i have had to skim the digests lately & haven't given enough real time to every detail of people's posts but i've enjoyed the fact that it seems like everyone has offered their opinions with respect for each other...here is my experience & i hope no one will jump on me for it:
i think there are often many misconceptions regarding manufacturing in other countries...i've traveled to china & visited one of the factories there ...since my husband has been a toy designer for years he has spent a good part of his life there & has often been asked to oversee some of the production to be sure his designs have been manufactured correctly...so he has a long standing intimate view of what some of the factories in china are like... the atmosphere in the factory i visited was very relaxed & didn't seem any different than any other manufacturing plant in the US, except for the fact that everyone was chinese... yes, the wages are lower but so is the cost of living...by a lot... jeff says that he has sometimes seen children working in the factory but they've always been in there running around in dangerous situations...he thinks its safer if they are going to be there, that they given a task & a wage...(i didn't see any children in the factory that i visited however) the people who come to the factory to work are very poor & from agricultural families...these people have not been given the opportunity for eduction so the children are working anyway on the land...however, most of the people who come to work at the factory are women & the factory wages are higher than they were receiving as agricultural labor... they are given higher wages in the factory, a clean, warm apartment & the opportunity to move up in the company...their appearance changes over time from kind of raggedy, dirty hands, etc to clean with nice clothes because they can now afford it...& they have money to take home to their family...i see this as an opportunity for women to become valued members of a culture which previously did not value women at all...it seems like a good thing to me since the culture has placed a premium on male babies & not on females...in fact, from what i hear there is now a great shortage of women compared to men... one of the businessmen jeff worked for built an entire city, factory, apartments, stores, etc for his employees anyway, i learned a lot by seeing first hand what is was like....its so easy to make blank statements about sweatshops in foreign companies without really understanding all the elements...or knowing that they are not all the same ******************************************** Kate Bennett: www.katebennett.com Sponsored by Polysonics/Atlantis Sound Labs Over the Moon- "bringing the melancholy world of twilight to life almost like magic" All Music Guide ********************************************
