It is in everyone's long-term interest to continue lobbying the companies who make our stuff to start requiring equal standards and rights wherever their stuff is manufactured. It will benefit the people of those countries who do the manufacture while re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
Cheap stuff comes at a high cost.
There is no free lunch. The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want to do.
...re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
The primary goal of many activists is exactly this: re-balancing the cost differential so that low skill American workers can continue to be paid well. I.e., a redistribution of wealth from Bangladesh to the US.
That's not true, the safety expenses should be mandated and everyone's prices will increase accordingly. Prices are set according to costs and in the developed world, safety is a required cost. It could happen overnight if the big customers actually required it. Imagine if Walmart suspended billions of dollars worth of contracts until safety standards were met.
Right now, Bangladesh needs wealth more than anything else. Once they have wealth, they can spend it on things like OSHA.
Western nations could incentivize this by not assessing fines for firms caught producing their products in unsafe factories (I assume a couple billion dollar fine would be more impactful to Apple than a scathing NY Times article).
Because they would have nowhere to move to.
First... China has a humongous work force, which solely on numbers no other country can compete with, you need whole continents to get the same mass of workforce.
Second, in comparison to the rest of the BRIC competitors - Chinese workforce is relatively homogenous, well educated and most importantly of all they have a work ethic (Brazil? Hahahahah).
Third, low price is not the sole reason why stuff is produced in China (Go read why Ipad production is never returning to the US according to Steve Jobs).
This is a weird way to frame things, as though workers don't really mind being killed or injured on the job. Safety is management's responsibility, not an employee choice.
There are many things we could do to reduce your first world risk of death - mandate that all cars are have a mechanically enforced speed limit of 20mph, for example. We choose not to. Why?
When there is a gun pointed at your head, you do not have a real choice.
It's a matter of probabilities, not certainty. And workers quite often DO prefer to trade off safety against other concerns. Not just pay, either. Convenience is a big one. When I worked at a factory in China, I was told the people using heavy machinery had safety goggles available but often preferred not to wear their googles, because doing so was hot and uncomfortable. Management would nag people to do so but wouldn't require it. In that sort of circumstance, giving workers objectively more freedom and personal responsibility allows them to be less safe - but more comfortable! - compared to how they would be in the US with OSHA breathing down people's necks.
For the USA that meant better working environments, hours, safety, and pay. Before these things were in place we had insufficient labor laws here too. The portion that I'm missing is that, here in the states our industrial revolution paid well enough for parents to provide a better standard of living for their children. Those children were able to do the same, and we increased the middle class. If that is what is going on in China then we should NOT stop purchasing good from them. Here are a few links from a quick online search. http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publications/food-and-wat... http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news/economy/china-middle-cl...
However, I think the OP being concerned about this is great, but you can't force change onto another culture nor should you. We can attempt to empower them to make the change, and be aware so that we aren't supporting the a workforce that is being sucked into a cycle of poverty.
We can, however, stop buying products made in such dangerous factories, and make it clear why we are doing so. Why should we demand that factories in this country adhere to certain safety standards, then buy cheap goods from factories in other countries that do not adhere to the same standards?
Yes they need safety regulations, but that really does need to come from the Chinese workers. We should help them make those demands if they want but we shouldn't force it on them. I.E. Opening a site where workers can Chinese workers can complain about their working conditions (ratings) which then propagates those ratings to the products. We would use the product reference as a guide.
But to force that upon them, in my mind, is wrong. It's hard to find the line between empowerment and external control. This is an issue many Americans had when donating to Haiti. They'd try to give an American fix and it didn't work because that's not what Haitians wanted or needed.
How do you know what factories are dangerous?
http://newint.org/features/2013/01/01/india-elite-sense-of-e...
While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar.
It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating grass. Underpaid labor is better than no pay is an excuse of the privileged; and only the privileged.
They are NOT underpaid for the most part (If you actually bothered to read what I wrote). They are under-paid to "western living standard" but not according to the local living standard (for the most part). There are some exceptions and exploitations, but its very small percentage, but those are the examples that the media and people like you try to bring up when discussion these issues.
Lets be oblivious and ignore the world of good garments industry has done for literally millions people in the poorest parts of the world.
Change takes time, its not pretty, its not shiny, and its not fairy tale and sometimes people die in the process.
I don't need the media to tell me what's happening. I have family - therefore, a genuine vested interest in what happens to them and their community - and I stay in touch to this day. I know all about what the garment industry has done in the poorest parts of the world; I've seen the end result first hand (and second, third and fourth by virtue of having family working there).
The only one oblivious is you if you think you know how the real world works.
I.E. From just December last year :
http://www.eoi.es/blogs/amyblyth/dp-the-grameen-and-brac-exp...
For balance, here's the response straight from the horse's mouth before that story was written :
Very convenient when borrowers are unaware of those choices all too often as happened in Sri Lanka too after the tsunami.
And a guardian piece from 2008 :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/20/internationala...
Ah, but these are "Western media" outlets with a clearly biased view spewed from behind the computer. I was born there, but let me return to the modest shack my granddad built so I'll have better standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, with you.
Your organization is the NGO equivalent of the U.N. with greater far-reaching tentacles in every aspect of the poorest communities you influence. The garment factories you hold in such high esteem are exploitive in the extreme and the level of self-delusion you exhibit would have been funny if the consequences weren't so tragic.
Edit: Reply link not showing up yet. Meanwhile, since microcredit is the bread and butter, so to speak, of the BRAC scheme :
https://www.google.com/search?q=consequences+of+microcredit
https://www.google.com/search?q=effects+of+microcredit
https://www.google.com/search?q=repercussions+of+microcredit
I didn't find any such thing from your links after a quick glance.
...and only an excuse.
I have never seen a comment, anywhere, that so clearly, and concisely, explains how a local culture works.
Now as I have learned my way around I do go out by myself but kitchen it still off limit.
This is the easiest, most cowardly reply to any argument. For me it's not about being born in a western society (Eastern Europe actually) but about not accepting something just because that's the way it's been, or because it's better than the alternative.
Question everything. Why are things the way are? Why can't you live by yourself? Why can't you marry the person you want? Why can't you make yourself a cup of tea? Why can't you drive?
I do have a boundary and let them know when I don't like certain things.
You can either chose to stay in harmony or give them a middle finger to all their cultural feelings. I chose the former.
To ensure the safety of its citizens, it is a government's responsibility to strive to prevent work from being unnecessarily risky. It would be good if this could be orchestrated at a higher level than a national one, otherwise companies will enter a race to the bottom by moving their factories to the least regulated locations.
I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never lived in such circumstances or in those countries). They may not get paid the same salary according to western standard, but the worker are doing (for the most part) pretty fine with the amount of money they are making. As a matter of fact, most of them have never seen so much money in their life, and most of the garments workers (mostly women) who without garments work would either be house wife, or beggars or do seasonal farming work 2-3 months a year with 1/10th of the pay, if at all (usually they get paid by farmed goods like rice, instead of money).
You have to understand, you can live a very good life with very little money in this part of the world, as far as the living standard of the local economy is concerned, the pay is not bad at all (there are few exception where garments owners take advantage of workers, but its not the norm). Garments industry alone single handedly have improved countless people's life and directly or indirectly have saved many people's life too.
To give you an example, we live in a pretty well off part of the city in dhaka, a family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers (thats how the local culture works). Our monthly grocery shopping cost rarely goes over 500-600 dollars. And we eat pretty good too, even compare to my 12 year stay in NY. For a single person my monthly grocery bill could easily go to 400-500 dollars in NY, and I used to be fairly frugal. So I think a perspective is necessary when talking about wages in this part of the world.
This obviously comes at a cost sometimes, but honestly I don't think any sane person believes the alternative (not having enough jobs, however underpaid they are) would have been better. Every, so called developed countries, has come to where they are on the back of cheap labors and poor worker's right and poor working conditions. That doesn't make it right, but thats pretty much how it works.