'Do you care if goods are made in sweatshops?' poll discussion

flatworldsedge

I think the question and answers need to better define what is meant in this case by "sweatshops".

The key areas I'd want to know more about are conditions of work and choice to work. So long as people are free to leave the job (i.e. not restrained) and the conditions of work are at least on par with the average for that country and thus the conditions in which people would otherwise work, then I would definitely buy.

So long as people are free to quit then I don't see any issue with wages. If people are happy to work for it, then it is a fair wage. We're far too quick to scale overseas wages by our expectations without controlling for PPP. Whatever the case, if someone, free to choose their work, chooses to work for 1p/hour then it is by definition a fair wage and I see no issue with keeping them employed by buying their employers goods.

For me, the exception comes if it is really slave labour that is implied by the term "sweatshops". In that case, then I would not support their "employers" by buying their goods and would pay a premium to buy alternative products produced by workers who freely choose their wage.

Often people respond to this argument with an assertion that often people work in de facto slavery through lack of alternative employment options. Personally I'm a hardliner on this; lack of alternatives describes the labour market, and suggests that a very low wage is indeed a fair wage.

Colinwr5

There is no straightforward answer to this problem, sweatshops are the only source of any income for these people. If they were closed the work would move elsewhere in the world and they would starve as there is no Social Security in these countries.

The only way is the general development of the country to create good jobs, as has happened in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, now steadily in China and India. Unfortunately it takes time, just thank your lucky stars that you were born in a developed economy and have a secure life despite our current problems!

The_Rock-man

The problem here is this at lest where that story concerned is that the kids and there families usually need the money for these "sweatshop" jobs to stay alive. Put an other way would you want your child to go hungry and eventaully die or work in a sweatshop? As this is sadly the case also if the sweatshop closes he would just move on to an other job somewhere else, likely more dangerous and likely still be a bad wage or 7p an hour or worse.

BozBoz

What if I think sweatshops are a good thing and that they improve the living conditions of the poor?

Edit: I have a nice article on this subject in my bookmarks but as a new user I'm not allowed to post links. If anyone is interested a google search for "krugman in praise of cheap labor" should find it.

Dr_Dr

I have seen a number of these places in various countries. They include where children work. You can never believe all you are told, but often the children get away in the afternoon to go to school.

Nor can you condone any of this but must think of the consequences. Often there is only one person working (it might be a child) and they are supporting the entire extended family. Without the pitiful amounts they make the family would go hungry.

Most of us in the Western world have never known real hunger, so do not understand what it is like to see your child starve. Like most people I would like to see everyone get a living wage and have good and fair working conditions, but this is the real world.

If we all stop making the purchases it will only make the situation worse and more will go hungry.

billshep

I would buy ethical clothes, but I don't know how to identify them - apart from internet sites which always seem to have overinflated prices... I can easily identify fair trade coffee, fair trade bananas etc, but I can't say that I've ever been in a shop and seen the Fair Trade mark (or similar) on clothes. Although to be fair I avoid clothes shopping until it becomes absolutely necessary

langtoft_lad

Inconvenient for the campaigning media - for whom it's just another story to sell their product - but the issues are not as black & white as they'd like to make out.

As other posters have pointed out - are sweatshop wages better than none?
Are there any guarantees that if we paid higher prices, the extra would end up in employee wages? I think not. Higher profits for the employers I suspect.
And is not the end consequence of insisting on higher wages, a higher cost of living spiral as goods become more expensive, meaning higher wages needed?
End result - as our own mass manufacturing industries have discovered - is that your buyers move elsewhere for their product.

Unfortunately, there's a difference between living in an ideal world and the real one. This is one disadvantage of a capitalist economy & globalism.
That's not to say one shouldn't try to improve the system, or the lives of those at the bottom but one also has to be realistic.
Meddling & interference often makes things worse, not better.

[/puts soapbox away]

mjjohnson38

All these "do-gooders" who think they are ethical would have these sweatshops closed down, but if they asked the workers they would find that they wish you would keep your interfering noses out. They want the work.
A load of ethical minded, self promoting,do gooders arranged to send tons of cans of tomatoes, (that were surplus and could have been given to OUR poor)to an african township, where the local tomato growers went bankrupt . So much for interfering busybodies, that don't realise the damage they do, or that charity begins at home. Much as the government insists on borrowing £millions, and gives much of it away, how mad is that?

MSE_Martin

Maybe as a rule of thumb we should tell ourselves that if an item appears too cheap it's been made in a sweatshop. Hardly a perfect rule, but without what else as a consumer have we got to go on?

This is a difficult moral argument, made most hazardous by imperfect information and the difficulty of tracking the supply chain.

Yet I wanted to note that the above comment is not a good rule. Many very high brand companies e.g. trainer makers have had reports about sweatshop and child labour conditions as have many more expensive retailers.

Unfortunatley the difficulty here is accurately tracking and monitoring a supply chain.

Let's take a theoretical example.

The Acme clothing company has a no child labour policy
It hires out is production to a factory in Thailand which it checks
That company gets another order in and farms out some of acmes work to a sub contractor without telling acme
That sub contractor uses child labour

The press find out and report Acme clothing.

It says "this is an outrafe we have procedures but this fell through the hole - we will work harder to ensure it doesn't happen again?"

Do we then stop using Acme? Has it done wrong? This is the difficulty

We could say we want UK sourced goods as stronger laws here mean sweatshops are less likely (though not unheard of)

Yet then we would perhaps be penalising low cost businesses in the developing world, and employment there even more.

It is a tough question and I dont know the answer but I think suggesting a direct cost and ethics link isn't correct.

Martin.

Matt_Richards_2

AshleyBones wrote: »

Arrogant apathy! Would you care if it was your child?

Retailers may be taking advantage of the cheap rates of labour available in these third world countries, but we are only providing them with work and some sort of economy that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Where would they be without this work?? Starving. If their own economy had anything better to offer, they'd take it, but it doesn't.

Unfortunately many countries do not have the economy or standard of living that we are used to. BUT look back 100 years; child labour, poor working conditions, cheap rates and long working hours were still being taken advantage of in Europe and the US. Our economies have simply developed earlier than some, into what we are used to today.

Let's hope that in time third world countries will continue to develop to build stronger economies and a much more pleasant standard of living.

The western world cannot be responsible for building fairer countries in the east, we do not have the means. However, we are of course here to help - providing work, as we do, is at least a building block.