13 Replies to “Improving The Lives Of Third World Workers”

  1. Toronto and montreal had booming garment districts prior to unions and off shore countries like bang the dish and hondoros and china et al. I just was lazy here by the way. clothing comes from Vietnam and any number of lower labour cost countries.

  2. Back to the disease-ridden rice paddies you go, Bangladeshis. Serves you right for trying to better your life.
    Well done, bleeding-hearted concern trolls.

  4. 454guy
    U ever been out from under the HOOD
    Kate is more travelled than most in here, and on her own dime.
    old white guy
    yup, unions, gov’t regulations and expensive “power” have ruined more than just the garment industries in Morontario and queerbec

  5. I think you got that right, and if they have their way there won’t be much enterprise shaking here either.

  7. I’ve visited Asia. I’m willing to bet the owners of those factories live like veritable kings, swanning around in Mercedes with armed guards, while their workers live in huts without running water. These owners have chosen to put their personal gain ahead of the lives and safety of the workers who provide the owners with their wealth. If Wal-Mart and others decide that they are not going to use such suppliers, good on them.
    Here’s a thought experiment: assume you were looking to buy a puppy. One breeder is charging $600 and one is charging $300. Do you just buy the least expensive, or do you investigate? If you found that the cheaper puppy was coming from a breeder who kept his dogs in tiny cages, didn’t give them all the necessary medicines, beat the females, etc., would you still buy it? No? How is what Wal-Mart doing any different?

  8. Bangladeshis must do their best to try and survive
    in a xenophobic, corrupt, unstable society. The
    inference that western buyers can somehow micro-
    manage the mores on the ground to achieve something
    more than cosmetic compliance is really unfounded.

  9. KevinB: “These owners have chosen to put their personal gain ahead of the lives and safety of the workers who provide the owners with their wealth. If Wal-Mart and others decide that they are not going to use such suppliers, good on them.”
    ………….
    Pray explain to us how the lives and safety of those workers are being improved by WalMart making them unemployed in a country too poor to provide social safety nets.
    Anytime you’re ready…

  10. How short-sighted you are, Tim. We only hear about it when 100’s of workers die in one accident; I’m willing to be that every day, someone is hurt and injured in these factories. Am I to understand that you are perfectly fine with people risking life and limb so you can save $2 on a T-shirt? If enough Wal-Marts, Penneys, etc. say they won’t buy from such factories, the owners have two choices: improve the conditions, or go out of business. Will it happen overnight? No. But are the workers better off in the long run if conditions are improved? Yes. (Please note: I’m not talking about wages, I’m only discussing working conditions.)

  11. “The amount a worker is paid is less than or equal to the amount he contributes to a firm’s net revenue and more than or equal to the value of the worker’s next best alternative. In any particular situation the actual compensation falls somewhere between those two bounds.
    “Wages are low in the third world because worker productivity is low (upper bound) and workers’ alternatives are lousy (lower bound). To get sustained improvements in overall compensation, policies must raise worker productivity and/or increase alternatives available to workers. Policies that try to raise compensation but fail to move these two bounds risk raising compensation above a worker’s upper bound resulting in his losing his job and moving to a less-desirable alternative.”
    ()
    Of course, wages are only one issue a worker may consider, working conditions being another.
    You always have to look at the alternative. What are the working conditions resulting from a low-wage worker not being able to be employed in a factory? Until you know that,

  12. Short-sighted? Desperately poor, hungry people tend to be *intensely* short-sighted. Not starving to death is a short-term goal, one averted generally by either farmland (of which there is too little) or by a job (now effectively gone, thanks to WalMart).
    WalMart has catered to the liberal guilt wallet. They can honestly say that they are no longer buying from sweatshops. That’s great, but they’ve done it by simply cutting thousands of people adrift, people with no other chance of staying alive.
    VF Corp on the other hand has apparently done what I think is an admirable thing – stay and try to help improve the conditions for the workers. That’s something that will help the workers, both short-term (they don’t starve) and long-term (working conditions improve). Remember the workers, KevinB? This is *supposed* to be about the workers, right? Starving men and women will do anything for money – where are those hungry people now? Is anybody naïve enough to think that they’ve all found fulfilling, well-paying work in a comfortable, safe place?

  13. “The ‘conservatives’ on this blog have to make up their mind: Are you for private enterprise or for social justice for all?”
    and
    “You really have to make up your mind and decide whose interests you want to put ahead: Canadians’ or foreigners’ 1/2 world away int he 3d world dictatorships.”
    +++
    Those are classic False Dilemma fallacies of logic. In reality, it’s not either-or, nor is the choice ever that simple. Such false logic loses high-school debating contests.
    But let’s say that we stop buying clothes made in dangerous or unethical conditions. Tell me, do you really think that that will recreate the Canadian garment industry? Really? And are you really prepared – you personally – to pay $45 for a t-shirt, $300 for a pair of jeans? Because when you’re making stuff in a place with labour that’s vastly more expensive (eg in Canada), that’s what you will be paying. We have cheap goods here only because we are willing to buy off-shore, taking advantage of economies of scale and lower wages.
    That too is basic logic.

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