{"id":375,"date":"2015-09-27T20:41:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/27\/slavery-in-the-factory-part-4-2\/"},"modified":"2015-09-27T20:41:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T20:41:00","slug":"slavery-in-the-factory-part-4-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/slavery-in-the-factory-part-4-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Slavery in the Factory – Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nSlavery in the Factory \u2013 Part 4<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn Part 3, I told the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist
\nFactory fire in NYC.  The building where
\nmore than 146 people died in 1911 is now a biology lab at New York University.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nFrom the 1880\u2019s to the 1920\u2019s textile manufacturing
\nsweatshops were fueled by immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.
\nFollowing the Triangle fire reforms were passed, immigrations laws were
\ntightened and labor unions grew powerful. 
\nIn the 1950\u2019s there were more than 275,000 garment workers in NYC alone
\nand they earned about the same salary as an auto worker. By 1996, there were
\nonly 70,000 , most not making minimum wage. 
\nThis was a result of mass market garment production moving to the low
\nrange work forces of Asia and Latin America. 
\nIf a US company wanted to compete it had to lower labor costs (the
\nreturn of the sweatshop).  <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhat abut all the labor laws and reforms?  In 1996 , the Department of Labor had less
\nthan 800 inspectors who worked in all areas of US industry.  Owners of companies with dubious reputations
\nkept two sets of books, coerced employee whistleblowers and could, if
\nnecessary, close their factory and simply move locations.  If you think the products of these
\nsweatshops  are found in only the
\nlowest-cost big box stores you would be surprised to learn invoices can be
\ntraced to some very high-end retailers. 
\nThe fact that sweatshops remain in the US can be also attributed to the
\nneed for low cost clothing<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nOutsourcing textile manufacturing has made some foreign
\nmanufacturers very, very wealthy. 
\nAccording to the World Trade Organization the top 10 clothing exporters
\nin 2011 were: China with $153.8 billion, Italy with $23.3 b, Bangladesh with
\n$19.9 b, Germany, India, Turkey. Vietnam, France, Spain and Belgium
\ntrailing.  Today, Bangladesh is the
\nsecond largest exporter after China.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe safety rating in these countries is approaching
\nabysmal.  In 2012 , two factory fires in
\nKarachi, Pakistan killed more than 283 workers.  Again, there were locked doors, barred windows and lack of safety
\nequipment.  A fire in a factory owned by
\nTazreen Fashions LTD in Bangladesh killed 112 workers in a building with no
\nfire exits.  One of the worst disasters
\nwas the collapse of the RANA Plaza, Dhakar, Bangladesh,  which killed over 1,100 workers on April 24,
\n2013.  As a result of the RANA
\ncatastrophe a five year accord was signed by major European retailers for the
\ninfusion of funds for renovations making factories safe and independent
\ninspections..  The problem is that the
\nstandards of the Accord and Alliance are deemed unrealistic by Bangladesh.  According to the vice president of the
\nBangladesh Manufacturers and Exporters Assoc. 
\n\u201cit is unfair for the retailers to demand European factory standards
\nwhen they are paying Bangladeshi prices for the clothes they are buying\u201d. An engineer
\nadvising the government stated that most of the factories will fail the inspections
\nand new factories would have to be built. 
\nMajor US retailers are pursuing similar programs.  <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

However, oversight and
\ninspections  can only do so much when
\nthere are hundreds of factories in dozens of countries using workers as
\nslaves.  The demand for cheap apparel is
\na result of the generational poverty levels found world-wide.  Low wages create the necessity for low cost
\nproducts. Raising wages is one solution,<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Slavery in the Factory \u2013 Part 4 In Part 3, I told the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in NYC.  The building where more than 146 people died in 1911 is now a biology lab at New York University. From the 1880\u2019s to the 1920\u2019s textile manufacturing sweatshops were fueled by immigrants from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}