Sweatshops offer good jobs, chance to achieve better life

Thursday, February 25, 1999

Sweatshops offer good jobs, chance to achieve better life

OPPORTUNITY: Closing down factories will ease conscience while
hurting poor employees

In doing research for this article, I came across an interesting
story. I was reading about a certain country where "Ten-year-old
children get up before dawn every morning and go to work. They are
paid by the piece, not by a guaranteed hourly wage. They get no
benefits. And they work seven days a week, year round, with no
vacation unless they can find someone to take their place." (David
Henderson, "The Case for Sweatshops")

Disturbed by this fact? The country in question is the United
States and the job is that of newspaper delivery. Would you
characterize this as sweatshop labor?

The definition of a "sweatshop" is rather arbitrary. If you
listen to many on the left, you might think that a sweatshop is any
place where people work. Generally what are referred to as
sweatshops are factories, mostly in the garment industry, where
people toil for long hours and low pay.

Of course, there are several types of sweatshops. There are
situations such as in Burma, where people are imprisoned and forced
to work in chains at gunpoint. Awareness of these practices needs
to be increased, and one can find such information at
www.freeburma.org.

Then there are situations in countries such as Indonesia and
Honduras, where foreign companies establish factories and employ
the local population. People voluntarily apply for the jobs, and
can leave if they do not wish to work there. These factories will
be the point of my discussion.

Sweatshops provide a number of benefits to the people that work
in them. First, it offers them an opportunity for advancement. Many
of the countries where sweatshops exist are poor, underdeveloped
countries, where a person’s livelihood generally depends on
subsistence-level agriculture. Factories give people in these
countries another option for earning more money.

One factory worker in Honduras told the New York Times, "This is
an enormous advance, and I give thanks to the maquilla (factory)
for it. My monthly income is seven times what I made in the
countryside." (Henderson)

It is true that the pay is low in these factories. Workers at
the maquillas in Honduras earn roughly 31 cents an hour. Over the
course of a full-time workload, that figure comes out to $1000 per
year. To American ears that sounds absurdly low. Compare that,
however, to the per capita income of Hondurans, which the most
recent figures placed at $600 per year.

As low as the pay is in the factories, it is still better than
anything that was offered before. Eliminating these factories would
deprive people of the only chance they may ever have for improving
their lives. If they are not working in these factories, then their
only options are to return to subsistence agriculture or to place
tiny classified ads in newspapers across the country.

Historically, low wage factory jobs have been a spark that
helped lift a country or a segment of the population out of
poverty. In the early part of this century, jobs in sweatshops were
the only ones available to many immigrants. If sweatshops did not
exist, they would have had no work at all. And it was from this
point that many were able to work toward a better life.

In Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, garment jobs
have taken national incomes from 10 percent to 40 percent of those
in the United States within a generation. Indonesia, where the
economy is based on sweatshop labor, has reduced the poverty rate
among children from one-half in 1973 to one-third now. (Alan R.
Myerson, "In Principle, The Case for Sweatshops")

While conditions in these countries are still not ideal, they
have improved dramatically with the help of sweatshops.

Honduras provides another example of this. Output in 1996 rose
45 percent, and clothing exports have reached $1.8 billion, making
clothes Honduras’ third most valuable export. Moreover, 74,000 jobs
have been created and another 100,000 are expected in the next
three years (The Economist, "99% Perspiration: Honduras"). In a
country with as much poverty and unemployment as Honduras,
sweatshops provide a means to alleviate these problems.

Sweatshops can also effect social change. Many of the workers in
maquillas are women. In turn, they become the breadwinners in their
households, which serves to mitigate traditional attitudes of
machismo and elevate the status of women.

And remember, these factories are not in the United States,
which means that the cost of living for those working in them are
different. Different countries have different price indexes. While
pay may seem low to us, it is perfectly adequate for those
receiving it.

It is ironic how people like those in Praxis cry about
Eurocentrism in everything, yet here they are trying to impose
Western standards of labor onto another country. Since when did
$5.15 per hour become an absolute truth? A worker’s pay reflects
the region in which he or she lives. Thirty-one cents means a lot
more in Honduras than it does in Los Angeles.

Boycotting companies that use sweatshop labor will do nothing to
effect positive change. If factories are closed up, then the
workers will have no place else to go.

Some might say that the people working in sweatshops should go
to school instead. This would be nice if the people could afford
it. For many, however, eating is more important than educating
themselves. In this country we can forgo working for four to six
years to spend time in an institution intended to better ourselves.
In Honduras, not working for four years can mean not eating for
four years. Taking away sweatshops from people in other countries
can be tantamount to taking food out of their mouths.

When Kathie Lee Giffords’ sweatshop was discovered, there was
public outcry, and Wal-Mart cancelled its contract. As a result,
the factory closed, and the girls working there lost their jobs,
who then blamed Kathie Lee. Is that supposed to help them, taking
away their only source of income? I guess that means it’s okay if
they starve, as long as no one is making a profit off of them.

Those who worked at Kathie Lee’s and other sweatshops do so
because they want to. Would they like to have more pay and better
conditions? Of course. What is more important, however, is having a
job in the first place. If a worker feels that he or she is being
exploited, or that working conditions are unjust, then they do not
have to work there. It should be up to them to decide, not some
whiny leftists in the United States who have never worked a day in
their life.

The value of a worker’s labor should be based on a voluntary
exchange between employer and employee. That is the basic principle
of freedom – the freedom to exchange. Work is a type of exchange,
with both employee and employer benefiting.

Sweatshops are a first step toward greater industrialization.
Such was the case in this country, and such will be the case in
present developing nations. The road to prosperity will be faster
if free trade and voluntarism take effect. So go out and buy
sweatshop-made clothes and do some actual good for somebody.

Matthew Gever

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