Sweatshop clothes

I do and I feel bad about it but my favorite store in the entire world I know uses sweatshops but not ones that exploit children. I do try and make good choices though my favorite jeans in the world are made in hong kong where they utilize child labor so I get my second favorite that are made in indonesia. Unless it is in modern or juniors sizing I have a hard time wearing things that are made here the pants are cute huge in the hips and legs and small in the waist and the sweaters are always too short in the arms. So I am not as good as I should be but I try.

 

It's actually relatively easy to cut down on your dependence on sweatshops. Through research you can find many No-Sweat companies that run fair labour practices and use unionized labour. By checking the tags, if the clothing is made in an industrialized country, it is a fair guess it is union made (thank God Bluenotes keeps making their jeans in Canada or I'd be strutting around nakey). You can go to thrift stores, as has been suggested, you can buy handmade clothing at craft shows and from friends, you can make your own clothing, or you can get your clothing tailor made, for formal events and so forth.

I find it rather disturbing so many people take a so-what attitude to sweatshops. I am not trying to preach, but the fact of the matter is, a sweatshop is not a fun place to be. The hours are grueling and the pay is shit. Young children are sent to work. I believe it is in the documentary Mickey Mouse Goes To Haiti (is that what it's called?) where a man who works in a sweatshop is told what the item would go for in Manhattan and he is so stunned he begins to laugh and cry at the same time, in disbelief. They don't make enough money to buy the clothing they are making, what does that say to you? They cannot fathom the prices spent on these items, what does that say to you? (I believe the cost of the item was somewhere between $25-50)
eck. YMMV.
Lindi

 

A North American middleclassman will always be astonished by the incredibly low prices of a lesser economically developed country. In his travels to such a country he has jumped a class and is now among the rich. Why does it surprise you that a factory worker in a lesser economically developed country would be astonished at the higher prices of a developed country?

The fact-of-life perspective on ‘sweatshops’ shouldn’t be so disturbing to you. The bottom line is the workers in that factory. Your attack on the giant corporation is directed at forcing American standards on the factories it uses. Very good and noble. Your only success will be to have the corporation shut down the factory in one country and move to another country that isn’t going to allow western media to infiltrate. You force the corporation into deeper secrecy. Fact of life I guess.

Your desire to have Americans cut down their dependence on ‘sweatshop’ clothes is, again, very good and noble in idea. In practice what you are asking for is people to stop the little help they are offering to the poorest people of the world. Make no mistake that these people absolutely need any opportunity that they can get to make money. If you are successful you will win a small victory against the corporation, yes, at the cost of hundreds of jobs that support the lives (they make a living wage, not a minimum wage) of the people who need money the most. Fact of life I guess.

These quick fix solutions aren’t helping anything. They make it harder for a real solution to be found. So please stop spouting such absurd fundamentals because you are perpetuating and fortifying the underlying problems.

 

Wrong. There are fair trade networks that truly empower the workers in these countries, as noted in the links I cited previously.

 

Ideally yes. Unfortunately all these fair trade networks do is confuse the issue, eachother, and evidently us.

A small selection from the international best seller and anti-sweat bible No Logo by Naomi Klein.

 

I don't expect a meaningful universal code of corporate ethics (oxymoron?) to be adopted anytime soon. Grassroots fair trade networks might not be perfect, but they are undoubtedly preferable to the status quo.

 

I agree that these small victories are better than nothing. But you are too quick to assume that this is the only way to go. Just because someone says these little organizations confuse the issue and make the fundamentals harder to change does not mean they want, or are doing, nothing.

There is a major assumption out there that if these hundreds of different fair trade networks aren’t supported than nothing will happen. That simply isn’t the case.

The world is about to change on a scale greater than most people understand. The emergence of a global government is in the not too distant future. It is through that coming change that human rights can be secured. But all the anti-sweat and pro human rights activists must get on the same page and get their act together or they are going to be left behind again.

Right now they are as scattered as the stars in the sky. In light of the failures of the present way of ensuring human rights we must step back and organize all those grassroots organizations into one single, strong, and just voice.

Else we are doomed to the “haphazard and piecemeal mess of crisis management.”

 

The concept of a centralized global government is antithetical to human rights and liberty. Moreover, GATT/WTO agreements have consistently excluded meaningful labor/environmental standards and enforcement mechanisms.

 

The concept of government period is antithetical to human rights.

Past failure should be a learning tool and not a discouraging one.