last decade (SadAs 13). It Alm’111ailild 11’11E11″n s thcory nients in working coni Well-meaning protestors iitions will itlitt.I’L)”fi. rst Id pay higher wages or be -1 , that Bangl world have NUI” ,, Mt ktril, -‘2””’it d adesh’s sweatshops shou , ths away from women (s 1 cn, Ix a ,,, i –,, it dosing factories would take it i 1 I hus 0,_ consumer faces a dilemma: the issue s not one of choosing bc,,,,,en , “t d – g but of choosing the best possible (or least wroriW, iittim tight tract their production to sweatshops may seem like a vid: f‘ inik:n-What can concerned consumers do? Boycotting conic s that _ ,1,..,,i i but the andwron , 8 shop action: however, boycotts themselves raise compl:.,- , ,,es. 1 eirasti-they normally result in job losses for workers CIAbour bell thus only adding to the injustice because it is not the w, . nl. ,i Fweatshop !I Lahen: employers whom consumers want to punish. Second, workers choose the lob because it is better than the availablz Aternative, without their jobs, women have no choice but to settle lot marriage—n the other assuming they are still young enough to attract a husband. t ) hand, some studies show that boycotting can have an impact on compa_ nies because they become known as “ethical offenders” (Shaw et al. 5). Nike and GAP are two examples of companies that were forced by neg-ative publicity to modify their labour practices to maintain their place in the competitive market. Unfortunately, most large companies that adver-tise their “positive action” on the labour front simply go through a public relations exercise: they develop and publicize new codes of conduct (5). Codes of conduct may look impressive on paper, but they do not guar-antee action or change. Unless top-level management endorses and e o conduct, little or nothing changes at the level of enforces a firm’s codeof cling precariously to the bottom rung of the coin-the sweatshops, which
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Part 8: Readings
ssibier shoP ethi””T 0 arket for ettf I garments Prodt erican Apparel products in Loss it does not Hain) States. The Co trade-consci4 an online stor union Estabi re fairly trad these ly hi el, b e have g that 2). lack of in th oidable f nclude that conclusi( e potent tal 55; they matter ho do decrease artufactu °n of corrl e is subiga welatslIcTs ‘ex- There of action Weyer, tl gy Althot ‘ Alctions
pang hierarchy. Nevertheless, a code of conduct is a start, and a start is better than 9 nothing. But even the most determined consumers confroif,intmultinationalnpgrocbolnesmusmenr deciding which companies or products to boycott. Identifying . _, goods produced wholly or in part by workers in sweatshops is nearly irnPos sible• Over the last 30 years, North American and European tion of work in the garment industry is part of an economic system e _.. .6con_ corporations have greatly increased the amount of production that they tract to the developing world (Arnold and Hartman 2). This massive “triangular manufacturing”: transnational companies based insEivuerroepit:; called North America receive orders for consumer goods, contract the Produ fin_ orders to lower-wage (usually third-world) economies, and ship the …. fished goods back to the buyers (Hale 3). As a result of triangular ma-neud, are ufring,ideveloping countries, where goods are produced and assembl that ocZ”o prodcuc’crne T l’he race egulations, resulting in b I – I to the bottom requires sus ptheetemino:t llgroaocedstoatthee bottom.” The winner is the counuY pe-nediiansgtewstopra4celaacnedanatdtehnevlior woner;tci:otsnatsi aabour behind the Labe le” ()%v– 10 Another effect of trian )i )ar wages and dismal working cone!’ Bible to know arnotant Product ca 1e ar manufacturing is that it is virtually imp o'” a of tizbeki ‘ that , For os-examPle, a large is ant , world’s lar ‘ (Belli 2 t to t_hina, , ) Uzbek cott stan s cotton, picked by child lab me from or where it was maue. is, oure in the USA. 11 tne the label gest xtiles on is from it is ‘ on e ti • Where expioited in the ‘ — is irnP -bl use Process of up in T-shirts that are made in China and sold n the ” ossi e to k made in China” T-shirt does not saY ex of garments and te the cotton the know whether children were Producin garment (Belli 2). Similarly, a

 

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