on their side."

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky is a freelance journalist based in La Paz, Bolivia.