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One man's sweatshop...
Topic Started: Jun 8 2006, 09:21 AM (104 Views)
Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Nicholas D. Kristof writes in The New York Times:


One mans sweatshop is anothers opportunity

WINDHOEK, Namibia AFRICA desperately needs Western help in the form of schools, clinics and sweatshops.
Oops, dont spill your coffee. We in the West mostly despise sweatshops as exploiters of the poor, while the poor themselves tend to see sweatshops as opportunities.

On a street here in the capital of Namibia, in southwestern Africa, I spoke to a group of young men who were trying to get hired as day laborers on construction sites.

I come here every day, said Naftal Shaanika, a 20-year-old. I actually find work only about once a week.

Shaanika and the others noted that the construction jobs were dangerous and arduous, and that they would prefer steady jobs in, yes, sweatshops. Sure, sweatshop work is tedious, grueling and sometimes dangerous. But overall, sewing clothes is considerably less dangerous or arduous — or sweaty — than most alternatives in poor countries.

Well-meaning American university students regularly campaign against sweatshops. But instead, anyone who cares about fighting poverty should campaign in favor of sweatshops, demanding that companies set up factories in Africa. If Africa could establish a clothing export industry, that would fight poverty far more effectively than any foreign aid program.

Namibia was supposed to be a pioneer in Africas garment industry, for it is stable, pleasant and safe, and its government has tried hard to entice foreign investors. On the edge of Windhoek are a series of low factories set up to produce garments for America.

The biggest is the Ramatex Textile Factory, a Malaysian investment that employs 6,000 people. But the owners say they are losing money and will pull out, and other factories have stopped operating as well.

In Windhoeks Chinatown, I met Sun Zhimei, a Chinese woman who operates a small factory employing Namibians. Id like to help this country, by boosting its garment industry, she said. But on the day I visited, her factory was deserted. Its cheaper to import goods all the way from China than to make them here, she said.

The problem is that its still costly to manufacture in Africa. The headaches across much of the continent include red tape, corruption, political instability, unreliable electricity and ports, and an inexperienced labor force that leads to low productivity and quality. The anti-sweatshop movement isnt a prime obstacle, but its one more reason not to manufacture in Africa.

Imagine that a Nike vice president proposed manufacturing cheap T-shirts in Ethiopia: Look, boss, it would be tough to operate there, but a factory would be a godsend to one of the poorest countries in the world. And if we kept a tight eye on costs and paid 25 cents an hour, we might be able to make a go of it.

The boss would reply: Youre crazy! Wed be boycotted on every campus in the country.

So companies like Nike, itself once a target of sweatshop critics, tend not to have highly labor-intensive factories in the very poorest countries, but rather more capital-intensive factories (in which machines do more of the work) in better-off nations like Malaysia or Indonesia. And the real losers are the worlds poorest people.

Some of those who campaign against sweatshops respond to my arguments by noting that they arent against factories in Africa, but only demand a living wage in them. After all, if labor costs amount to only $1 per shirt, then doubling wages would barely make a difference in the final cost.

One problem — as the closure of the Namibian factories suggests — is that it already isnt profitable to pay respectable salaries, and so any pressure to raise them becomes one more reason to avoid Africa altogether. Moreover, when Western companies do pay above-market wages, in places like Cambodia, local managers extort huge bribes in exchange for jobs. So the workers themselves dont get the benefit.

One of the best U.S. initiatives in Africa has been the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows duty-free imports from Africa — and thus has stimulated manufacturing there. But last year, textile and clothing imports under the initiative fell by 12 percent.

The Congo Republics president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, told me that he would love to have more factories. Its incredibly frustrating, he noted, to see African countries export cotton, timber and other raw materials but rarely have the chance to process them. The American initiative is a step in the right direction, he said. But it needs more of a push.

One push needs to come from African countries: a crackdown on corruption and red tape. But aAnother useful step would be for American students to stop trying to ban sweatshops, and instead campaign to bring them to the most desperately poor countries.



The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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