A worker with blood dripping from his head marked a low point in the tense, grinding life at a southeastern China factory used by Ivanka Trump and other fashion brands. An angry manager had hit him with the sharp end of a high-heeled shoe.
Workers from the factory, including one current and two former employees who spoke to The Associated Press, reported overtime that stretched past midnight, steep production quotas and crude verbal abuse at Ganzhou Huajian International Shoe City Co.
They said beatings were not unheard of, but the shoe attack, which all three say they witnessed last year, was violent enough to stand out.
"He was bleeding right from the middle of the head," the current worker said.
"There was a lot of blood. He went to the factory's nurse station, passing by me," said a second man, who said he quit his job at Huajian because of the long hours and low pay.
The three workers are the first people with direct knowledge of conditions at the Ganzhou factory to speak with the media. All three spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, for fear of retribution or arrest.
Last month, three men investigating conditions at the Huajian Group factory in Ganzhou were detained, accused of illegally using secret recording devices to steal commercial secrets. They, like one of the three men AP spoke with, worked with China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit that has been investigating Ivanka Trump's Chinese suppliers for more than a year.
Li Qiang, founder of China Labor Watch, describes Huajian's Ganzhou factory as among the worst he has seen in nearly two decades investigating labor abuses. His group says pay can be as low as a dollar an hour, in violation of China's labor laws. According to China Labor Watch investigators, until recently, workers might get only two days off - or less - per month.
China Labor Watch said the company forced workers to sign fake pay stubs with inflated salary numbers and threatened to fire workers if they didn't fill in questionnaires about working conditions with pre-approved answers. Workers also said the company pressured people not to speak with outsiders about conditions at the factory.
In comments to the AP, the Huajian Group declined to respond to specific questions, but broadly denied all allegations, calling them "completely not true to the facts, taken out of context, exaggerated."
The company said it operates lawfully and that China Labor Watch "invented so-called 'facts' by illegal means of buying undercover work, which has already affected the enterprise's normal business seriously and affected the survival and employment of tens of thousands of staff." The company noted its significant contribution to the economy and to society, particularly through its employment of disabled people.
Before taking on an official role as adviser to her father, Ivanka Trump stepped back from day-to-day management of her brand, but she has retained her ownership interest.
In Washington on Tuesday, she spoke at a ceremony unveiling the annual US Trafficking in Persons Report, in which China was demoted to the lowest ranking over its human trafficking record. She said the report is "clarion call into action in defense of the vulnerable and the exploited."
She has not commented, however, on the detentions or the reports of poor working conditions at one of her brand's suppliers. Her spokeswoman declined to comment for this story.

source: Khaleejtimes