| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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The students object to what they call sweatshops. They say companies are exploiting poor people, by setting up factories in developing countries and paying workers a fraction of American workers' wages. The anti-sweatshop protesters appear to be winning the battle of public opinion. In 1996, they made Kathy Lee Gifford cry by saying she was exploiting young workers in Honduras who made her Wal-Mart clothing line. Within weeks, Gifford was admitting the error of her ways. She joined President Clinton at the White House, and renounced the mistakes of her past. The student groups who protest get some of their funding from labor unions. The steelworkers' union lets "United Students Against Sweatshops" use part of their offices in Washington, D.C. Maybe that's why the protesting students are also upset about wages in America. More recently, in 2001 student protesters took over the office of Harvard's president, and held it for three weeks, demanding a higher wage for workers at the school. This, too, is a popular cause. Their supporters camped outside, and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck spoke at a rally to show their support. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., came out and shook the students' hands. The national organizer of United Students Against Sweatshops, Ben McKean, assembled a group of student leaders to tell us why sweatshops must be changed. "Workers have no choices about what their lives are, they have to go to work in these factories. The workers themselves have come to us and said, 'You benefit from our exploitation, give us back something," he said. All that sounds very nice. But when we talked to some people who live in places where the workers are supposedly being exploited in sweatshops, we heard a different story. We caught up with an economist and several policy analysts on their way to the World Trade Organization Meeting in Cancun. Bibek DeBroy, an economist who lives in India, said he wishes the protesters would "think with their brains rather than with their hearts." DeBroy said, "I don't understand the expression sweatshops. There's nothing wrong with sweat. Sweat is good. Sweat is what people in the developing world, including India, do all the time." Doesn't the United States have the responsibility to stop companies from exploiting people in countries like India? Kenya's June Arunga, who studies trade policy, doesn't think so. She said nobody in her country thinks about companies exploiting them. "When there's a new company opening a factory people are excited about it," she said. Arunga and DeBroy point out that in poor countries, the Nike factories that rich American students call sweatshops routinely pay twice what local factories pay, and more than triple what people earn doing much harder and more dangerous work in the fields. Arunga says people in Kenya would volunteer to work in sweatshops for free, just to have access to clean running water and electricity without carrying firewood. "I wish we would have more sweatshops, quote unquote, in my country," Arunga told me. Most economists agree that "sweatshops" are what allowed people in now-thriving places like South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore to work their way out of poverty. A Win-Win Situation? Arunga said, "People get jobs in these places, their generation lives better than their parents lived. Most of them work for these companies for a while, go off and start their own businesses, it's a win-win situation for everyone," she said. And that, she says, is why the students who protest are ignorant and clueless. "They're comparing that to what they have in their rich homes," she said, "They're people who are very wealthy. They have no idea what they're talking about." I told McKean and the student protesters that Arunga and DeBroy called people like them rich, ignorant and clueless. I said they have an unrealistic idea of how they're going to make things nice in the third world. "The image that we have as being rich and clueless and just idealist college students is a false one," said Mandie Yanasak. "Do I have a vision of how I want the world to be? Sure. Of course I do. I want the world to be one where people don't have to struggle to feed their children," she said. Lindsay-Marisol Enyart, another student, said, "We're talking about workers who don't have a choice and are forced to leave their home farms." But who's forcing them? They aren't being chained and dragged into the factory. If you insist on higher wages, I told the students, some of these factories will close, and people are going to be put out of work. Yanasak said, "We're not trying to close down sweatshops, we're trying to change sweatshops." But Bibek DeBroy said if these students get their way, it won't help people in the developing world. "It would mean fewer jobs, lower incomes, more people in poverty," he said. Arunga agreed, saying, "By passing laws trying to improve the jobs by force, they will get rid of the jobs." After the protests against Kathie Lee's clothing line, Wal-Mart withdrew its contract from one of the "sweatshops." American complaints about child labor persuaded factories in Bangladesh to stop hiring adolescents. The result, according to UNICEF, is many of the young girls turned to prostitution. This helps poor people? Source |
"in poor countries, the Nike factories that rich American students call sweatshops routinely pay twice what local factories pay, and more than triple what people earn doing much harder and more dangerous work in the fields. Arunga says people in Kenya would volunteer to work in sweatshops for free, just to have access to clean running water and electricity without carrying firewood. "I wish we would have more sweatshops, quote unquote, in my country," Arunga told me. Most economists agree that "sweatshops" are what allowed people in now-thriving places like South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore to work their way out of poverty. " AND "If you insist on higher wages, I told the students, some of these factories will close, and people are going to be put out of work." Hmmm, has that happened to any companies here in the states? AND "After the protests against Kathie Lee's clothing line, Wal-Mart withdrew its contract from one of the "sweatshops." American complaints about child labor persuaded factories in Bangladesh to stop hiring adolescents. The result, according to UNICEF, is many of the young girls turned to prostitution." |
huh? holy mother fuck. |
The biggest problem with it all is the industrialization of the world and the misinformation passed on to the public. The destruction of the old way of life to conform to western values and cultural habits. Prostitution isn't just something that goes on in Asia, you know. It goes on all over the world and the biggest patrons are american men. |
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I don' think kids should work. But, that being said, I also know for a fact that kids start working on family farms as early as 6. That's HARD WORK. I had friends that got up at 3 to milk cows and feed, and all that crap before school. Not everyone gets to sit on their ass and collect unemployment for 9 months. |
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wow. what a banal, mundane and otherwise amateurish generalization. VANILLA ICE CREAM FOR ALL MY FRIENDS! "I don't understand the expression sweatshops. There's nothing wrong with sweat. Sweat is good. Sweat is what people in the developing world, including India, do all the time." wow! convincing. spunk, what that article fails to mention completely, which is part of the reason its a big piece of shit, are workers conditions. its not just wages. unreal productivity quotas, 14-16 work days, 6 days a week. if you dont produce X amount of goods in 80+ work week you're fired or your pay is docked. half hour lunch breaks and on and on and on and on. physical abuse by factory managers. the jobs are sometimes held over the employees heads because of the dire need. you don't use the risk of firing (=starving in someplaces) because you don't produce two weeks of garments in a weeks time. this is the major concern in textile sweat shops. i know. we employee textile factories, but only after Nico has inspected them. We don't employee third world sweat shops. really... who does that article consult other than a lame-brained couple of students for its counter point? come on spunk, if you dont want me to insult your intelligence, please don't rely on such shity journalism to make an argument. seriously eri, please, kick his ass up and down and 17 ways from sunday. |
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you posted it, and used it to prop up your point. hey....what was that? oh, that was your point blowing away in a mild breeze. you posted the 'spunkbomb' so you get the shit. |
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sooooo....? spunk, tell me how much Nike pays, in US dollars, and then tell me what they're doing is justified. I'm not a boycott type o' guy, I still watch FOX and eat at McDonalds. But Nike's actions are inexcusable, given their wealth, and I won't ever even touch their merchandise until things change. They can afford much much more, and they have no excuse. |
you cant go into, say, vietnam, and start offering the equivolent of US minimum wage, in a country that has a fraction of GDP. frankly i dunno enough about economics to say whats too little in a 3rd world country. all i can advocate are basic humane treatments when it comes workers in terms of work hours, reasonable relevent pay, fair and humane treatment by supervisors and protections against unhealthful working environments and access to basic medical care. |
I'm not sure if wage really is the issue here. It's about safe working conditions and reasonable hours. Would the third world really exist without our participation? |
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I guess someone has to come up with a ratio of pay versus hours versus working conditions.... |
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In what context? |
1) wages. Great, hurrah, you're making someone in Kenya or Vietnam rich by giving them a job at Nike. and they can survive on their 40 cents an hour, or whatever, and live like kings compared to their neighbors, who only make 20 cents an hour. But the guy in Beaverton, Oregon, home of Nike's corporate HQ, lost his job because He can't support his family on 40 cents American. That's why trade unions are with the angry student types: because 'exploitative' labor takes away jobs from blue collar americans. And these blue collar americans then have to file for unemployment, and they spend less, which means other companies are making less money, and they have to lay some people off, and suddenly you've got Portland and 1/12 of the people are unemployed. or 2) If you don't care about Americans, because really, aren't all humans intrinsically equally valuable? then you've got to wonder why the guy in SE Asia or Nicaragua or wherever, who is supposedly so wonderfully rich on his $0.40/hr, still lives in a mud hut, a lean-to, or at best a concrete bunker of a slum without the cars, busses, TVs, air-conditioning, refrigerators that we take for granted. the fact that they love making a tiny wage just highlights the gross inequalities between life-styles in '3rd' and '1st' world countries. Most third world countries would probably be better off without our 'participation', meaning our constant interfering to make sure that we have a steady stream of cheap labor. alright. end college freshman sounding rant. Some days you just wake up Marxist. |
And (2) is bullshit, also. You think cars, busses, TVs, air-conditioning and refrigerators are measures of anything? Further, do you think TV would be as ubiquitous in the US if a TV set had to be made with union labor? If every person who touches a TV in production had to be paid a living wage (as determined by Silicon Valley or Boston or Tokyo standards), how much do you think TVs would cost? If the average american could barely afford a 13" B&W TV every 20 years, how would that stifle innovation? think about it. the same goes for cars, busses, air-conditioning and refrigerators. |
"In what context?" That is what I like to call a rhetorical question. Here's your context anyway. The rejection of nature and tradicional medicine for modern ways of life and western medications. Television. Consumerism. The need for product. The factories with the sweatshop conditions. Mines. Cars. Slash and burn. White flour. Dentistry. Don't tell me we're making their lives better. Don't you dare. |
"Western medications"??? so you are saying that the smallpox vaccine was a bad thing? hmm. |
"The rejection of nature and tradicional medicine for modern ways of life and western medications." Maybe YOU prefer witch-doctor-voodoo-medicine. If you do, then don't let me stand in your way. |
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for those who have already been introduced to the larger world, and had strangers traipsing through their environment for years, it is a different matter. |
thanks to the stinky, retarded spunkbomb dropped earlier. |
Their cultures changed with the influence of explorers and missionaries. They become dependent on the goods and services that originate overseas. Voodoo witch doctor is more than medicine, it's something to belive in. .....When did I cut myself? I've got a scab that I don't reemeber. |
Anyway, the point is that the attitude that Western culture was an unmitigated disaster upon all other cultures it touched is a gross overgeneralization of the actual process. There were many evil consequences of cultural contact, but many positive as well. I would suspect that a great deal if not almost all the people who post here wouldn't even exist without the contact between cultures. |
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(note: Clovis is the term applied to the earliest identifiable and verifiable culture of the New World, appearing at about 14,000 years BP. It's named after a distinctive type of spearpoint) By Steve Long: "A different question I think is how often the spread of new know-how syncs up with migration. Iron technology definitely came to North America with Europeans. But, Robert, what about looking at it the other way around? Did corn (maize) and tomatoes reach Europe due to Native American invasions? Does Turkish tobacco signal an Abnaki migration to Istanbul? The real "irony" is in the sauce on that pizza being eaten at this very moment by Native Americans up in Nome. Originated in Peru, techno-domesticated in Central America, imported into Spain as "Moorish Apples", the tomato does not become the key ingredient in every American undergrad's favorite food in its modern form until it is re-introduced to America 250 years later by Italian immigrants to a former Dutch/English colony called Brooklyn where pizza as we know it was born, even though there are now Pizza Huts in Moscow. Though there definitely were some migrations involved, we would have a lot of difficulty keeping up with the "pizza people" if we were 30th Century AD archaeologists left with only petrified crusts and empty pizza boxes to work with. I suspect the same problem occurs with the early wheel, with Bronze Age bronze showing up in Denmark and possibly even with Clovis points. Migrations happened often enough. But what set Columbus off on his own was not America but the Spice Islands -- with the idea of bringing back something everybody had already heard about and wanted. Consumerism. His biggest disappointment was that he never found China, not for all the tea in China. Even here the migrations came later. Even here the ideas were traveling first. And later when people dressed up like Native Americans symbolically dumped Chinese tea in Boston Harbor, there was not recorded a single Chinese person anywhere near the place. Obviously, we'd make a mistake if we found that tea and thought that it stood for a migration from the Far East into Massachusetts, when it actually stood for something quite different -- ideas that we could never really understand from just the non-written material evidence. Perhaps Clovis evidence also essentially represents the movement of similar intangibles and not the mere physical movement of people." |
Minnie Driver to work in sweatshop? this is going to be an easy one to make fun of, but i admire she's putting her neck out like that. |