The People Who Make Our Clothes And The Conditions They Face
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-11/people-who-make-our-clothes-and-conditions-they-face
Dozens of Bangladesh workers making clothes for the U.S. market were killed in a factory fire last month. Debate over the safety of apparel makers and what can be done to improve conditions.
Guests
Steven Greenhouse
labor and workplace reporter, The New York Times
Scott Nova
executive director, Workers Rights Consortium
Kalpona Akter
labor activist, Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity
Alice Tepper Marlin
founder and president, Social Accountability International
Comments
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Clifford wrote:
"NIKE, REEBOK, LAFUMA, H & M (SWEDEN),GAP, BROUKS, J.C. PENNY, WALMART, KMART, OSPIG (GERMANY), MOTHER CARE (UK), LEE, WRANGLER, DOCKERS, NBA, TOMMY HILFIGER, ADIDAS, FALCON(USA), EDIE BAUYER, EAGLE, RELEIGH (UK), EMMILEE, FREE SPIRIL (UK),
MILES (GERMANY), AMERICAN EAGLE, HI-TECH (UK), PHILLIP-MAURICE (UK), WINS MORE, DECATHLON".
Not all are discount. Many are designer goods at premium prices."
Look in your closet, Clifford. Do you own any of these brands? Yes, I thought so.
"distance consumers from reality" they do a bang up job on that all by themselves..
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"Don't hate the sinner: Hate the sin"
seems a good parallel to nihilist wingnut logic.
"We don't hate workers, just the regulations that protect them."
Utterly ridiculous. The idea that to owners a trained employee is chattle is not only dishonest but false besides.
" What Americans should do is curtail shopping and explore domestic production."
Great argument for the free market!
WOW !! Last week T-Party/Republicans blocked legislation that would ask global Corporations to have handicapped accessible buildings and facilities....... Think about that..... The U.N. could ask countries to have safe work places..... And we all know the Puppetmasters who own and command the T-Party/Republicans,would NEVER respect and protect WORKERS anywhere on this planet!
Go shop at second-hand stores as much as possible. It's called recycling. There is so much waste and excess in America, you can find your Eddie Bauer almost new. Get over the "new off-the-rack" silliness that supports the sweatshop system. Shopping second-hand supports Goodwill, Disabled American Vets, Salvation Army, Am Vets, even local churches, etc.
The sweatshop damage has been done to manufacture these clothes but at least you're not supporting the fat cats Ralph Lauren, Eddie Bauer, GAP, etc
" tammie.l.collin... wrote:
I keep stressing to my young adult children that the buck stops with each of us. If you don't like life-time members in Congress, vote them out. If you want to stop these horrible conditions for workers, don't buy the goods. I feel it's too easy to blame the retailers. The fault is ours each time we buy a tee from Target. That should be the focus---even in 21st century America, all the power rests with the individual...as does the responsibility!"
You are absolutely right.
The ultimate consumer of goods must agree to pay the full price of what he/she wishes to consume... But there is an additional issue, the World Trade Organization (WTO) defends corporate interests and must be reigned in...
This type of exploitation is happening in the United States right now. Artist's studios throughout the U.S. use illegal labor practices, evade taxes, and destroy workers lives by causing repetitive motion injuries that are life threatening. These practices should be investigated by NPR.
Public radio and the New York Times and other media outlets feature these artists and provide free PR while the underpaid overworked employees are working 12 hour days, 6 to 7 days per week without overtime pay or any kind of benefits.
Alice had a lot of good points to make. Sadly, by repeatedly trying to dominate the conversation by talking over everyone she detracted from her case. Diane has great patience and as always was gracious, but had to be firm. Too bad Alice didn't clue in.
If we in the US all had living wages we wouldn't mind paying a bit more for our imported products. It might even be possible to move some of those products back to producers in the US creating more US jobs and internal wealth.
No matter how we regulate Asian manufacturing as it comes in to America, we have no control over how the regulations are enforced over there. And it is to the benefit of American business to ignore and claim ignorance about safety and human-dignity regulations. Corporate graft and government corruption feed and cultivate the craven abuse of workers. Consumers desire and, in fact, need the lowest price for garments. The culprit ultimately is the business community, whose wealth is determined by the margin between cost and sale price. Greed is the widening of that margin. Those who venerate John Galt are the criminals.
"We have met the enemy and he is us"?
I'll pay more to avoid shopping megacorps - they tend to crowd out jobs that pay living wages and suck the capital off to global HQ and Mr. Big 7 figures...
Thrift stores are great.
"Patkman wrote:
If we in the US all had living wages we wouldn't mind paying a bit more for our imported products. It might even be possible to move some of those products back to producers in the US creating more US jobs and internal wealth."
You are right... If everyone "could" pay more and "would agree" to pay the real cost of the product they want to buy, and if international trade regulations were actually applied, products would once again be produced in the US. This would start an upward economic spiral towards shared prosperity...
I thought the discussion missed one important issue in that many of us especially here in the U.S., myself included, have too much stuff already. I shop almost exclusively at department store sized thrift shops which are full of a never ending supply of our cast offs.
I also think this is an illuminating video by Annie Leonard:
http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/
I think she would make a good guest in the future as we continue to discuss this topic. Thanks for a great show.
I would like to add that the bare minimum price on these products brings prices down on all products. In addition to being a commercial artist I am a fine artist and sell both originals and derivative products made from my originals--things I make by hand or have printed in small quantities. I am constantly fighting with the need to lower my prices from what the cost of materials and a certain part of my own labor are worth. This affects all small businesses who can't--and shouldn't--compete with the big conglomerates.
And the level of quality coming from these factories lowers the expectations of customers who are accustomed to loose threads and bad printing. No factory is going to make things as an individual would make their own things by hand, but customers are less and less willing to pay for the quality of something made by an individual.
The whole thing devalues the relationship between the maker and the owner. We've lost an important part of the human need to be proud of what we do, and to reward a person by paying them for what they've done well.
I am always willing to pay more for an employer's health and safety, and even social stability. When will businesses mark the price of their product to cover more than their own profits? It should include a living wage and a safe workplace for their employees. We will all adjust.
I don't shop at any of the discount or department stores. It all just looks like stuff to me.
"A living wage" It will be interesting if the unions are successful in unionizing fast food restaurants like McDonald's. We can then watch them go out of business when hardly anyone will buy their $15 meals. Goodbye entry level jobs, hello unemployment.
In that same vein, what happened to sewing/mending?
For families that can't afford the extra few dollars per garment, a few buck of needles & string goes a long way toward making several garments last longer... maybe even longer enough to afford the safety price increase.
" THX1138 wrote:
"A living wage" It will be interesting if the unions are successful in unionizing fast food restaurants like McDonald's. We can then watch them go out of business when hardly anyone will buy their $15 meals. Goodbye entry level jobs, hello unemployment."
I do not know if you realize what you are actually saying... Are you suggesting that businesses cannot afford to pay "living wages?" Does this mean that workers work until they die of starvation? Do you wish to adopt the concentration camp model? You work until you drop dead, at which point you are being replaced by someone else who is going to work until he or she drops dead?
The economy is a system, THX... Everything is interconnected... Everybody benefits if everybody gets paid a living wage...
O well! I am sure that this is not what you meant...
"Are you suggesting that businesses cannot afford to pay "living wages?"
I am saying the market cannot bare the costs of a living wage for all occupations. It is utterly stupid and counterproductive for a living wage requirement on low or no skill jobs. Milton Friedman explains this quite well, unless of course you are inclined to see caveats where there are none.
I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk
Is it possible that the governing boards of these large corporations are actively choosing profits for shareholders/officers over slight increase in costs? I think it is very little to do with what consumers want. It is more about how shareholders/officers make the most profit....
On The Media did a piece on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and amazingly, at least 4 of the Comments it provoked were quite like those of 4 of today's DRShow Commentors.
One blamed Unions for failing to protect Workers.
Another suggested, tongue in cheek, that the Right Wing finds the misery and death of their Workers amusing.
A third accuses a commenter of AntiSemitism.
And a fourth reminds us that some things have not changed that much.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
To follow.
"ecgberht wrote:
And "We all know who hates workers. American workers especially"? We do? Who would that be? The successful? The factory owners who depend on them? Are they the ones who hate the workers? Yes, if they could just kill off those pesky workers, they'd be much better off, right? Do you give a thought to anything you post here, Clifford?
December 11, 2012 - 10:00 am"
Monte Haun from Bulls Gap, TN
[1] "Posted by: paul cook March 25, 2011 - 09:52PM
"As we investigate charges of bias in public radio, "...
'Sure. conservatives enjoy, no they delight, in workers jumping to their deaths. It makes us warm and fuzzy. We celebrate workers death and we smile at the efforts to keep the lowly worker safe.
Could you be more offensive in your reporting OTM?'"
The wreckage of the eight years of the Runt Bush's reign tells the story most eloquently. Agencies defunded, underfunded, unstaffed plus the little prick personally intervened to forbid warning pregnant women of the dangers of eating Tuna.
And don't forget the scumbag Cheney's finesse of responsibility for causing the slow, lingering, painful deaths of trusting workers and Citizens of his little Company Town.
Oh, for a Roosevelt or a Kennedy that couldn't be stifled by the Kabal's Media, thundering from the mountain top,"You will no longer feed your greed out of the sustenance of sick babies and the old nor leaven your bread with the blood of decent workers or sneer at there pain".
Small comfort, but at least you Rats are beginning to feel the heat and like all cornered vermin are scrambling for any hole to crawl out of.
Even Irony, Ha-ha-ha!
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Mar. 27 2011 04:54 PM
"Clifford wrote:
1908 Collinwood school,175 children die in fire........
All exit doors opened inwards....Results in "REGULATION" of exit doors must swing out.....Problem solved...kids live.
We know who hates "REGULATION". The same mine owner who killed 29 of his workers.The same guys trying to KILL unions,who protect their members and workers.
December 11, 2012 - 10:19 am"
"Monte Haun from Bulls Gap, TN
"Such tragedies (as the Triangle Fire) are not limited to the pre-OSHA period. In 1991, more than twenty years after the adoption of OSHA (and 80 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire-mchaun), twenty-five workers died in a fire at the Imperial Poultry plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. One reason for the high death toll was that their employer had locked the doors on suspicion they were taking chicken parts home from work"
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Mar. 27 2011 03:53 PM"
" THX1138 wrote:
"Are you suggesting that businesses cannot afford to pay "living wages?"
I am saying the market cannot bare the costs of a living wage for all occupations. It is utterly stupid and counterproductive for a living wage requirement on low or no skill jobs. Milton Friedman explains this quite well, unless of course you are inclined to see caveats where there are none.
I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk"
We agree entirely that, in principle, a mandatory minimum compensation level imposed upon firms by the government is an absurd proposition. The government is not in any position to derive meaningful guidelines as to what the price of workers added value might be.
What is equally absurd is to suggest that workers should not be compensated in such a way that they can sustain themselves with food, a roof over their heads, affordable health care...
Firms must pay a living wage or their human capital will have to be replaced by others who, in turn, will have to be trained. The firm will go to the bottom of the learning curve and the experience curve again, a pernicious form of disinvestment requiring a continuous type of reinvestment in human capital.
The firm has no choice. It must pay a living wage. If the firm is not totally mindless, it will continue to replenish the potential added value gained from its human capital. And the government will not be obliged to impose a mandatory minimum wage.
There is a difference between the need for a living wage and a theoretical statement that it should not be mandated by the government.
"THX1138 wrote:
A so called "healthier mindset towards unionization" in this country has led towards private sector jobs fleeing and local governments collapsing under the weight of impossible to maintain pay scales and benefits. They couldn't even fire workers at a Chrysler plant who were chugging booze and smoking weed on lunch breaks.
The only thing they needed in Bangladesh was compliance with basic fire safety laws in which they were in violation, why they were not shut down is the question. Government negligence , payoffs of government officials who knows.
In this country so many are ready to swoop in and claim that unions were the cause of improving working conditions, this would be wrong. It was competition and the free market that was the catalyst.
December 10, 2012 - 9:14 pm"
"Listener from NY
Thank you for the different perspective of why we remember this one tragedy apart from all the others of the period. This fire occurred during the perfect political storm of Democrat Party machine power, growing socialist ideology and a sensationalist media all focused on a real social injustice that shocked the public and all eager to wave the bloody frocks of the Triangle victims to advance their own disparate agendas. It is remarkable that after a century and the massive accumulation of money, power and influence in the labor movement, they and politicians hungry for contributions divide up other working people's borrowed money in amounts that would astonish the most rapacious Robber Baron. Reform was desperately needed in 1911 however we should recognize in 2011 that reforms are needed for the benefit of those in 2111. Those 1911 workers created the American Century for us and it is our obligation to maintain reforms but not squander their sacrifice in this century.
Mar. 30 2011 01:54 PM"
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
"Do you give a thought to anything you post here", mchuan?
So you're not creative enough to keep coming up with your own hate and personal attacks. Now you have to quote somebody else's hate and personal attacks? That's pretty pathetic!
I'd mark you personal attacks as offensive, but then the board moderator might remove them, and they're so stupid, I'd prefer they stand for everybody to see. Why don't you try to actually make a point that contains some facts instead of just your hateful angry venom, mchuan?
Ferdnam wrote: ridiculous
No one in their right mind expects entry level jobs to "sustain themselves with food, a roof over their heads, affordable health care..." They are entry level jobs for people that have other support structures in their lives. Teenagers seeking experience or part time employees looking for some additional cash. Strange you consider yourself a follower of Milton Friedman's philosophies and then proceed to distort them to the extent you do to fit your own.
There is something of a logical fallacy in the reasoning of the clothing retailers in their argument that they must use extremely low wage workers to produce their clothes because consumers demand extremely low prices. People are always going to demand the lowest prices they can get, and if things cost more, they're likely to adjust their consumption practices- i.e. buying less. Clothing is inelastic. We all need to have some clothes. The retailer's primary interest isn't in providing what the consumer demands, it is in managing demand to ensure that they can maintain profits under the mass-consumption business model that they have chosen. This model requires that prices remain so low that people will purchase nearly indiscriminately. This runs opposed to the type of business model that runs on prices based on production costs that reflect the human rights ideals we purport to follow as a society. We can, in the same conversation, bad mouth the labor unions that forced producers in the western world to enact better labor practices that hurt the production of jobs by increasing labor costs, and pat ourselves on the back for finding a new shirt for 10.99 because one member of the household is out of work. There is a massive social disconnect in western society that we can believe in and require BASIC human rights for ourselves and our communities while consuming cheap goods paid for by the lives and societies of the third world. There comes a point when we have to accept that things cost more than we want them to if we want to provide honest leadership to the world in human rights.
ecgberht wrote: "Do you give a thought to anything you post here", mchuan?
I don't think they are even being read by anyone except me an you. Most of the time I'm not sure who wrote what by the way he lays them out. To the average reader of this comment board, they probably don't get past the first sentence or two.
"twenty-five workers died in a fire at the Imperial Poultry plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. One reason for the high death toll was that their employer had locked the doors on suspicion they were taking chicken parts home from work"
Hey mchaun. Have any documentation for that? I didn't think so. Some of the WORKERS claimed that was the reason but there was never any evidence that it was so. Actually the reason was that the plant had experienced a number of breakins so there were locks on the doors and the windows were boarded. The owners were terribly at fault - and went to prison. But additionally, "In 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection. Investigators believe a safety inspection might have prevented the disaster...The poultry inspector visited the site daily and knew of the fire violations." That is clearly a failure of government oversight. You can pass all the laws you want, but if there are no cops on the road, people are going to speed.
"THX1138 wrote:
A so called "healthier mindset towards unionization" in this country has led towards private sector jobs fleeing and local governments collapsing under the weight of impossible to maintain pay scales and benefits. They couldn't even fire workers at a Chrysler plant who were chugging booze and smoking weed on lunch breaks.
The only demand that unions can make is that Employees are entitled to arbitration before discharge. Do you really expect us to believe your idiotic claim??
"The only thing they needed in Bangladesh was compliance with basic fire safety laws in which they were in violation, why they were not shut down is the question. Government negligence , payoffs of government officials who knows."
In Cliffords example of the recent Coal mine disaster and historically, there is overwhelming evidence that, because of the political power the Owners exert over the politicians, Inspectors are strongly discouraged from vigorous enforcement.
The Owners influence on the Courts also rendered the most egregious charges unenforceable.
"In this country so many are ready to swoop in and claim that unions were the cause of improving working conditions, this would be wrong. It was competition and the free market that was the catalyst."
Asinine blather!!!
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com