Frugal Fashionista Doesn’t Care About Underpaid Workers
Ok, I know it’s very tough not to shop for something that’s made in China or some other Third World country…but how insulting and disrespectful can you be?
I read this appalling article online from the Toronto Star about how we’re in dire economic times, and that it was time to look for some cheap fashion.
What’s the most insulting part of the article was this:
Funny thing, though, this looming recession. As bad it gets, economists and retail anaylsts predict this one will be different from years past. We’ll have never looked so good. The recent explosion of “fast fashion” has retailers like Joe Fresh, Wal-Mart and H&M in a race to introduce trendy and basic apparel for less and less. Thank you, China, Vietnam, India, Cambodia.
Seriously? Have you no shame? I was waiting to read about a worker who’s working 10 cents an hour and how fast fashion is an epidemic we should try to avoid not encourage! You would think that very last phrase was sarcastic. It wasn’t. It was seriously thanking them as the rest of the article dives on how to shop for 5 outfits for less than $100.
I do consciously think about the stuff I buy, and I feel guilty when I buy something made in China, but it’s because of this that I spend much less. Sure I may tout the opening of a store here and there and touring high end places like Chanel, but I am not encouraging in any way to purchase ANYTHING. Sure the purchasing is left to your discretion, it’s your money, do what you want as long as you know what you’re going into. But to blatantly tell people “Hey I know this thing’s made from Cambodia and that workers suffer, but I get to save me some dollars cause times are ‘hard’ over here.” Give me a break.
I find this article to be heartless. Shame on you Toronto Star.
July 5th, 2008 at 1:56 am
I thought you might want to know that Cambodia, unlike the other countries you mentioned, actually promotes fair labour practice and suffered because of it. So if anything, one should probably buy something made in Cambodia and support them, than buy similar product made in China or Vietnam if those are the choices available. (I got my info from here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1158)
While I also agree with you that fast-fashion phenomenon is bad (for the environment imho), I have a more nuanced view on sweatshop and goods made in third world countries.
I come from Hong Kong, and like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, etc, we all at one point have sweatshops of our own. If you look at the situation at the time, with a huge population moving into the urban area from the country side, having a sweatshop job was the only option open to them and the only way the country can feed its people. But more importantly, all these countries I mentioned eventually moved away from sweatshops, started producing more high value goods or in the case of Hong Kong build a huge financial sectors and reached where they are today amongst other countries with highest GDP. They managed to do that with the capital saved up from years operating sweatshops.
I’m saying this just to show that cheap labour aren’t necessarily universally bad, but it doesn’t mean I condone child labour or other bad labour practices. In Hong Kong at least, the British colonial gov’t eventually implemented measures to stamp out labour abuse and corruption (mostly for political reason, to keep the workers away from the Left wing parties). Moreover there’s a welfare and housing system in Hong Kong that ensured to an extent a distribution of wealth that in turn build up a big middle class within one generation, which I’m a part of. It’s from this experience, I want to say that if there’s a good government in the origin country, buying goods made from cheap labour can be a good thing in the long run. In the case of South Korea and Taiwan, once the country got wealthier, people start to demand more and it helped put the country on the path of being a democratic state ( Well, Hong Kong and Singapore weren’t so lucky in this aspect).
So for me, the reason not to buy made in China/Vietnam goods is because I don’t agree with their government and their lack of regard for the general population but not so much because their labour is cheap. That is also why I find Cambodia’s policies admirable and should be more publicized and supported.
Fundamentally, sweatshop/cheap labour is just a short phase and there’s all the sign that China is already moving out of it with their inflation running high. What’s more disturbing would be China taking their money and invest it in Africa; creating the next generation of sweatshops and supporting their corrupt rulers and evil dictators. This is what infuriates me when people keep insisting on only buying local when Canada’s money, business and investment can benefit a lot of African countries that have barely anything going on in their economies (except the sale of their natural resources). If more Canadian/American/European money is invested in Africa, even if it creates factories that paid low wages at first, our presences I pray can help steer the countries towards an open responsible government for the ordinary people rather than going down the Chinese authoritarian style of governing…. the thought of this only makes me want to pull my hair out.
this is a long and convoluted response, I hope I didn’t bore you or confuse you.
July 5th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
@ Idiotica:
Thanks for sharing your point of view, it’s not often we get to hear about the current sweatshop/factory situation in Asia and I certainly didn’t expect Cambodia placing fair labour laws in their country.
Indeed when I was thinking about low paid workers, I had thought about the situation that if they didn’t have their factory jobs, what else could they possibly work in? In this sense, it’s quite unfortunate that some countries aren’t yet able to offer more options for workers.
I was also told by someone who works in the couture industry that there were illegal immigrants working the Italian factories as well. When asked if they were happy to be paid minimum wages, they said “yes,” because minimum wage in Europe is a great deal more than the salary they would make in China or Vietnam, thus they don’t mind working long hours and being paid minimum wage (to our standards). So it’s quite a dicey situations, if the manufacturer can pay less AND keep his workers happy, it’s a win-win situation. Work conditions are probably better there, but we can only speculate what really goes on in those factories.
As for Africa, that’s even bigger question mark of where its future lies with the rest of the world. But I can see what you would like to happen to Africa. However, every continent has a different way of governing their labour practices, so I’m not quite sure if giving Africans manufacturing jobs will help their situation in the long run.
Fast fashion is not only environmentally toxic, but it also diminishes the appreciation of well constructed clothes. We’re settling for cheaper and cheaper clothes, wasting our money on it when you could invest in something that you really love and you know will last you a while.
My answer is also quite lenghthy, so thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject. The more knowledge we can spread the better!
July 7th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thank you for drawing attention to this article Dahlia and thank you for starting this discussion. I take the points made by Idiotica – there are indeed nuances to be made in this debate – I recently had an opportunity to interview a freelance journalist, Carla Power, who wrote on this topic for Time Magazine. She had some interesting insights and anecdotes that I personally hadn’t thought about. You can read her article by clicking on this link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1813511,00.html.
This said, while I fully concede that labour standards in emerging markets involve a messy, complicated and frustrating set of circumstances, I agree the Toronto Star article hits a particularly crass note that I don’t appreciate.
Helene
The Luxe Chronicles
October 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Hi, Do something for help the hungry people in Africa or India,
I made this blog about that subject:
at http://tinyurl.com/556poc