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10 comments

1 Joanne  Wed, Dec 5, 2012 4:07:21pm

I realize that I have said this before, but Fuck Walmart.

2 EPR-radar  Wed, Dec 5, 2012 4:14:55pm

Lovely. We get to see a repeat performance of all the abuses documented in the "The Jungle" and other reports from the muckraking era (i.e., when acts of Journalism in public were known to occur).

//

4 watching you tiny alien kittens are  Wed, Dec 5, 2012 5:58:00pm

re: #3 researchok

Locker had an interesting observation on this story

But then California does not get together with Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico and have meetings where they mandate exactly what they will pay the contractors of California for specific goods or services. Nor do they dictate the suppliers those contractors must use for their raw materials or set the prices that will be paid for those materials.

These so called contractors for Walmart and the other large clothing buyers in reality operate much like wholly controlled subsidiaries of them. They carefully maintain a legal separation of ownership of these businesses but meanwhile control every aspect of them right down to every cent of profit they are allowed to pocket.

Why do you think this industry group of clothing buyers was even meeting to discuss this in the first place? If the buyers do not agree to provide any money in the contracts for safety precautions and enhancements then there simply will not be any improvements. Where else is the money going to come from? Cuts to the workers measly wages or the owners scanty profits?

Read up a little on how Walmart deals with it's suppliers, even those here in the United States. They represent such a large volume of market sales that they now dictate terms to all of their suppliers. Walmart decides what they will pay for an item, not the business trying to sell it to them.

5 sauceruney  Wed, Dec 5, 2012 6:10:40pm

Any US corporation doing business overseas (and their suppliers) shouldn't be exempt from following US law in those countries when it applies to employee health, safety and environmental protections. Raise the cost of doing business everywhere.

6 Mentis Fugit  Wed, Dec 5, 2012 7:09:12pm

I believe that until overseas suppliers are required to conform to the target market's labour laws, standards, etc, Third World labour continues to be a form of ersatz slavery.

Walmart would appear to agree with me, but their solution is to drag their workers' lot down rather than pull their suppliers' lot up.

7 Destro  Wed, Dec 5, 2012 9:09:26pm

re: #6 Mentis Fugit

I believe that until overseas suppliers are required to conform to the target market's labour laws, standards, etc, Third World labour continues to be a form of ersatz slavery.

Walmart would appear to agree with me, but their solution is to drag their workers' lot down rather than pull their suppliers' lot up.

So called "open border / free trade" has created a rise in slave labor around the world. Please don't think slave labor has to look like slave labor did in the American south or Rome. It can and does look like the slave labor in this burned down factory.

8 Vicious Babushka  Thu, Dec 6, 2012 12:42:19am

re: #6 Mentis Fugit

I believe that until overseas suppliers are required to conform to the target market's labour laws, standards, etc, Third World labour continues to be a form of ersatz slavery.

ftfy

9 Dark_Falcon  Thu, Dec 6, 2012 5:41:50am

re: #7 Destro

So called "open border / free trade" has created a rise in slave labor around the world. Please don't think slave labor has to look like slave labor did in the American south or Rome. It can and does look like the slave labor in this burned down factory.

Not to contradict you, but I would add to that that Wal-Mart is less concerned with the lives of garment workers in Bangladesh than most 1850's plantation owners were about the health of their slaves. The reason being that following the banning of the importation of slaves in 1808, slaves were expensive in the US, and so their owners took care to ensure that slaves were not killed in accidents in order to not lose their investment. Wal-Mart, by contrast, doesn't care because it can get new overseas workers cheap. And if a city were to pass and enforce fire safety laws, then the looms are just trucked away to someplace else .

10 Destro  Fri, Dec 7, 2012 10:30:41pm

re: #9 Dark_Falcon

Not to contradict you, but I would add to that that Wal-Mart is less concerned with the lives of garment workers in Bangladesh than most 1850's plantation owners were about the health of their slaves. The reason being that following the banning of the importation of slaves in 1808, slaves were expensive in the US, and so their owners took care to ensure that slaves were not killed in accidents in order to not lose their investment. Wal-Mart, by contrast, doesn't care because it can get new overseas workers cheap. And if a city were to pass and enforce fire safety laws, then the looms are just trucked away to someplace else .

You did not contradict me at all. I agree that the current free trade / open borders has created a slavery condition that is in many ways worse than the American slavery system before the slave trade ban.

Before the banning of importing slaves, slaves died off in plantations like sugar plantations in large numbers and were imported in large numbers. It was cheap labor in that regard. Before free trade and open borders American companies took care of their workers up to a point because they were the only game in town, especially after they organized.


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