The Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire and the Walmart Connection

[WIP]

Some time back, there was an idiotic thread started in defense of sweatshops as some sort of market solution to production, but after making a quick search I didn't see anything on the forums yet about this sweatshop disaster in Bangladesh -- which cost the lives of more than 100 workers:

Bangladesh fire kills 112 at Wal-Mart supplier

Garment factory had received 'medium risk' assessment in 2011

Some labour activists have noticed the uncanny resemblance to the Triangle Waistshirt Fire disaster that occurred in New York City over a hundred years ago, and was considered to be the catalyst for the rise of organized labour. Which seems to have fallen back to Dickensian conditions in an era where the heirs of the Walmart fortune own more wealth than the poorest 40% of the U.S. population, while their barely minimum wage employees are payed so poorly, they can qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. I'm not sure what Walmart workers are getting here in Canada...but I can tell you from a few that I know, that Canadian conditions are only marginally better than state-side. I guess we just haven't deregulated and gutted workplace and health laws to U.S. levels....yet!

But, over the last 30 years, as the Neoliberal disciples of Milton Friedman have argued for more free trade deals and more deregulation of capital and cheap imported goods, we have ended up where the most pessimistic opponents of free trade feared we would go: a world where capital is free to cross borders unconstrained by laws of any sort, and cut the costs of labour to the lowest common denominator. And lately, that lowest common denominator has been Bangladesh. Here, the pay is so low, the working conditions of people are so dismal, that clothing manufacturers have been motivated to close up their sweatshop operations in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, to make Bangladesh the major textile producer.

The Tuesday episode of DemocracyNow features a background story of the reasons why conditions at the factory are so bad, and why Walmart's strategy of deniability cannot extricate their company from creating the system where production falls to the places where it can be done at the cheapest cost:

http://www.democracy..._burned_clothes

Harold Meyerson of the NY Times also has a good, indepth analysis of the Fire and its greater significance. It's too bad that aside from a brief 'oh yeah, there was a big fire in Bangladesh' reference, most of the mainstream media has already ignored the story and especially what it says about how business is done.

On the DemocracyNow telecast, in closing, the Bangladeshi labour activist - Kalpona Akter responded, when asked what U.S. consumers could do to encourage reform:

The consumers can play a big role because they are the most powerful player in the supply chain. They can make accountable these brands and make them bound to make change on the ground where workers are making clothes for these Western brands. These consumers group can raise their voice and they should raise their voice and ask these factories — sorry, ask these Western brands that they wanted to know more, more about the working conditions of the workers who are making clothes for them, and also, why to be sure that these workers are paying living wage, these workers are having a better life, better working condition, and safe working place. They can play a really, really vital role, and this is my urge to the U.S. consumers, that, please, be accountable and make responsible to your brands and ask them to make change in the ground.

So, what will you buy for Christmas this year? And where will you buy it?

[Guest Peeves]

Apparently now determined to be arson.

Certainly working conditions must be a concern of those buying the products in a due diligence world of business. I'm not suggesting anything to do with wages as that is well nigh impossible, but certainly there must be assurances of Health And Safety.

[The_Squid]

So, what will you buy for Christmas this year? And where will you buy it?

Great question.

I like to buy books for the kids in my life...

Other gifts consist of locally made products as much as possible. Booze is popular among my friends and I. Also big are items for camping, boating, hunting and other hobbies... I gave some unique knives to some people last year... homemade food like preserves are a common gift too!

No plastic junk from Walmart or other big box stores.... I never step foot in a mall.

[Shady]

So, what will you buy for Christmas this year? And where will you buy it?

Whatever I feel like and where ever the eff I feel like it. Mind your own business, and stay outta mine.

[The_Squid]

Whatever I feel like and where ever the eff I feel like it. Mind your own business, and stay outta mine.

We have a Walmart shopper! LOL

[msj]

Whatever I feel like and where ever the eff I feel like it. Mind your own business, and stay outta mine.

Do you feel persecuted because this question was asked and you were compelled to answer in one way or another?

[bleeding heart]

Yeah, what's with the "leave me alone" complex, from a person not specifically addressed or alluded to?

[WIP]

Great question.

I like to buy books for the kids in my life...

Other gifts consist of locally made products as much as possible. Booze is popular among my friends and I. Also big are items for camping, boating, hunting and other hobbies... I gave some unique knives to some people last year... homemade food like preserves are a common gift too!

No plastic junk from Walmart or other big box stores.... I never step foot in a mall.

Good for you! Buying loads of crap for Christmas presents is one of the worst features of modern society. But, I'll admit that - since I buy gift cards (but not Walmart ones), I am making my own contributions to wasteful spending.

Edited November 29, 2012 by WIP

[WIP]

Do you feel persecuted because this question was asked and you were compelled to answer in one way or another?

As our advocate for gangster capitalism, I guess he takes any condemnation of the use of sweatshop labour as a personal attack.

[WIP]

Apparently now determined to be arson.

This was an obvious bullshit alibi that came right from the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on the day after. And there is still no evidence of arson, and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference anyway, since the reason why more than 110 people died in that fire was because the building was a firetrap -- from what we are learning, bears an uncanny resemblance to the inquest into the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911: overcrowded floorspace areas, aisles that were too narrow in case of emergency, piles of flammable materials close by, doors and windows kept locked by security - supposedly to prevent theft....it looks like deja vu all over again, precisely because this is how a labour-intensive factory job like making clothing is done when the owners of capital have complete freedom to chase profits.

Certainly working conditions must be a concern of those buying the products in a due diligence world of business. I'm not suggesting anything to do with wages as that is well nigh impossible, but certainly there must be assurances of Health And Safety.

So, your happy with the race to bottom for wages! This has had obvious impacts on the quality of life over here. I'll bet that if we do a complete analysis, the decline in the adjusted retail cost of clothing is much less than the decline in the cost of manufacturing...as Walmart, Tommy Hilfiger, and an assortment of major retailers have continually forced their suppliers to drop prices, by packing up and moving their manufacturing operations to where they can be done cheapest. Walmart even has a division who's task is to assist suppliers with all of the paperwork and logistics necessary for closing factories here or wherever, and moving them to places like Bangladesh.

It wasn't that many years ago when there were still textile manufacturers in Canada. It wasn't a very profitable industry, even during Trudeau years, when the Government raised import tariffs on clothing to protect local manufacturers. My two older brothers both got their first jobs with a company that made work gloves and canvas awnings and tents. Nobody, except for a few managers, made much more than minimum wage, but the pay and working conditions were a damn sight better than what's happening now with the miracle of globalization and phony 'free trade' deals!

It's a whole nother argument about whether getting on the lowest rung of the globalization game has been any real benefit to third world countries like Bangladesh. Mexicans generally agree that they did not benefit from NAFTA, and just as in Bangladesh, China, India and other so-called emerging markets, a small ruling class are the ones who cash in, and take a modest sized middle class along for the ride who are needed to manage things. But, the vast majority of the poor, who are forced off their land, to move into cities looking for work in sweatshops, can anyone seriously believe that their lives are any better today than they were when they were on the land?

[GostHacked]

The owner of the factory apparently did not know that fire exists were needed. So does Bangladesh have any building codes? Ones that are enforceable? When the factory opened, was there an inspection to say that things like enough fire exists to facilitate a fast escape?

[Michael Hardner]

Whatever I feel like and where ever the eff I feel like it. Mind your own business, and stay outta mine.

Ok. Don't mind the crackhouse I'm building on the vacant lot next to your house by the way.

Of course I'm having fun here - but the point is that we actually do have a say in what others do, especially when it comes to moral, and environmental concerns. The right-of-centre voters do also feel the same way, which you can detect in their frequent laments about the declining moral character of the nation, their attempts to regulate personal relationships between consenting adults, and so on.

[WIP]

The owner of the factory apparently did not know that fire exists were needed. So does Bangladesh have any building codes? Ones that are enforceable? When the factory opened, was there an inspection to say that things like enough fire exists to facilitate a fast escape?

The factory owner was only concerned about short term profits, and obviously proceeded from the standpoint of dealing with a crisis when it happens, and trying to minimize that crisis. This is no different than how the owner of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company dealt with the fire at his factory back in 1911. He had his managers do what they could afterwards to minimize their culpability; he went to the owners of the New York newspapers to try to offer deals to minimize their coverage of the Fire; and naturally, he hired the best damn lawyers he could find and escaped criminal charges...which could have even included a death sentence at the time, and only had to pay a fine. A more recent example of this behaviour comes out of what we have learned since the BP-Global Horizon Disaster. BP execs were only focused on the high costs of drilling more than a mile under the sea floor, and hurried the transition to getting that well into the production phase - and getting that expensive drilling platform out of there and to a new location. When you look at the way BP loaded and rolled the dice....even hurrying Haliburton's cementing operation at the wellhead...we are once again left with the conclusion that our capitalist economic system has made the greediest psychopaths the "cream" that rises to the top! These are the men (it's almost exclusively men) who are willing to take the greatest risks for quarterly profits, and they care nothing about their employees, environmental consequences, or any consequences for that matter! And, if suppliers to major American retailers and electronics and apparel companies are psychopaths, what does that say about the companies like Walmart and Apple, who reward suppliers solely on the basis of cost, and only maintain a CYA "inspection" process to pretend like they care about issues like safety standards and the welfare of workers in these factories. As soon as a major disaster like this that kills more than a hundred people, or there is a workplace riot against the company - like at Foxcomm, then the facade falls, and shows the world what globalization is really all about. And speaking of such, information about how these factories operate does get out...even if mainstream media here have no interest in covering the story:

-Gross and Illegal Sweatshop Conditions-

• Below-subsistence wages: some of the lowest wages in the world:
  

- Helpers earn just 18 cents an hour, $8.44 a week, working 48 regular hours each week.

- Junior sewing operators earn 21 to 22 cents an hour, $9.85 to $10.69 a week.

- Senior sewing operators earn 23 to 26 cents an hour, just $11.26 to $12.66 a week for the regular 48-hour work week.

• Physical abuse: It is not uncommon for supervisors to curse and even slap and punch workers, including young women, for making a mistake at work or for taking too long in the bathroom. Workers report that the toilets are filthy.
  

• All overtime is strictly obligatory: Workers who object or cannot remain for obligatory overtime are terminated.
  For the last three months, it has been mandatory for the workers to toil two Fridays each month—supposedly their weekly holiday. The workers are forced to work a nine-hour shift, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on their weekly holiday. The workers receive just two days off each month. They routinely work 72 to 81 hours a week!
  

• Women are routinely denied their legal right to maternity leave.
  
• Workers who arrive late to work three times are immediately fired.
  
• There is no daycare center at the Tazreen Fashion factory.
  
• Sick leave is not allowed.
  
• Workers are routinely cheated of their legal overtime wages. The standard work shift is 12 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. with one hour off for lunch. It is obligatory for the workers to toil three overtime hours each weekday on top of the standard eight-hour work shift. The workers are routinely cheated of their legal overtime wages. Just one hour of overtime each day is paid correctly, at a 100 percent premium (double time), while the other two hours are paid as straight time. For example a junior sewing operator earning 22 cents an hour should earn 44 cents an hour for overtime work. But of the three hours of daily overtime, just one is paid correctly, at 44 cents an hour, while the other two overtime hours are illegally paid as straight time, at just 22 cents an hour. Essentially, the workers are being cheated of 33 percent of their legal overtime wages!
  
• Tazreen Fashion Ltd had a permit to construct a three-story factory, but instead, the company built an illegal, nine-story building. Apparently no one in government challenged this.
  
• There were not enough fire extinguishers to control even a small fire, let alone the major flames that engulfed the workers.
  

http://www.globallabourrights.org/alerts?id=0401

[carepov]

But, over the last 30 years, as the Neoliberal disciples of Milton Friedman have argued for more free trade deals and more deregulation of capital and cheap imported goods, we have ended up where the most pessimistic opponents of free trade feared we would go: a world where capital is free to cross borders unconstrained by laws of any sort, and cut the costs of labour to the lowest common denominator. And lately, that lowest common denominator has been Bangladesh. Here, the pay is so low, the working conditions of people are so dismal, that clothing manufacturers have been motivated to close up their sweatshop operations in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, to make Bangladesh the major textile producer.

Of course the fire was tragic and Bangladesh plant safety standards should be improved.

You make it sound like life in Bangladesh has worsened in the last 30 years. Although I have never been there, the human development statistics paint me a different picture:

http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/BGD.html

http://hdrstats.undp.org/images/explanations/BGD.pdf

The fact is that life for the average person in Bangladesh has improved dramatically in the last 30 years. Trade liberalization cannot be given full credit for this improvement - but there must be something going right.

On the DemocracyNow telecast, in closing, the Bangladeshi labour activist - Kalpona Akter responded, when asked what U.S. consumers could do to encourage reform:

The consumers can play a big role because they are the most powerful player in the supply chain. They can make accountable these brands and make them bound to make change on the ground where workers are making clothes for these Western brands. These consumers group can raise their voice and they should raise their voice and ask these factories — sorry, ask these Western brands that they wanted to know more, more about the working conditions of the workers who are making clothes for them, and also, why to be sure that these workers are paying living wage, these workers are having a better life, better working condition, and safe working place. They can play a really, really vital role, and this is my urge to the U.S. consumers, that, please, be accountable and make responsible to your brands and ask them to make change in the ground.

So, what will you buy for Christmas this year? And where will you buy it?

Sure, this seems like a good idea, but it is easier said than done. Most consumers do not have the time for this and don’t have the money to overpay for products. I believe that the responsibility to protect worker’s safety and the environment lies with national governments that implement and enforce laws.

If we live in a “global village” then isn’t everything “local”?

I will always buy as little as possible and choose products and services that offer me the best value (usually used products). When buying new, Wal-Mart, Superstore, Old Navy, Best Buy, Amazon, Canadian Tire, Dollarama are all stores that I typically shop at and I do not see any reason that a change in my shopping habits would have a positive impact on human development – but I welcome opposing viewpoints.

What’s wrong with Wal-Mart anyways?

http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/ethical-sourcing

Where do you like to shop?

[WIP]

Of course the fire was tragic and Bangladesh plant safety standards should be improved.

You make it sound like life in Bangladesh has worsened in the last 30 years. Although I have never been there, the human development statistics paint me a different picture:

http://hdrstats.undp...ofiles/BGD.html

http://hdrstats.undp...nations/BGD.pdf

The fact is that life for the average person in Bangladesh has improved dramatically in the last 30 years. Trade liberalization cannot be given full credit for this improvement - but there must be something going right.

No, life has not improved for the average Bangladeshi, nor has free trade and globalization benefited any other broad mass of people. Only a minority of people at the top of the income pyramid have benefited from free trade. The globalization fraud of free trade agreements has just been a colossal fraud designed to diminish the authority of nation states over their economies, and increase the power of multinational corporations. A good recent example is the Canadian mining company (I forget the name) that is now suing the Government of El Salvador for lost income after getting the boot, and prevented from further fouling the environment in a farming community, even though their drillings and excavations had not reached any seams that were worth developing. On the flipside, governments cannot sue corporations in these free trade tribunals! It's just a sham designed to make sure that they can extract their pound of flesh from the countries where they have set up operations.

Now specifically in the case of Bangladesh - what we have here is essentially a giant Haiti...where overpopulation, rising sea levels and environmental degradation has increased the flight to the cities of peasant farmers living off the land. And, that of course, makes them sitting ducks for slave labour operations like these suppliers to Walmart, Sears, and other giant clothing retailers, that want their product at the lowest possible cost - no questions asked!

A personal testimonial referenced in a Global Post article on why Khaka is the world's fastest growing city in the world tells the story of a rural farmer named Rahim:

Disasters drive mass migration to Dhaka

The changes are likely to push still more villagers towards the Bangladeshi capital each year. Standing on a recent afternoon by the river that took his farm, Abdur Rahim told a visitor, “within a week, I want to move my family to Dhaka.”

He’d tried his luck in the city once before, in 2005. Rahim spent a year pulling a rickshaw for about $2.50 per day, passing his nights in a vast slum. He came back here, he said, to farm and live again on ground that was his own. Rahim’s surplus crop made him only between $10 and $15 per month — but there were no grocery bills, no rent to pay.

If I can interrupt Rahim's story here, that offhand comment about having no grocery bills or rent to pay when he was a poor farmer is a crucial point to make in any valid comparison of living standards, because capitalism only values commerce, or the exchange of money. A major disaster like the recent Hurricane Sandy will both raise debt levels and GDP because destroying a city and rebuilding it...even if it is rebuilt to a much lesser degree than what it was before (like New Orleans) comes across in the books of capitalist economic theory as an increase in wealth; whereas any rational overview of the situation reveals that there has been no real increase in human welfare.

And when Rahim was a near-subsistence level farmer, those economic indicators highlighted on your UN-sponsored source would show that Rahim's quality of life should be better even if he cannot afford to feed his family adequately after moving to Dhaka!

I am reminded of what my mother tells me of her family's experience of the worst years of the Great Depression in the early 30's, while living in Michigan on a small farm. Her father lost his job when the small car company he worked for went bankrupt, and was unable to get one of the few good-paying jobs at the major auto manufacturers during that time. So, he did odd jobs; and even though he never made more than $300 or $400 a year during that time, the family did alright, because they just spent more time working the farm, and most of what they needed, they could trade for with local merchants. But again...no money exchange....no net worth according to standard capitalist economics!

Back to Rahim's story:

Ask Rahim whether he prefers the city to the countryside and there’s a pause. Questions like these come from a standpoint of luxury. “If I can earn enough, I like Dhaka,” he said, tersely. “If I can’t earn enough, I don’t like it.”

And, that tells us again that just tracking the flow of money does not tell us whether or not people are better off! Maybe a country facing impending doom like Bangladesh (this is why India is spending billions constructing walls and barbed wire fences on their eastern borders) doesn't have much of a choice; but the dismal pay, working conditions, and abuse that factory workers in Dhaka face every day, even when they are not threatened with death by fire, show us that the sociopaths who run large corporations have no concept of generosity or altruism of any sort. They just focus on selfish aggrandizement in the form of constantly accumulating more wealth by any means, legal or illegal, that is available!

Sure, this seems like a good idea, but it is easier said than done. Most consumers do not have the time for this and don’t have the money to overpay for products. I believe that the responsibility to protect worker’s safety and the environment lies with national governments that implement and enforce laws.

And how are the national governments, even if they have not been installed in some CIA-backed coup and are actually a faint bit concerned about the people's welfare, going to do anything about these conditions? If they threaten to allow workers collective bargaining or reform working conditions, these companies will quickly inform them that they have other desperate locations where they can set up shop. And that is how free trade drives labour down to the lowest common denominator!

If we live in a “global village” then isn’t everything “local”?

What global village? That is just a bullshit construct that exists in the ramblings of stupid media pundits like Tom Friedman! In the real world, globalization has moved production of consumer goods even further from consideration by the average consumer. At least in the old days, you might actually know someone who worked or had a friend or family member who worked at Levi Strauss or one of the other clothing or fabric companies that existed in North America prior to free trade. When the factory is half way across the world, it's out of sight, out of mind; and what could possibly be a better example then the fact that working conditions in Bangladesh that feed the North American consumer their clothing purchases, cannot make the nightly news unless more than 100 workers die in a fire!

I will always buy as little as possible and choose products and services that offer me the best value (usually used products). When buying new, Wal-Mart, Superstore, Old Navy, Best Buy, Amazon, Canadian Tire, Dollarama are all stores that I typically shop at and I do not see any reason that a change in my shopping habits would have a positive impact on human development – but I welcome opposing viewpoints.

What’s wrong with Wal-Mart anyways?

http://corporate.wal...thical-sourcing

Well, for starters, go to a Walmart employee site - Our Walmart, to learn about some of the grievances that low-payed Walmart employees have about Megamart, and then consider some of the issues regarding Walmart that have been in the news in the last few years, such as, setting up a special corporate division designed to facilitate outsourcing for their suppliers....shutting down factories and moving to China and helping them with the paperwork and regulations....so much for Walmart creating jobs!; up to 80% of U.S. Walmart employees in some states are payed so low that they qualify for food stamps and Medicaid....essentially making the Company a giant welfare recipient; the six heirs of the Walton fortune have a trust fund that is equal to the combined wealth of the lowest 40% of the U.S. population....and that number keeps growing....in 2005 it was a mere 30%.

Where do you like to shop?

Anywhere but Walmart! Worth noting that your question is another one of those typical rightwing responses that try to shift responsibility for bad government and economic policy back on to the individual. What difference will it make where anyone shops in the future, when the lack of enforcement of antitrust laws leaves us with Walmart and maybe a Target store as our only choices left?

Edited December 4, 2012 by WIP

[carepov]

No, life has not improved for the average Bangladeshi,

Oh no? How do you explain these results?:

Life expectancy was 55 years in 1980 and now is 69 years.

Expected years of schooling was 4.4 years in 1980 and now is 8.1 years.

I could go on - infant/maternal mortality, access to sanitation, hunger...

…nor has free trade and globalization benefited any other broad mass of people. Only a minority of people at the top of the income pyramid have benefited from free trade.

Do you have numbers to support this claim?

The globalization fraud of free trade agreements has just been a colossal fraud designed to diminish the authority of nation states over their economies, and increase the power of multinational corporations. A good recent example is the Canadian mining company (I forget the name) that is now suing the Government of El Salvador for lost income after getting the boot, and prevented from further fouling the environment in a farming community, even though their drillings and excavations had not reached any seams that were worth developing. On the flipside, governments cannot sue corporations in these free trade tribunals! It's just a sham designed to make sure that they can extract their pound of flesh from the countries where they have set up operations.

Now specifically in the case of Bangladesh - what we have here is essentially a giant Haiti...where overpopulation, rising sea levels and environmental degradation has increased the flight to the cities of peasant farmers living off the land. And, that of course, makes them sitting ducks for slave labour operations like these suppliers to Walmart, Sears, and other giant clothing retailers, that want their product at the lowest possible cost - no questions asked!

A personal testimonial referenced in a Global Post article on why Khaka is the world's fastest growing city in the world tells the story of a rural farmer named Rahim:

Disasters drive mass migration to Dhaka

The changes are likely to push still more villagers towards the Bangladeshi capital each year. Standing on a recent afternoon by the river that took his farm, Abdur Rahim told a visitor, “within a week, I want to move my family to Dhaka.”

He’d tried his luck in the city once before, in 2005. Rahim spent a year pulling a rickshaw for about $2.50 per day, passing his nights in a vast slum. He came back here, he said, to farm and live again on ground that was his own. Rahim’s surplus crop made him only between $10 and $15 per month — but there were no grocery bills, no rent to pay.

If I can interrupt Rahim's story here, that offhand comment about having no grocery bills or rent to pay when he was a poor farmer is a crucial point to make in any valid comparison of living standards, because capitalism only values commerce, or the exchange of money. A major disaster like the recent Hurricane Sandy will both raise debt levels and GDP because destroying a city and rebuilding it...even if it is rebuilt to a much lesser degree than what it was before (like New Orleans) comes across in the books of capitalist economic theory as an increase in wealth; whereas any rational overview of the situation reveals that there has been no real increase in human welfare.

And when Rahim was a near-subsistence level farmer, those economic indicators highlighted on your UN-sponsored source would show that Rahim's quality of life should be better even if he cannot afford to feed his family adequately after moving to Dhaka!

I am reminded of what my mother tells me of her family's experience of the worst years of the Great Depression in the early 30's, while living in Michigan on a small farm. Her father lost his job when the small car company he worked for went bankrupt, and was unable to get one of the few good-paying jobs at the major auto manufacturers during that time. So, he did odd jobs; and even though he never made more than $300 or $400 a year during that time, the family did alright, because they just spent more time working the farm, and most of what they needed, they could trade for with local merchants. But again...no money exchange....no net worth according to standard capitalist economics!

Back to Rahim's story:

Ask Rahim whether he prefers the city to the countryside and there’s a pause. Questions like these come from a standpoint of luxury. “If I can earn enough, I like Dhaka,” he said, tersely. “If I can’t earn enough, I don’t like it.”

And, that tells us again that just tracking the flow of money does not tell us whether or not people are better off! Maybe a country facing impending doom like Bangladesh (this is why India is spending billions constructing walls and barbed wire fences on their eastern borders) doesn't have much of a choice; but the dismal pay, working conditions, and abuse that factory workers in Dhaka face every day, even when they are not threatened with death by fire, show us that the sociopaths who run large corporations have no concept of generosity or altruism of any sort. They just focus on selfish aggrandizement in the form of constantly accumulating more wealth by any means, legal or illegal, that is available!

You are good at sharing stories and I do sympathize with victims of all human rights abuses especially poverty too. However, despite billions of people worldwide, and tens of millions suffering in Bangladesh, and a great deal of work to be done – I maintain that, in general, “these days” are better than the “good old days” and the UN Human Development index supports this claim. The UN Human Development metrics are not " just tracking the flow of money" - look it up. As with any problem, the first step towards solving poverty is to understand the current situation and trends - you don't seem to have a good understanding.

Over the last ~30 years there are countries that have allowed/encouraged Foreign Direct Investment and those that have not. Can you show me evidence that those countries that have embraced (or using your words: have been suckered into) globalization have fared worse than countries that have not globalized? And please, no stories– just data.

And how are the national governments, even if they have not been installed in some CIA-backed coup and are actually a faint bit concerned about the people's welfare, going to do anything about these conditions?

Good question – I do not have the answer.

If they threaten to allow workers collective bargaining or reform working conditions, these companies will quickly inform them that they have other desperate locations where they can set up shop. And that is how free trade drives labour down to the lowest common denominator!

Do you have data to support this claim? For example have wages declined in countries such as Vietnam, China, India, Brazil, Mexico? In which countries have wages/living standards decreased?

What global village? That is just a bullshit construct that exists in the ramblings of stupid media pundits like Tom Friedman! In the real world, globalization has moved production of consumer goods even further from consideration by the average consumer. At least in the old days, you might actually know someone who worked or had a friend or family member who worked at Levi Strauss or one of the other clothing or fabric companies that existed in North America prior to free trade. When the factory is half way across the world, it's out of sight, out of mind; and what could possibly be a better example then the fact that working conditions in Bangladesh that feed the North American consumer their clothing purchases, cannot make the nightly news unless more than 100 workers die in a fire!

Well I don’t see it that way. When I am satisfied with a product I am happy for the workers that produced it regardless of what country they are from. Again, it’s too bad about the fire. My (admittedly simplistic) solution would be to encourage the Bangladeshi governments to enact and enforce proper worker safety laws. Companies should continue to source ethically – like Disney and Wal-Mart do. What do you think should be done? Should we stop buying imported goods? Do you think that would help the average Bangladeshi?

Well, for starters, go to a Walmart employee site - Our Walmart, to learn about some of the grievances that low-payed Walmart employees have about Megamart, and then consider some of the issues regarding Walmart that have been in the news in the last few years, such as, setting up a special corporate division designed to facilitate outsourcing for their suppliers....shutting down factories and moving to China and helping them with the paperwork and regulations....so much for Walmart creating jobs!; up to 80% of U.S. Walmart employees in some states are payed so low that they qualify for food stamps and Medicaid....essentially making the Company a giant welfare recipient; the six heirs of the Walton fortune have a trust fund that is equal to the combined wealth of the lowest 40% of the U.S. population....and that number keeps growing....in 2005 it was a mere 30%.

Again, I do not see it that way. I do not see much of a difference between Wal-Mart, Target, Canadian Tire, Shopper’s Drug Mart, Best Buy, Amazon, Dollar Stores, etc… in terms of treatment of workers, corporate responsibility. Maybe you or someone else can show me some comparative data and convince me otherwise. You should also acknowledge many of the good things that Wal-Mart has done too.

Anywhere but Walmart! Worth noting that your question is another one of those typical rightwing responses that try to shift responsibility for bad government and economic policy back on to the individual.

Call me naïve but in democracies I do hold the electorate responsible for electing a government.

What difference will it make where anyone shops in the future, when the lack of enforcement of antitrust laws leaves us with Walmart and maybe a Target store as our only choices left?

Here you loose even more credibility when you bring up antitrust or the idea of a Wal-Mart monopoly– do you even know Wal-Mart’s market share of the US retail business? It is ~13-14% and no longer expanding.

[WIP]

Oh no? How do you explain these results?:

Life expectancy was 55 years in 1980 and now is 69 years.

Expected years of schooling was 4.4 years in 1980 and now is 8.1 years.

I could go on - infant/maternal mortality, access to sanitation, hunger...

First, I have to ask if you are one of the minions sent out by Walmartcorp to scour the internet and try to do damage control? Otherwise your following points are mostly meaningless distractions designed to shift the blame from the source of evil that has leveraged governments around the world to do business this way....it didn't all just happen by accident!

Second, have you ever considered that the sudden arrival of vaccinations and antibiotics in the last 40 years...which get most of the credit for raising life expectancy in third world countries should also be credited for the sudden spike in population in places like Bangladesh, Africa and the Middle East, where women have had almost no access to family planning?

And the population explosion in Bangladesh has been a major factor in forcing people off the land, and having to move to overcrowded cities and accept these sweatshop labour jobs in the first place! This would be bad enough if this new, free trade, globalized capitalist system that you are in love with was sustainable....but, it's not! It is crumbling and falling apart right here and now, as the costs of environmental degradation and declining energy & related resource costs keep rising.

We have not improved the lives of Bangladeshis and all of the other Third World people living on subsistence agriculture on a long term basis.

Do you have numbers to support this claim?

Why don't you try reading what former suppliers of Megamart have to say when their factories shut down and they could no longer compete with other foreign suppliers driving prices down:

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."

Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

And that's how we end up with clothing coming in to the country from foreign sweatshops with no access to collective bargaining for better wages and working conditions. It's a neverending race to the bottom! And, did you look at the numbers listed in the OP? Walmart has forced suppliers to move their manufacturing operations abroad to cheaper locations, and continually forces suppliers - both U.S. based companies and foreign ones like Tasreen to keep cutting costs or they will drop them:

You are good at sharing stories and I do sympathize with victims of all human rights abuses especially poverty too

Sure you do!

.

However, despite billions of people worldwide, and tens of millions suffering in Bangladesh, and a great deal of work to be done – I maintain that, in general, “these days” are better than the “good old days” and the UN Human Development index supports this claim. The UN Human Development metrics are not " just tracking the flow of money" - look it up. As with any problem, the first step towards solving poverty is to understand the current situation and trends - you don't seem to have a good understanding.

These "good old days" are a blip in human history....let alone the history of this planet. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we are now consuming 800X the natural resources of people living prior and world trade is 100X greater than before this revolution. The Revolution is no more than a feeding frenzy that has ended up with an economic system that can only only move forward, faster and faster...consuming more energy, more resources, producing more and more products. Attempts to control capitalism have been thrown off in the last 30 years, and unrestrained capitalism will keep trying to consume more until the whole system collapses....which could be as soon as 10 years, or as long as 50 years. I don't see attempts to substitute and innovate, taking us beyond the next half century. If there is still a human race living on this planet at the end of this century, they will be trying to live a pre-industrial life in a badly degraded world that has become hotter than any time in the last 55 million years. So much for the Star Trek future...but that's another topic.

[carepov]

First, I have to ask if you are one of the minions sent out by Walmartcorp to scour the internet and try to do damage control?

No. I am on MLW to learn and to express my own views. I am deeply concerned about human rights and poverty. I believe that you are too but for some reason you have a deluded world view.

Otherwise your following points are mostly meaningless distractions designed to shift the blame from the source of evil that has leveraged governments around the world to do business this way....it didn't all just happen by accident!

Second, have you ever considered that the sudden arrival of vaccinations and antibiotics in the last 40 years...which get most of the credit for raising life expectancy in third world countries should also be credited for the sudden spike in population in places like Bangladesh, Africa and the Middle East, where women have had almost no access to family planning?

Are you kidding? “Sudden arrival of vaccinations and antibiotics”? – we are talking about 1980 to 2010.

Besides – who discovers and produces vaccinations and antibiotics - evil pharmaceutical companies?

Also, the improvements in health and life expectancy in Bangladesh are impressive relative to almost any other country!

How about the dramatic improvements in education and literacy rates?

And the population explosion in Bangladesh has been a major factor in forcing people off the land, and having to move to overcrowded cities and accept these sweatshop labour jobs in the first place! This would be bad enough if this new, free trade, globalized capitalist system that you are in love with was sustainable....but, it's not! It is crumbling and falling apart right here and now, as the costs of environmental degradation and declining energy & related resource costs keep rising.

We have not improved the lives of Bangladeshis and all of the other Third World people living on subsistence agriculture on a long term basis.

May I suggest that you check out the following links that contradict your views:

http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/about-our-charity/news/bangladesh-makes-great-strides-in-improving-the-lives-of-the-poor

http://www.undp.org.bd/info/pub/Empowered%20Lives%20Resilient%20Bangladesh%20-%20FINAL%20PDF.pdf

Why don't you try reading what former suppliers of Megamart have to say when their factories shut down and they could no longer compete with other foreign suppliers driving prices down:

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."

Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

http://www.fastcompa...t-you-dont-know

And that's how we end up with clothing coming in to the country from foreign sweatshops with no access to collective bargaining for better wages and working conditions. It's a neverending race to the bottom! And, did you look at the numbers listed in the OP? Walmart has forced suppliers to move their manufacturing operations abroad to cheaper locations, and continually forces suppliers - both U.S. based companies and foreign ones like Tasreen to keep cutting costs or they will drop them:

Wal-Mart is tough on suppliers, yes. So are many companies. I see that as a net positive, but I understand that Steve would be a bit upset.

Try this: Make a list of all countries that produce goods shipped to Wal-Mart and then another list that does not ship to Wal-Mart. Then ask yourself, in which list of countries would you rather live?

Where are the numbers on the so-called “race-to –the bottom”? I have been reading about for 25 years and have yet to see any evidence of it happening. In what countries is poverty increasing? Why?

These "good old days" are a blip in human history....let alone the history of this planet. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we are now consuming 800X the natural resources of people living prior and world trade is 100X greater than before this revolution. The Revolution is no more than a feeding frenzy that has ended up with an economic system that can only only move forward, faster and faster...consuming more energy, more resources, producing more and more products. Attempts to control capitalism have been thrown off in the last 30 years, and unrestrained capitalism will keep trying to consume more until the whole system collapses....which could be as soon as 10 years, or as long as 50 years. I don't see attempts to substitute and innovate, taking us beyond the next half century. If there is still a human race living on this planet at the end of this century, they will be trying to live a pre-industrial life in a badly degraded world that has become hotter than any time in the last 55 million years. So much for the Star Trek future...but that's another topic.

You may be correct in your predictions - but I don’t think so.

[WIP]

No. I am on MLW to learn and to express my own views. I am deeply concerned about human rights and poverty. I believe that you are too but for some reason you have a deluded world view.

Are you kidding? “Sudden arrival of vaccinations and antibiotics”? – we are talking about 1980 to 2010.

Besides – who discovers and produces vaccinations and antibiotics - evil pharmaceutical companies?

Also, the improvements in health and life expectancy in Bangladesh are impressive relative to almost any other country!

How about the dramatic improvements in education and literacy rates?

May I suggest that you check out the following links that contradict your views:

http://www.soschildr...ves-of-the-poor

http://www.undp.org....- FINAL PDF.pdf

Your source doesn't acknowledge the impact that the rise in population has had in Bangladesh....they don't deny it, they just don't mention it either! How do they expect "challenges" such as malnourishment to be addressed? All they mention is economic growth. Nevermind that new money coming in through foreign investment is not being evenly distributed; what would happen if Bangladesh was able to follow the same path to double digit GDP growth that India and China has taken in recent decades? Well, for one thing, when we talk about growing carbon emissions increases, we would be including Bangladesh whenever India and China are mentioned, just because of the sheer size alone of their growing population. A more honest, broader examination of the problem would look like this:

Population Increase Threatens Bangladesh

It is entirely possible that the perilous situation that awaits Bangladesh with its population growth isn’t getting the kind of consideration that it so deserves. Or it may be that people are very indifferent about the whole matter. But ignoring or avoiding the problem itself would not somehow make it go away, and would only make the situation worse for this poverty stricken country, and the world.

Bangladesh is the 7th largest country in the world in population where 150 million people are virtually elbowing each other in a land that is 134,000 sq km in area with a population density of more than 1100 people per sq km. Overpopulated! Well, there are only a few city-like states - like Singapore - that would top this kind of population density. Excluding those states, Bangladesh would make it to the top of the list in population density. What makes the situation even more horrifying for Bangladesh is that the country is poised to lose a good part of its territory to the rise in sea levels associated with global warming, while its very population increases at an unsustainable rate.

During independence in 1971, the population of Bangladesh was about 75 million. After 37 years, its population is believed to have more than doubled. The current estimate of population growth in the country varies from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent a year depending on whose assessment one pays attention to. For good measure, if one takes a middle ground and considers a growth rate of say 1.75 per cent a year, it would mean that Bangladesh population will double in the next 40 years, while at the lowest rate the doubling time would be 47 years. How serious a problem would the country face when its population doubles? To get an idea, one might imagine the current U.S. population of 300 million living within the confines of the state of Wisconsin, which is close to the size of Bangladesh.

In spite of such an ominous scenario, idealists may be quick to point out that Bangladesh is making improvements in education and healthcare, and most importantly has achieved a respectable economic growth rate of about 5 per cent a year in recent decades. Though true, such progress has had a very little effect on the overall poverty level in the country. Studies reveal that in real terms the poverty level in Bangladesh has not come down but gone up. What would then account for such an anomaly? In addition to the massive corruption in the country, which benefited the few and also slowed potential economic growth, the main reason for this incongruity might be the rapid growth of the country’s underprivileged population, whose unemployment rate remains as one might expect extremely high.

http://www.afroartic...ngladesh/164725

The reason I felt compelled to mention the down sides of modern medicine, is because it took a few generations in the west before people started realizing that children had greater odds of survival, and it was no longer necessary to have 6 or more children to leave a legacy. The added problem is dealing with societies that restrict access to birth control. With population too high to be supported by traditional farming, this has made their dependence on new textile industry jobs even more desperate. And rather than attempting to raise the living standards of the poor in these countries (as free trade propagandists promised us 35 years ago), Walmart and their corporate brethren, maintain the misery by insisting that their suppliers keep driving costs downward, or threaten to drop them for suppliers who can beat their prices.

[WIP]

Wal-Mart is tough on suppliers, yes. So are many companies. I see that as a net positive, but I understand that Steve would be a bit upset.

Try this: Make a list of all countries that produce goods shipped to Wal-Mart and then another list that does not ship to Wal-Mart. Then ask yourself, in which list of countries would you rather live?

Where are the numbers on the so-called “race-to –the bottom”? I have been reading about for 25 years and have yet to see any evidence of it happening. In what countries is poverty increasing? Why?

You may be correct in your predictions - but I don’t think so.

I've been reading over the last year or so, some of the stories coming from Walmart suppliers and former suppliers who paint a clear picture of a company solely focused on the bottom line -- getting products as cheap as possible, including forcing suppliers to outsource and facilitate the moves of their manufacturing operations to China, Vietnam and Bangladesh....wherever the job can be done cheapest. And the company has been willing to help suppliers with all of the logistics necessary for closing down and exporting manufacturing jobs abroad. But, this story that has come out of the ashes of the fire in Dhaka is even more damning:

Wal-Mart Nixed Paying Bangladesh Suppliers to Fight Fire

At a meeting convened in 2011 to boost safety at

Bangladesh

garment factories,

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)

made a call: paying suppliers more to help them upgrade their manufacturing facilities was too costly.

The comments from a Wal-Mart sourcing director appear in minutes of the meeting, which was attended by more than a dozen retailers including

Gap Inc. (GPS)

, Target Corp. and JC Penney Co.

Details of the meeting have emerged after a fire at a Bangladesh factory that made clothes for Wal-Mart and

Sears Holdings

Corp. killed more than 100 people last month. The blaze has renewed pressure on companies to improve working conditions in Bangladesh, where more than 700 garment workers have died since 2005, according to the International Labor Rights Forum, a Washington-based advocacy group.

At the April 2011 meeting in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, retailers discussed a contractually enforceable memorandum that would require them to pay Bangladesh factories prices high enough to cover costs of safety improvements. Sridevi Kalavakolanu, a Wal-Mart director of ethical sourcing, told attendees the company wouldn’t share the cost, according to Ineke Zeldenrust, international coordinator for the Clean Clothes Campaign, who attended the gathering. Kalavakolanu and her counterpart at Gap reiterated their position in a report folded into the meeting minutes, obtained by

Bloomberg News

.

“Specifically to the issue of any corrections on electrical and fire safety, we are talking about 4,500 factories, and in most cases very extensive and costly modifications would need to be undertaken to some factories,” they said in the document. “It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-05/wal-mart-nixed-paying-bangladesh-suppliers-to-fight-fire.html

So much for "tough on suppliers!" They are only tough on suppliers in the sense of expecting products at the lowest cost, and there is a strong case to make that Walmart and all of the secondary major clothing retailers, choose to use these supplier companies as a form of plausible deniability when things go wrong....like this fire.

[carepov]

Your source doesn't acknowledge the impact that the rise in population has had in Bangladesh....they don't deny it, they just don't mention it either! How do they expect "challenges" such as malnourishment to be addressed? All they mention is economic growth. Nevermind that new money coming in through foreign investment is not being evenly distributed; what would happen if Bangladesh was able to follow the same path to double digit GDP growth that India and China has taken in recent decades? Well, for one thing, when we talk about growing carbon emissions increases, we would be including Bangladesh whenever India and China are mentioned, just because of the sheer size alone of their growing population.

You are dead wrong on many points.

From, http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/about-our-charity/archive/2012/11/bangladesh-makes-great-strides-in-improving-the-lives-of-the-poor,

“Between 1990 and 2020, average life expectancy rose by ten years to 69. (This is four years longer than life expectancy in India, despite Indians being on average twice as rich.) And though the growth in Bangladesh’s economy has been modest, the percentage of its people below the poverty line has dropped significantly, from 49% in 2000 to 32% in 2010.

Bangladeshis have also seen impressive gains in health and education. Over 90% of girls are now enrolled in primary school and Bangladesh is one of only three low-income nations where girls outnumber boys at secondary school (see the article 'Developments for school children in Bangladesh'). And child mortality rates have dropped significantly. In 1990, 139 children under the age of five died for every 1,000 live births; in 2011, the figure was 46.

In a special feature on the country, The Economist looks at Bangladesh’s development, which has been disproportionately great given the country’s fairly moderate economic growth of around 5% per year (GDP in real terms) since 1990. Its success in improving the lives of its citizens is attributed to four main factors; the high number of women with access to family planning which has reduced population growth, the boosting of harvests and rural household incomes, the establishment of microcredit lending for the poorest and the introduction of social programmes such as food-for-work and cash transfer schemes.”

I though that you would like the other source: http://www.undp.org.bd/info/pub/Empowered%20Lives%20Resilient%20Bangladesh%20-%20FINAL%20PDF.pdf as it is full of interesting stories and pictures (not at all focussed on economic growth).

A more honest, broader examination of the problem would look like this:

Population Increase Threatens Bangladesh

…

http://www.afroartic...ngladesh/164725

The reason I felt compelled to mention the down sides of modern medicine, is because it took a few generations in the west before people started realizing that children had greater odds of survival, and it was no longer necessary to have 6 or more children to leave a legacy. The added problem is dealing with societies that restrict access to birth control. With population too high to be supported by traditional farming, this has made their dependence on new textile industry jobs even more desperate. And rather than attempting to raise the living standards of the poor in these countries (as free trade propagandists promised us 35 years ago), Walmart and their corporate brethren, maintain the misery by insisting that their suppliers keep driving costs downward, or threaten to drop them for suppliers who can beat their prices.

Your source also is correct and I don’t want you to think that I believe that Bangladesh is some kind of paradise – it is not and there are a lot of problems including over-population, poverty and possible issues with climate change.

As I said before, we need to understand the situation before trying to solve these problems – and you are showing a lack of understanding.

-Relative poverty has been decreasing dramatically

-Health has been dramatically improving

-Education, especially education of women, has been dramatically improving

-Population growth has been declining (your source makes a big assumption about population growth staying at 1.75% over the next 40 years)

To drive this point home, if hypothetically you could be born into a random family in Bangladesh and you could choose the year 1971 or 2011?

Yes there are problems but some policies have obviously worked and those policies should be promoted. I argue that one of these policies is trade liberalization especially foreign direct investment. I also support all the UN programs highlighted in http://www.undp.org.bd/info/pub/Empowered%20Lives%20Resilient%20Bangladesh%20-%20FINAL%20PDF.pdf

Edited December 7, 2012 by carepov

[carepov]

I've been reading over the last year or so, some of the stories coming from Walmart suppliers and former suppliers who paint a clear picture of a company solely focused on the bottom line -- getting products as cheap as possible, including forcing suppliers to outsource and facilitate the moves of their manufacturing operations to China, Vietnam and Bangladesh....wherever the job can be done cheapest. And the company has been willing to help suppliers with all of the logistics necessary for closing down and exporting manufacturing jobs abroad. But, this story that has come out of the ashes of the fire in Dhaka is even more damning:

…

http://www.bloomberg...fight-fire.html

So much for "tough on suppliers!" They are only tough on suppliers in the sense of expecting products at the lowest cost, and there is a strong case to make that Walmart and all of the secondary major clothing retailers, choose to use these supplier companies as a form of plausible deniability when things go wrong....like this fire.

First of all I am glad that this news is getting out and I am glad that people like you are putting pressure on Wal-Mart, Sears and Gap to source ethically.

Obviously I see business and corporations differently than you. I will try to explain. Businesses and corporations are human organizations with all the same kinds of variations in behaviour and personalities. So are governments and NGO’s. Anyways, it may seem like businesses focus only on maximizing profits while sacrificing customer satisfaction, employee happiness and safety, breaking laws and regulations, grinding down suppliers – and yes this does happen. However, in the long term (10-20 years), all these interests converge! You cannot be a profitable business without happy and safe employees, satisfied customers, strong supplier relationships, adherence to laws and regulations. Equally true: in the long term, you cannot stay in business without making profits. In the long-term successful companies do it all – make profits, adhere to laws and regulations, and satisfy customers, employees and suppliers.

IMO, singling out Wal-Mart as “evil” is illogical. Consider that they have ~14% of the US retail markeshare and much less world-wide. Consumers and suppliers have plenty of choices as do most people that work in the retail sector. Also consider that they have over 2,000,000 employees. You can listen to stories of disgruntled employees all day but tell me, how satisfied are Wal-Mart employees compared to others working in the retail industry?

The fire was tragic, and I do hope that Wal-Mart puts pressure on their suppliers to improve. But, plant safety is the responsibility of the plant owners, management and the local government officials.

Edited December 7, 2012 by carepov

[WIP]

You are dead wrong on many points.

From, http://www.soschildr...ves-of-the-poor,

“Between 1990 and 2020, average life expectancy rose by ten years to 69. (This is four years longer than life expectancy in India, despite Indians being on average twice as rich.)

2020! Seriously! Aren't we still in the year 2012? And if so, this report is yet another one extrapolating some present trends into the future without any examination of whether the trends can be supported.....and I don't believe they can be just on the basis of comparing the high population growth rates with the declines in arable land and fresh water resources.

And though the growth in Bangladesh’s economy has been modest, the percentage of its people below the poverty line has dropped significantly, from 49% in 2000 to 32% in 2010.

We've been over this before! Like I said the last time, capitalist economic theory only measures what can be measured in dollars. And farmers growing a substantial portion of their own food supply does not add anything to the monetary economy....although the benefits to the farmer are better than earning meager wages and having to give back a good portion of those wages to purchase food that is likely the lowest price and more likely to be cheap calories with less nutritional value. We'll see how long the trend from farming to sweatshop labourers goes on before health, longevity and other measures of wellbeing start to take a nosedive.

Bangladeshis have also seen impressive gains in health and education. Over 90% of girls are now enrolled in primary school and Bangladesh is one of only three low-income nations where girls outnumber boys at secondary school (see the article 'Developments for school children in Bangladesh'). And child mortality rates have dropped significantly. In 1990, 139 children under the age of five died for every 1,000 live births; in 2011, the figure was 46.

In a special feature on the country, The Economist looks at Bangladesh’s development, which has been disproportionately great given the country’s fairly moderate economic growth of around 5% per year

And, this is a rehash of what we were talking about before. If anything, the continual pressure from Walmart, Disney, Gap and other U.S. corporations to cut costs, will reduce the real wages of Bangladeshi factory workers over the coming years, not increase them! And, not that I would even want globalization to be a permanent economic system to start with, but the costs of transportation necessary to outsource production halfway around the world, is going to get too expensive for one product after another, as the conventional oil reserves are declining, and the world is depending more and more on expensive, unconventional oil to transport people and goods.

To drive this point home, if hypothetically you could be born into a random family in Bangladesh and you could choose the year 1971 or 2011?

Well, that's a no-brainer -- 1971. Because children born last year in Bangladesh are 40 years closer to a time of reckoning, when an increasingly degraded environment and rapidly rising sea levels, lead to a time when storm and flooding disasters are great enough to force millions of Bangladeshis to try to flee, in search of food and dryer land. And it will be difficult to get out, as they are already hemmed in by the ocean, but India has been building miles of fences and barbed wire barriers to wall off any land passage for a wave of refugees to enter Indian territory by land.

[WIP]

First of all I am glad that this news is getting out and I am glad that people like you are putting pressure on Wal-Mart, Sears and Gap to source ethically.

What does it tell us, that an obscenely wealthy organization like this has to be subjected to outside pressure, before they will stop trying to pressure suppliers to disregard health and safety concerns in factories where workers earn on average $37.00 per month for working 6 days a week up to 11 hours per day? Obviously nobody at the head office said anything like:'you know, we saving a fortune sending clothing production to this country, let's cut them a little slack. That conversation never happened....which was what the pro-free trade propagandists told us would happen 30 years ago. Western manufacturers have a strong incentive to keep countries like Bangladesh poor and marginalized. They have no intentions of allowing them to improve their living standards, as this might lead them to want to improve wages and working conditions even further in the future.

Obviously I see business and corporations differently than you. I will try to explain. Businesses and corporations are human organizations with all the same kinds of variations in behaviour and personalities. So are governments and NGO’s.

No, these organizations are not the same kinds of organizations! Corporations only have a duty to serve the interests of their shareholders, not the public at large. The U.S. did operate with a system of demanding public accountability from corporations for the first hundred years as a nation. A corporation did not get a permanent charter to operate back then. It had to be reviewed on a regular basis; and the corporation had to demonstrate how it was acting in the public good, or at least was not causing public harm. But, those rules were chipped away on the road to corporations becoming "people too" as Mitt Romney would say. And the CEO's, and top executives, and major shareholders of corporations, have all of the personal qualities of the average psychopath or sociopath:

In Jon Ronson's widely acclaimed book The Psychopath Test, Professor Robert Hare told the author: "I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well. Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."

http://www.independe...er-6282502.html

Government is highly populated with politicians who are narcissists, addicted to the almost constant attention accorded to them. And NGO's.....it depends on which of the thousands of different NGO's we're talking about before any judgment can be made. Many NGO's are run by sincere, dedicated activists trying to improve the lot for people living in third world situations. Some NGO's are just shadow government operations, like many of the U.S.-sponsored NGO's, which take over public functions that are normally performed by a local government, and take their funding and directions from a head office based in the U.S. or elsewhere, often carrying out U.S. foreign policy interests, rather than learning about what the locals want to have done. The NGO's acting as the shadow government in Haiti after the earthquake, come to mind. They have helped to marginalize the elected government of Haiti, and keep it starved for funds, as they collect the lions share of donations and U.S. foreign aid dollars.

Anyways, it may seem like businesses focus only on maximizing profits while sacrificing customer satisfaction, employee happiness and safety, breaking laws and regulations, grinding down suppliers – and yes this does happen. However, in the long term (10-20 years), all these interests converge! You cannot be a profitable business without happy and safe employees, satisfied customers, strong supplier relationships, adherence to laws and regulations.

In the world I grew up in that might have been true for a time: unemployment was relatively low, a third of the private sector workforce was organized and members of unions or professional associations, and gaps in wealth and income were at historic lows. But all that started changing approximately 30 years ago, didn't it? As soon as the first free trade deal was inked, we started seeing the chipping away of bargaining power of the workforce, the beginnings of outsourcing production, and outsourcing and the threat of outsourcing leading to a steady decline in union membership and weakening of employees position in collective bargaining. The new reality is that all big business focuses on, and needs to focus on is maximizing profits. They don't need to worry about any other factors after they have successfully bought politicians and the political process itself. Antitrust laws have been weakened, both directly and indirectly through trade agreements. And with the lack of protection against consolidation of ownership and foreign ownership, a point is reached in many markets where a business no longer faces real competition. In markets where Walmart has forced other chains and small local retailers and grocers to close, they refrain from passing the savings on to consumers, and start pocketing the difference between retail price and the lowering of product cost from the suppliers. In a high unemployment environment, they don't have to be concerned about employee happiness....otherwise they would offer decent wages. Even safety laws and other regulations become meaningless in an environment where the corporate tail wags the political dog.

IMO, singling out Wal-Mart as “evil” is illogical. Consider that they have ~14% of the US retail markeshare and much less world-wide.

consider that 14% means 1.8 million employees -- which makes Walmart the largest employer in the U.S. after the U.S. Government.

jobs.lovetoknow.com/Largest_American_Employers

Consumers and suppliers have plenty of choices as do most people that work in the retail sector. Also consider that they have over 2,000,000 employees. You can listen to stories of disgruntled employees all day but tell me, how satisfied are Wal-Mart employees compared to others working in the retail industry?

And as Walmart continues to grow and buy out competing chains, as they have done where I live, and Target being the only other major retailer adding stores, the choices for the retail worker are even less than before.

The fire was tragic, and I do hope that Wal-Mart puts pressure on their suppliers to improve. But, plant safety is the responsibility of the plant owners, management and the local government officials.

This is getting tiresome:

In a related matter, two officials who attended a meeting held in Bangladesh in 2011 to discuss factory safety in the garment industry said on Wednesday that the Walmart official there played the lead role in blocking an effort to have global retailers pay more for apparel to help Bangladesh factories improve their electrical and fire safety.

Ineke Zeldenrust, international coordinator for the

Clean Clothes Campaign

, an anti-sweatshop group based in Amsterdam, said Walmart was the company that “most strongly advocated this position.”

The meeting was held in April 2011 in Dhaka, the country’s capital, and brought together global retailers, Bangladeshi factory owners, government officials and nongovernment organizations after several apparel factory fires in Bangladesh had killed dozens of workers the previous winter.

According to the minutes of the meeting, which were made available to The Times, Sridevi Kalavakolanu, a Walmart director of ethical sourcing, along with an official from another major apparel retailer, noted that the proposed improvements in electrical and fire safety would involve as many as 4,500 factories and would be “in most cases” a “very extensive and costly modification.”

“It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments,” the minutes said.

http://www.nytimes.c...-fire.html?_r=0

Edited December 10, 2012 by WIP

[WIP]

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Edited December 10, 2012 by WIP