On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, J. van Baardwijk wrote:
> At 19:39 24-1-01 -0500, John Giorgis wrote:
>
> >B) Providing a job to an impoverished citizen of a Third World country,
> >who without your job would likely be unemployed or working for much lower
> >wages.
>
> Wrong! Companies move their factories to Third World countries exactly
> because there they can let people work for a wage that's next to
> nothing. If an average Third World citizen works for $1.00 per day,
> no US company will suddenly start paying them $2.00 per day. As you
> pointed out yourself, those next-to-nothing wages are the prime reason
> for moving production lines to the Third World. That, and the nice
> side effect that you don't have to worry about all those unpleasant
> things like decent labor conditions, safety regulations and those
> damned Labor Unions.
It depends. Is Sri Lanka part of the Third World? I know of at least one
clothing company that set up a shop there, put in nice, new machines,
better work environment than any of the other companies doing comparable
manufacturing there, and paid a better wage -- maybe not twice as nice,
but on the order of $8 per whatever-amount-of-time rather than the local
going rate of $6 for the same amount of time; and they caught a lot of
flack from the other companies doing clothing manufacturing there.
So if you're thinking about buying Victoria's Secret underwear and the tag
says "Made in Sri Lanka", buy it -- the person who made it is working
under better conditions and getting a better wage than most of the people
there, which is good for that particular set of workers.
Julia
