Posted on 09/01/2003 6:10:56 AM PDT by StatesEnemy
How can you tell if the product you are about to purchase was made by a child, by teenaged girls forced to work until midnight seven days a week, or in a sweatshop by workers paid 9¢ an hour?
The sad fact is...You cannot. The companies do not want you to know, so they hide their production behind locked factory gates, barbed wire and armed guards.
Wal-Mart and the other multinationals refuse to release to the American people even the list and addresses of the factories they use around the world to make the goods we purchase. The corporations say we have no right to this information. Even the President of the United States could not find out from Wal-Mart where it manufactures its goods.
Yet, to shop with our conscience, it is our right to know in which countries and factories, under what human rights conditions and at what wages the products we purchase are made.
In the global economy, we must have the right to know: 60% of the $180 billion a year we spend on clothing, 80% of the toys and sporting goods, and 90% of the shoes we purchase are imports. We live in a global economy.
Imagine, in just the first 10 months of 1997, American companies imported one billion garments made in China--nearly four garments for every man, women and child in the U.S. Yet what do we know about who made this clothing, and under what conditions?
The companies do not want us to know that our clothing was sewn in China by young women, 17 to 25 years old (when they are fired as "too old"), forced to work seven days a week, often past midnight, for 12 to 28¢ an hour, with no benefits. Or that the women are housed in crowded, dirty dormitories, 15 to a room, and fed a thin rice gruel. That the workers are kept under 24-hour-a-day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory conditions. That the factories in China operate behind a veil of secrecy, behind locked metal gates, with no factory names posted and no visitors allowed. The companies do not want you to know that these women are trapped, with nowhere to turn, since China's authorities do not allow independent human rights, religious or women groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions have been crushed. This is the global economy.
Like other giant multinationals, Wal-Mart manufactures its private label clothing in at least 48 countries around the world, contracting production with tens of thousands of factories--including 700 to 1,000 factories in China alone. Wal-Mart's annual sales of $118 billion are larger than the gross domestic product--the entire economic output--of 155 countries in the world, and there are only a total of 192!
Wal-Mart uses its enormous power to play these countries and factories against one another, forcing them to compete over who will provide Wal-Mart the better deal, the lowest prices.
Wal-Mart then pits the American people against the desperately poor in the developing world in the race to the bottom, over who will accept the lowest wages and benefits, the most miserable living and working conditions--just to get a job.
Wal-Mart claims to have a "Buy American" policy, an "unprecedented commitment to purchase American goods," that is, until you reach the small print which reads, "...whenever pricing is comparable to goods made offshore." That is the race to the bottom in a nutshell. How can American workers compete with 9 cent-an-hour wages in Indonesia?
The truth is, Wal-Mart has moved far more production offshore than the industry average. For example, only 11% of Wal-Mart's famous Kathie Lee line of clothing is made in the U.S., while 89% is made offshore. Only 17% of Wal-Mart's men's Faded Glory clothing is made in the U.S., while 96% of its children's McKids label is made offshore. Wal-Mart has shifted the majority of its Kathie Lee production to Mexico and Indonesia--two countries where the local currencies collapsed, driving real wages through the floor, to 50¢ an hour in Mexico and 9¢ in Indonesia. It is as if Wal-Mart were chasing misery.
How the System Operates There are racks of Kathie Lee blouses for sale in Wal-Mart for $16.99. All of them are exactly alike, except for a single difference. Some are made in Mexico, where the workers are paid 50¢ an hour, while others are made in the U.S., where the workers earn $8.42 an hour. The workers in Mexico are paid just 17¢ for every $16.99 Kathie Lee blouse they sew, while the American workers earn $1.70 for the exact same work. How is it that the blouses sell for the same price? Who gains here?
In the Global Sweatshop, there are no rules In today's global economy, the multinationals are not accountable to the American people; there are no enforceable human rights or wage standards. There are no checks and balances. Corporations are free to roam the world in search of misery, high unemployment, starvation wages, no taxes, no regulations and no enforcement of labor and environmental standards.
Behind the locked factory gates, this is the reality:
Nine-to-12-year-old children in Bangladesh working past midnight sewing Wal-Mart shirts for 5¢ an hour. The children were beaten for their mistakes. (Dateline, 1992)
Thirteen-year-olds in Guatemala forced to work 13-hour shifts seven days a week sewing Wal-Mart clothing for 31¢ an hour. If they worked too slowly, these children were also beaten. (Wall Street Journal, 1995)
Wendy Diaz and 130 other 13, 14 and 15-year olds were forced to work 13-hour shifts sewing Kathie Lee pants in Honduras, earning just 25¢ for every $19.96 pair of pants they made. The girls were allowed to use the bathrooms only twice a day. (National Labor Committee, 1996)
Women in Haiti are paid 6¢ for every $19.99 "101 Dalmatians" children's outfit they sew for sale in Wal-Mart. Unable to afford milk, these women are forced to raise their children on sugar water and coffee. (NLC, 1997)
Workers in Nicaragua are locked in the factory compound from 6:45 a.m. until 7:15 p.m. with only one half-hour break for lunch, when they must race to the factory gates to purchase water and food through the barbed wire. They are paid 23¢ an hour to sew Wal-Mart clothing. (NLC/Hard Copy, 1997)
Kathie Lee handbags are made in China by women forced to work 10-hour shifts, seven days a week and earning just $3.44 for the entire 70-hour work week! The workers are stripped of their rights and kept under constant surveillance. Wal-Mart and other U.S.-based multinationals are actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing excessive overtime hours and tolerating widespread firings of anyone who dares to defend their rights. (NLC, 1998)
(Excerpt) Read more at ksworkbeat.org ...
Now I go to WAL-MART or COSTCO and buy new lights- right AFTER Christmas, and put them away for next year.
Only one example of a product that is much more affordable with "free trade".
Well said. I always try to buy American or just do without. Now if I can just get the wife to go along with the program.
Sad to say that Christmas has become nothing more than "Christians buying stuff from Non-Christians".
I went to walmart.com and found Ann Coulter's "Treason" available for purchase.
Also, there was a post this week about Wal-Mart.com selling a book that encourages pedophilia. I think Wal-Mart has some explaining to do.
That was amazon.com. Now you have some explaining to do.
Well whose fault is THAT?!? I don't make minimum wage because I don't want to. My grandparents made much less at one point, but as opposed to sitting around and whining about things like you do, they changed that. Instead of complaining, if you are worried about what you make, I suggest you change that as well.
Yes indeed.
Then they go on to tell us exactly where the merchandise is made, who makes it, how much they are paid, what they eat, where they sleep, and on and on…
Excellent observation. We, myself included, argue the finer points of a story that appears to be unsubstantiated based on its own content.
Otherwise, the first part of your statement is the only substantive part.
The societal ills you mention aren't related to a "post-industrial" society; they are related to a liberal upbringing and socialistic teachings.
Those new black berets that the military wears now were made in China.
Well, at least you read the post!
Did you bother reading the rant?
Now I go to WAL-MART or COSTCO and buy new lights- right AFTER Christmas, and put them away for next year.
Only one example of a product that is much more affordable with "free trade".
And that doesn't strike you as a porcine example of wastefulness (the opposite of conservatism BTW)?
Imagine a quality US manufactured set of LED based X-Mass lights that require an initial $20 investment but last 20 years.
Imagine a quality US manufactured set of LED based X-Mass lights that require an initial $20 investment but last 20 years
Ping me when you find a set. Like I stated before I used to dread the day after Thanksgiving, when the Christmas decorations went up. Looking through thousands of lights to find the "bad" one.
BTW, SE, why don't you start up your own company and make such an infallible set of lights as you stated in your above italicized passage.
Surely, you, the truest of truest Americans, could make such a dream come true.
A $20 set of Christmas lights that will last for 20 years.
A perfect application for LEDs.
Is there an absolute guarantee, they will last 20 years?
Also do they have clear lights, and not as big, for outdoor use?
Heck if I pay $2 for a roll of 100 lights at my local K-Mart or Wal-Mart, which are in stock and no waiting for the mailman or UPS man, what is the advantage of going with your suggestion, other than feeling superior and overloading an already overloaded mail system which has personal and petinent gifts in the pipeline, while I wait for the "quality" lights.
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