DesideriScuri
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quote:
ORIGINAL: vincentML
quote:
It is more likely to continue to improve than not, unless those countries' governments leech the improvements for themselves, leaving their citizens in squalor. Until corruption like that (in those cases) is ousted, it's going to be pretty difficult to seriously improve conditions for the people.
The following is from the article linked below:
Thanks to their political clout and now a new Industrial Police force that crushes dissension at their plants, labor activists say, it is the factory owners themselves who keep garment workers' wages lower than anywhere else in the world - and all too often get away with lax safety standards.
[SNIP]
As pay levels rise in traditional factory-floor nations, Bangladesh stands as a last outpost of cheap labor, an advantage that has helped lift it to number two in the global ranking of garment exporters, behind China.
Bangladesh ranked last in minimum wages for factory workers in 2010, according to World Bank data, behind Cambodia, the last country added to the global supply chain in 2000.
"It's the lowest of the low in terms of wages," says Malte Luebker, the International labor Organization's senior wage specialist for Asia-Pacific. "Wages are the key drawing point."
[SNIP]
Garment workers won a victory of sorts in 2010 after months of violent protests over pay and conditions. The government raised the monthly minimum wage by 80 percent to 3,000 takas ($38.50). Only a small fraction of workers are actually paid the minimum, however: Several factory owners said the average wage in their factories is around 5,000 takas ($64.10).
That's still much lower than in China, where the minimum wage for garment workers ranges from $154 to $230 per month, and in Cambodia, where the monthly base is $80, according to the International labor Organization.
Drawn by the lower costs, even Chinese garment businesses are moving to Bangladesh.
[SNIP]
Several plant owners, factory managers and representatives of retailers in Dhaka, none of whom would speak on record about the subject, said the brands are paying less and less. One said a buyer paid him $5.00 per piece for a particular make of shirt in 2011 and then offered $4.50 for the same thing a year later. Another estimated that overall prices have fallen by 40 percent over the past two years.
"They pay you like a beggar and take quality like a king," said Abdul Mannan, who helped open up the industry when he was textiles minister in the early 1990s and now owns more than two dozen factories at home and abroad.
Sometimes buyers refuse to negotiate because they know competition among factory owners for high-volume orders is intense.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/02/us-bangladesh-garments-special-report-idUSBRE9411CX20130502
This article is quite illuminating and not so optimistic as some posters in this thread. The situation is real-world complicated.
That means that the politics are causing the problem, and that the citizenry need to exert control. That won't happen until the citizenry start moving up the income ladder. Like I said, it's a start.
_____________________________
What I support:
- A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
- Personal Responsibility
- Help for the truly needy
- Limited Government
- Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
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RE: May Day 2013 - 
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). It has to start somewhere and this is as good a start as any, no? 
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