{"id":151,"date":"2013-11-24T19:15:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T19:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/?p=151"},"modified":"2014-12-20T15:59:03","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T15:59:03","slug":"how-sweatshops-benefit-workers-and-why-they-are-unjust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/2013\/11\/24\/how-sweatshops-benefit-workers-and-why-they-are-unjust\/","title":{"rendered":"How sweatshops benefit workers and why they are unjust"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Rijans007<\/p><\/div>\n

On April 21 2013, the Rana Plaza building, an eight story factory building in Greater Dhaka collapsed, killing over a thousand workers<\/a>.\u00a0 The factory collapsed because, quite simply, the building was not designed to be a factory<\/a>.\u00a0 The building had been built to house offices and shops.\u00a0 When the building\u2019s owner later converted the building, he added industrial sewing machines and the generators to power them, but not the additional supports necessary to ensure that the building could withstand the resulting vibrations.\u00a0 The day before the collapse, cracks appeared in the walls of the building and workers were sent home.\u00a0 But the next morning, supervisors declared the building safe and ordered workers back to work.\u00a0 Those who were reluctant to enter the building were threatened with a dock in pay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Rana Plaza building collapse is the clothing industry at its worse.\u00a0 But the principle that it exemplifies, that of insufficient respect for the rights and welfare of workers, is sadly not confined to such tragedies.\u00a0 Proportionately few factory workers die at work, but many more are put at risk, made to work long hours, denied regular breaks, prevented from joining unions and paid miserly wages.\u00a0 One way to describe this phenomenon is to say that workers are exploited: what they receive from employers does not constitute a fair exchange for their labour.<\/p>\n

If clothing workers in countries like Bangladesh are exploited, then one response is to refuse to buy clothes from those countries.\u00a0 \u00a0The alternative would be to \u201cbuy local\u201d, i.e. from companies that produce their products in the developed countries, where workers are better paid and enjoy better protection from abusive employers.\u00a0 One could, for instance, buy from the US based company No Sweat Apparel<\/a> that offers people a means to \u201csupport US union-workers and fight foreign sweatshops with a single click of the mouse\u201d.\u00a0 Someone who supports \u201cbuying local\u201d may accept that campaigns for better conditions in developing countries, such as the Clean Clothes Campaign<\/a> and Labour Behind the Label<\/a>, have made moderate progress.\u00a0 But it will be noted that it is the opportunity to cut costs that attracts clothing companies to developing countries in the first place, so whatever progress is made will always be limited.\u00a0 To avoid the wrong of exploitation altogether one must avoid buying the clothes.\u00a0 The model here is other boycotts: boycotts of cosmetics tested on animals, boycotts of factory-farmed meat.\u00a0 In each case, the production of a product is thought to involve a wrong involving some form of harm that leaves people or animals worse off.\u00a0 Buy the product and you incentivize the harm.\u00a0 Boycott the product and you avoid the harm or at least avoid contributing to it.<\/p>\n

This is, I think, the first of two common but wrong responses\u00a0to the sweatshop issue.\u00a0 The second is that there is nothing wrong with sweatshops since sweatshops typically leave developing country workers better off<\/a>.\u00a0 We know that sweatshops typically leave developing country workers better off since developing country workers keep choosing to work in them.\u00a0 \u00a0They make the choice anticipating that whatever costs they must put up with in terms of long hours and bad working conditions will be worth the pay they receive.\u00a0 Sometimes, as the Rana Plaza collapse illustrates, the choice does not work out as anticipated.\u00a0 But typically it does, hence why workers keep showing up for work.<\/p>\n

There is an element of truth in each of these responses.\u00a0 The truth in the first is that sweatshop production wrongs sweatshop workers.\u00a0 The truth in the second is that sweatshops leave workers better off.\u00a0 The mistake made by both is to assume that either sweatshops benefit workers or they wrong them.\u00a0 In fact, benefiting while wronging is exactly what exploitation is all about.<\/p>\n

It is worth contrasting exploitation with theft.\u00a0 Theft is straightforward.\u00a0 You have something I want.\u00a0 I take it from you by force.\u00a0 You are left worse off as a result.\u00a0 Exploitation is more complicated.\u00a0 You have something I want and you are in a weaker position.\u00a0\u00a0 I make you an offer for it that will leave you better off but is less than a fair price.\u00a0 Lacking any better offer, you agree to the trade. \u00a0I have exploited you and therefore wronged you and <\/i>you have benefited in the process.<\/p>\n

It is true then that when we buy clothes from sweatshop sources we contribute to the exploitation of sweatshop workers.\u00a0 It is also true that one way to avoid so contributing is to avoid buying clothes from sweatshops and \u201cbuy local\u201d instead.\u00a0 But since developing country workers typically benefit from working in sweatshops, buying local threatens to leave them worse off.\u00a0 \u00a0If we worry about exploitation it is surely because we are worried about the workers who will be exploited.\u00a0 Since developing country workers are much poorer than developed country workers, it is particularly important that we do not leave developing country workers worse off.\u00a0 Boycotting sweatshops is thus not like boycotting cosmetics tested on animals or factory-farmed meat.\u00a0 Animals that are tested on or factory farmed have nothing to gain from being so treated.<\/p>\n

It seems then that the best approach is to support campaigns for better wages and conditions despite the slow, incremental progress they make.\u00a0 Boycotts could play an important role in such campaigns, targeting the worst offenders<\/a> in an effort to get all companies to comply with a set of basic standards.\u00a0 But a boycott against all companies that fail to offer workers a fair return is likely to prove too wide and too demanding to be effective at improving pay and conditions.\u00a0 This is why labour rights activists are generally cautious in advocating boycotts<\/a>, despite what their critiques may suggest<\/a>.\u00a0 Other means are available, whether it is pressuring companies to sign up<\/a> to better conditions; protesting at shareholders meetings<\/a> or inside stores<\/a>; supporting the unionisation<\/a> of garment workers; highlighting action initiated by workers themselves<\/a>; and providing opportunities for workers to get their voices heard.<\/a><\/p>\n

But can labour rights activists make progress by any of these alternative means?\u00a0 Surely the same sad logic applies: if companies are pressured to improve pay and conditions in developing countries then they will simply close down their factories and move back to developed countries.\u00a0 Workers will, in the end, be the losers.\u00a0 It is, after all, the lower pay and conditions that attracts companies to developing countries in the first place.\u00a0 If companies are forced to make improvements, why should they stay?\u00a0 (For an argument of this sort see Paul Krugman\u2019s prominent article \u201cIn Praise of Cheap Labor<\/a>\u201d and this creative video<\/a> by philosopher Matt Zwolinski, as well as the latter\u2019s publications<\/a>).<\/p>\n

While I cannot hope to offer a full response here, let me raise two reasons to doubt the claim that campaigns for higher standards inevitably mean factory closures.\u00a0 First, the gap in pay and conditions between developing countries and developed countries is so large that one can make significant improvements without denying companies an incentive to stay invested in developing countries.\u00a0 Second, labour rights activists have already made progress.\u00a0 This is true in the case of Bangladesh.\u00a0 Since the Rana Plaza building collapse over 70 companies have signed up to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety<\/a>, including major brands such as Primark and Adidas. \u00a0(Notably Gap have refused to sign).\u00a0 Universities too are taking action.\u00a0 Just last week, Edinburgh University announced<\/a> that it will ensure that the garments it buys from Bangladesh are covered by the Accord.\u00a0 In Bangladesh, workers seem set for a minimum wage increase<\/a>, from $38 per month to $68.\u00a0 (It will remain, however, the lowest minimum wage in world).\u00a0 These successes have not resulted in mass factory closures, nor are closures on the cards.\u00a0 Bangladesh is still, very much, open for business.\u00a0 No doubt this is why Bangladesh garment workers have come out in their thousands, often braving police charges and rubber bullets<\/a>, to press for better pay and conditions.\u00a0 They know, better than anyone, that they are better off in work than out of it.\u00a0 But they also know, better than anyone, that in their work they are subject to exploitation and that this injustice is worth fighting against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 21 2013, the Rana Plaza building, an eight story factory building in Greater Dhaka collapsed, killing over a thousand workers.\u00a0 The factory collapsed because, quite simply, the building was not designed to be a factory.\u00a0 The building had been built to house offices and shops.\u00a0 When the building\u2019s owner later converted the building, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/jwi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}