SubscribeJust because the label says "made in Canada" doesn't mean it wasn't made in a sweatshop. It's actually possible that the house next door is a sweatshop. Street Cents found a study done in 1999 by a professor at the University of Toronto. The report says, in Canada, close to 40,000 women work at home sewing for big companies. They're sometimes mistreated. And, sometimes make as little as $2/hr.
Likewise, just because the label says, "Made in China," doesn't necessarily mean it was made in a sweatshop. Some developing countries have factories with health clinics. Some even pay their employees fair wages.
The thing is, we can't just pick one company and say they're the bad guys. It's the whole system that has to change.
it is in the clandestine workshops that violations of human rights at work are most common and most serious. The scale of the phenomenon of clandestine workshops, which are found mainly in the clothing sector, poses a sure threat to the viability of legal enterprises because of the unfair competition which they represent. In Europe, the concentration of clandestine workshops is such that the European Apparel and Textile Organization (EURATEX) advocates the adoption of European-level measures to combat the phenomenon. Some years ago, estimates from trade unions and NGOs suggested that more than 15,000 workers in the Netherlands were involved in clandestine work in the clothing sector a figure that exceeded the number of registered workers. Other concentrations of clandestine workshops are found in France (in the Chinese quarter of Paris), in Belgium (Brussels, in the “Triangle” quarter), in the United Kingdom (the Manchester area) and in the south of Italy. The workshops concerned, which employ large numbers of illegal immigrants, have specialized in copying and pirating well-established brand names, and in the rapid production of small runs of fashion items. They sometimes operate in a more professional way than the small legally operating workshops which respect labour laws and pay taxes. This commercial professionalism generally goes hand in hand with labour practices that are contrary to the most rudimentary principles of respect for human rights at work. Working hours for workers who are denied any protection come within the definition of forced labour given by the ILO’s Committee of Experts. Other practices involving the confiscation of immigrant workers’ identity papers have also been noted by the bodies responsible for combating clandestine labour. These and other practices, for example, housing illegal workers in hazardous and unhealthy dormitories (such as cellars) are all very much part of this practice of forced labour. Europe is not the only developed region with a growing number of clandestine workshops practising forced labour. In the United States, the problem of “sweatshops” has received much media attention and has mobilized public opinion.from Labour Practices in the Footwear, Leather, Textiles and Clothing Industries
One of the things keeping it alive is remittance. A family's very survival often depends on the money it receives from relatives living outside the country.Quoted from the documentary itself:
In Montreal's Haitian community, the CBC's David Gutnick found one woman who alone supports 47 people back in her former home.
And he followed the money she sends, from Montreal to Haiti, to see just how it trickles down to the poorest.
Anita's $7.50/hr job in Montreal is feeding 47 members of her family here in Port au Prince. When Anita works, the family eats. Every year Haitians, people like Anita, send one billion dollars worth of food and money back home. It is, by a long shot, the most important part of the Haitian economy.
taking that further, and answering your question more directly, it tends to be better for a country if goods are made within the country; shipping raw materials from the third world to the first for processing (as in the case of clothes made in milan from imported materials, say) reduces development opportunities for the third world - countries tend to become trapped in primary industries (farming, mining), which generate small revenues and are sensitive to fluctuations in the global market and problems like weather, over-production, exhaustion of resources , etc.
i don't have an simple answer saying "you should buy X", but these are further points to consider when you try to come to a decision yourself.
posted by andrew cooke at 11:10 AM on November 16, 2005