1,127 deaths of "slave" labour

[Sarongman]

Having watched an ABC Four Corners report on the garment industry in Bangladesh, I am even more determined to master sewing my own clothes. The title just discloses the death toll from the collapse of a building which, at 5 stories, was three stories over it's allowable height. This factory was not sewing discount clothing, as papers with orders from Benetton were in the rubble. There are other cases where factories have burnt down and, with the windows barred and the workers locked in, there was no escape from a terrible end. There seems to be a serious problem of Western greed for profit with no regard for the workers who are locked into a vicious cycle of poverty with wages barely able to sustain any semblance of dignity. Workers are beaten if mistakes are made, forced to work at a speed that is unsustainable without some error and, well, it all seems like a page from the worst of the "dark satanic mills" of Victorian England. I'm definitely no "lefty" but this does violate my sense of fair play.
Where a garment has the Made in Bangladesh label on it, I will now possibly not buy it. I do see that, if we all did this, it might impact badly on a third world nation, but then, also the major clothing companies might also take stock of their actions. I wouldn't mind paying a little more for a garment if I knew it went to better wages and working conditions for the workers. Benetton has no excuse, as that is an overpriced label in the first place Sorry about rant, but had to get it off my chest.

[skirtingtoday]

This sounds exactly like the "sweatshops" in New York lower Manhatten in the 1890'2 to early 1900's. There is a tenement museum there where you can experience how it must have been like at the time. They also commented that after some fires in buildings over 4 storeys led to law changes for fire escapes on the outside of the buildings among other safety improvements.

See wiki link:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_ ... ctory_fire for the worst of these in 1911. Most of the deaths then were immigrant Jewish or Italian workers.

[RichardA]

A quote from my niece who runs her own clothing company.
“but uncle Richard if I don't buy form them they will have nothing and will stave to death”
I too feel your anger, but it's all to do with money everyone’s looking for a bargain.

[Caultron]

A quote from my niece who runs her own clothing company.
“but uncle Richard if I don't buy form them they will have nothing and will stave to death”
I too feel your anger, but it's all to do with money everyone’s looking for a bargain.

There's certainly some truth to this, and neither the UK nor US government has the authority to regulate working conditions abroad.

However, I'd like to see some sort of program where, when working conditions are poor enough, the government could decertify that factory or producer and thereby block further imports.

I know, I know, the producer could just relocate a block down the street and open under a new name. But it seems we ought to be able to do something.

[Sinned]

About the time of the independence of India there was a boycott by India of English linen which caused a lot of unemployment among the mills in northern England. Gandhi visited the area on one of his trips to England and saw the results of the boycott. Within a couple of years the boycott was removed. So if we stopped buying then the tables would have been reversed. The solution has to come from within India or that area by legislation as it has here. Not an easy solution.

[skirted_in_SF]

I heard a radio ad several times yesterday for Old Navy. $2 tanks and $5 tees. You can imagine how much the manufacturer and the manufacturer's employees are paid for these items. I will not buy clothing items that are this stupidly cheap. I'm willing to pay more in hopes that some trickles down the the sweatshop workers.

[skirtyscot]

But you cannot be sure that it will. Even very expensive brands are made cheaply in the Far East, with higher profits going to the owners of the brand and the retailers.

[Don]

One possibility is to issue an "import" license to any manufacturer who wants to export to the USA. With this import license, you may export goods to the USA; without it you get turned away at the ports. To get an import license, you must show our inspectors that you are conforming with out saftey standards, our personnel standards, our environmental standards, Etc.

A couple of problems with this notion:

(A) It would probably be expensive to operate, and would probably require an inspector to remain "in country".
(B) It would CERTAINLY drive the price of those imported goods up to where they would be competitive with ours;
(C)) A manufacturer who is denied an import license has the option of selling his goods to someone else, leaving us to wear our own! And there would be unintended consequences! What happens to Wal-Mart if China goes on strike???!!!

Don

[Caultron]

Another major problem is that the exported may be just a distributor and not the manufacturer. In fact, there may be several levels of distribution, and any distributor may change their source of supply at any time.

And the US has no authority to inspect foreign factories. Yes, although it would be a paperwork nightmare, we could demand proof of decent working conditions as a prerequisite to import, but that doesn't mean we can send OSHA inspectors over there. And the distributor can be equally powerless if he buys his product from a third country.

Over time, poor working conditions do tend to improve, because countries become more prosperous and living and working conditions then improve. But this is a generality and there will always be exceptions.

And although I abhor the poor working and living standards in third world countries, the fact remains that those jobs must be better than any others those workers could get. Otherwise, they'd take those other jobs.