The Dark Side of Sirius Satellite Radio

The Dark Side of Sirius Satellite Radio

Sweatshop Conditions at the Kiryung Electronics Factory

NEW YORK, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Labor rights watchdog challenges Howard Stern -- who lampooned Kathie Lee Gifford over the exploitation of child workers in Honduras who sewed her clothing for Wal-Mart -- to confront Sirius Satellite Radio for the abusive sweatshop conditions faced by women workers at the Kiryung Electronics factory in Korea, where they assembled Sirius Satellite Radios.

   WHO:  Charles Kernaghan, director, National Labor Committee   Women workers from the Kiryung Factory in Korea,   Representatives of the Korean Metal Workers Union.   

WHAT: Attempt to meet with Sirius management. (This will be the third attempt to meet.)

   Press conference    WHERE:  Sirius Satellite Radio headquarters  

1221 Avenue of the Americas (Entrance on 49th St. betw. 6th & 7th Ave.), NYC

   WHEN:  Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 1:00 p.m.    --  Over 250 production line workers at the Kiryung Electronics factory       have no rights and are held under conditions of constant uncertainty       and fear.    --  Married women limited to just three-month contracts so they can be       fired if they become pregnant.    --  Workers can be fired for using the bathroom.    --  Forced to work 13 to 14-hour shifts, six or seven days a week,       sometimes going for up to three months without a single day off.        There are also grueling all-night 24-hour shifts two or three times a       month.    --  Workers making Sirius Satellite radios earn just $145 a week, despite       the fact that the cost of living in Seoul is as high or higher than in       New York City.  Workers and their families must subsist on rice and       kimchee (pickled cabbage).    --  In the face of discrimination and abuse, the workers organized a union       in July 2005.  Management immediately threatened to fire the women,       who then occupied the plant staging a sit-down strike.    --  Kiryung management informed the workers that at the insistence of       Sirius Satellite Radio, production of the radios would be relocated to       a low wage factory in China.    --  Hired goons also attacked the strikers, stomping, kicking and beating       the women.    --  For 1,160 days, the women have continued their strike in front of the       factory gates. The head of the local union at the Kiryung factory went       on a hunger strike for 94 days before being hospitalized in       mid-September.  The situation has reached a crisis, which is why the       workers have come to New York to press Sirius Satelite Radio to       intervene.     Full Report:  http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=607   NLC Letter to Howard Stern:  http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=608  

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: National Labor Committee

CONTACT: Barbara Briggs of National Labor Committee, +1-212-242-3002; or
Hyewon Chong of the Korean Metal Workers Union, +1-347-259-7815

Web Site: http://www.nlcnet.org/

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Profile: International Entertainment