Aspen Foundation for Labour Education September 2004...Bazaar and across the country and is exported...

Aspen Foundation for Labour EducationSeptember 2004

Looking Into Sweatshops

A Web-based Senior High Social Studies Package

Four student lessons: Researching themes in economics of production, child labour and unfair labour practices

Content: Victor LehmanEditor: Brenda Nelson

Layout and Illustration: Shannon Culberson

Produced by: Aspen Foundation for Labour EducationPrinted by: The Alberta Teachers’ Association

September 2004

For more information on AFLE visit our web site at: www.afle.caComments regarding this unit can be directed to: [email protected]

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Purpose and Overview, Curricular Fit Looking Into Sweatshops: A Student Investigation

Lesson 1: Defining the Issues or What We Know About Sweatshops • Handouts #1 Sweatshops: Voices and Opinions 7 #2 Assumptions About Sweatshops 8

Lesson 2: Researching SweatshopsWhy should students care about unfair labour practices in poor nations? • Handouts #1 Introduction to Student Researching 11 #2 Research Review 13 #3 Looking Into Sweatshops: Research Preparation Sheet 14

Lesson 3: Surfing or Researching the WebAre my questions really being answered? • Handouts #1 Sweatshops on the Net 18 #2 Applications and Conclusions 20 #3 Two Cheers for Sweatshops 22 #4 Sweatshop Myth-busters 26

Lesson 4: Sweatshops in the WestIs my McJob a Sweatshop Operation? • Case Studies #1 Youth and Unions 33 #2 Technology Equals More Work—Study 35 #3 Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs 37 #4 Slave Labour a Global Problem 39

• Handouts #1 Youth and Unions: a Crisis in the Making? 41 #2 Technology Equals More Work—Study 44 #3 Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs 46 #4 Slave Labour Still a Global Problem 48

Answer key for selected Case Study Qustions 49

Acknowledgement of Support

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Table of Contents

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The Looking Into Sweatshops learning guide is intended for flexible use. Doing all of the teacher and student activities in this learning guide could take as much as a week of 60 minute classes. However, if parts are used alone, it could require only 1-2 class periods. The “Introduction to Student Researching” (Lesson 2, Handout #1) could be used on any other content study or for the collection of essay or debate material.

By itself, the “Assumptions about Sweatshops” (Lesson 1, Handout #2) could be a source for one class discussion on starting points, ideologies, global interactions or even labour and management practices. Please feel free to use this package in any way that suits your classroom conditions.

The Looking Into Sweatshops learning guide focuses on bringing the following issues and tasks into the classroom:

• Identify student concerns regarding unions and employment• Assumes student research and reporting• Presents guided investigation tools and directions in establishing the

best research questions• Expects web site study to answer student constructed hypotheses or

research questions• Promotes application of research conclusions to other current issues

in labour• Introduces students to the historical growth of worker rights on a

global scale

The Looking Into Sweatshops learning guide can be applied to the following areas in the Social Studies Program of Studies:

• Canada’s Global Relationships (NEW Social Studies Curriculum)o Grade 10-1: Perspectives on Globalizationo Grade 10-2: Living in a Globalizing World

• Industrial Revolution o Grade 11 Topic A, Theme 2: Industrialization and Ideologies

• North-South Relationso Grade 11 Topic B, Theme 1: Global Diversity Theme 2: Economic Development and Interdependence

• Global Capitalismo Grade 12 Topic B, Theme 4: Contemporary Global Interactions

iPurpose andOverview

Curricular Fit

Looking Into Sweatshops:A Student Investigation Overview

Looking Into Sweatshops: A Student Investigation

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• To generate pre-study definitions and assumptions about sweatshop labour

• To explore the meanings of these definitions as starting points to research

• To use student definitions/class discussions to establish study and research questions

• Students will evaluate their existing knowledge and compare it toother students’ experiences and understandings

• Students will use consensual knowledge/peer understandings to formulate mature research questions

• Students will learn to ‘ask the right questions’• Resulting research will contain a strong element of theory/hypothesis

to test assumptions about sweatshop labour

30-45 minutes to do ‘round robin’ discussion of definitions and key issues

• Student created written list of issues and concerns about sweatshoplabour as prelude to class discussions (oral analysis of class writing)

• Handout #1 of a sampling of outside opinion: “Sweatshops: Voices and Opinions”

• Handout #2 of author’s assumptions: “Assumptions about Sweatshops”

Distribute the opening handout titled “Sweatshops: Voices and Opinions” (Handout #1) to the students. After they have read the information individually ask them to identify the following issues in their notes:

Assumptions: What do we think is true?Labour Practices: What is fair and unfair in workplaces?Child Labour: What work should children be doing or not doing?Working Conditions: What makes good and bad working conditions?Labour Safety: Are sweatshops safe places to work?Social Research: What do we need to know?Where do we find this information?What do we do with this acquired information?

1Learning Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Time Required

Materials Required

Introductory Activity

Identifying the Issues

Defining the Issues or What We Know About Sweatshops Lesson 1

Lesson 1 • Defining the Issues or What We Know About Sweatshops

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Distribute the following handout titled “Assumptions about Sweatshops” (Handout #2) to the students. Assign the various assumptions to individuals or small groups for review. Ask the students to read, discuss, and report back on each assumption by making their own notes.

Expect the following on each assumption:What is the assumption saying about sweatshops?What missing information would prove or disprove the statement?

Remind students that this exercise is just an opener. We are just beginning our exploration and as such, the students’ views will be diverse and unfocused. However, it is important to first consider what we do not know about sweatshops.


1Expanded

Study

Questioning Assumptions

Defining the Issues or What We Know About SweatshopsLesson 1

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1SourceOne

“Sweat and Gold”FrontlineIndia’s National MagazineNov. 09, 2001

SourceTwo

“Youngest Workers and Hazardous Child Labour”by Kebebew AshagrieInternational Labour Organization, May 1999www.ilo.org

SourceThree

“Loose Threads”by Dan La Botzwww.americas.org

Sweatshops: Voices and Opinions


Handout 1

The following set of quotes and views represent an introduction to the topic of sweatshops and unfair labour practices. They do not present a complete picture, but rather challenge us to learn more about this practice.

“Satyajit Bose lives and works with six other men in one of the sweatshops located in the third floor of a run-down residential building in Tava Gilli. In a 10 feet by 12 feet room, he spends approximately 12 hours a day, bent over a saddle-shaped wooden table lit dimly by a low-hung tube light. Here he crafts gold jewelry that finds a market in Zaveri Bazaar and across the country and is exported to other parts of the world. Bose is among 15,000 gold karigars in Zaveri Bazaar....”

“Little was known about these karigars (workers) until last June when a LPG cylinder exploded in one such workplace, killing 24 workers.”

“Estimates based on results of ILO’s recent surveys and demographicvariables indicate that children between 5 and 11 years old, who are engaged in economic activities globally, may total between 50 and 60 million .”

“As demonstrated by surveys at the national level, many of these children—varying from 5% in some countries to more than 20% in others—suffer actual injuries while working or fall ill due to their work. These injuries include punctures, broken or complete loss of body parts, burns and skin disease, eye and hearing impairment, respiratory and gastro-intestinal illnesses, fever, and headaches from excessive heat in the fields or in factories”

“All told, about 75% of clothing sold in the United States is made in sweatshops. The typical worker is a young woman whose wages leave her struggling at less than one-third of her country’s official poverty level. Her work week may extend to 80 hours or more. Her chances of encountering sexual harassment, pregnancy, discrimination and safety hazards are high. She’d likely be fired for trying to form a union.”

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8. Sweatshops are a temporary problem. They are like the mines and mills of nineteenth century England. When national wealth and awareness grew, people had new and better choices. Just as slavery became uneconomical, so will sweatshops. If people have a choice in employment, they will quickly escape this exploitation.

9. Greedy producers talk about competition and threaten bankruptcy if they don’t get pro-duction through low wages. First they produce cheaply, then they take huge profits as they sell these products at inflated prices in Europe and America. They could make a good profit and still pay fair wages to their overseas workers.

10. Sweatshops are a politically correct fad of ‘bleeding-heart’ liberals. Production under any economic system requires efficient down-sizing or out-sourcing. No country can get ahead, by paying its workers inflated wages.

- damned if you do...

What outcomes are likely to develop from each of these assumptions about sweatshops?

Assumptions About Sweatshops1Handout 2

1. Sweatshop labour is a necessary but unfortunate aspect of early private enterprise production. Advanced market production will, in time, raise these low wages and improve the working conditions.

2. Sweatshops are a result of the drive to satisfy the need for cheap products that are affordable by poor people.

3. Sweatshops provide necessary jobs in poorer countries that are areas of high unemployment and limited economic opportunity. They are better than other jobs.

4. Sweatshops are a result of capitalist competition or a ‘race to the bottom’, as companies and producers must cut costs or die.

5. Sweatshops are a result of the ‘borderless world’ of globalization. Start-up capital is mobile and it is easily moved to areas of low (and lower) wage rates.

6. Sweatshops are a consequence of western trade policies. Leaders of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank are encouraging poor countries to overlook labour and environmental standards, in order to create manufacturing plants for cheap exports.

7. Sweatshops are nothing short of simple greed. They are evil practices that would not be tolerated in the West. They represent practices that were long abandoned in the West and should be made illegal in other countries as well.


Sweatshop

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• To recognize and understand competing economic ideas about systemsof global exchange

• To value carefully conducted social research, as a means to reliable knowledge

• To develop carefully directed research techniques, based upon startingwith appropriate guiding questions or hypotheses

• To answer these questions should determine results, not simply use theinformation that is found or provided

• Students will display an understanding of conflicting viewpoints,being able to explain the underlying assumptions in these conflicting viewpoints

• Having understood these conflicting views, students will be expected toapply various standards of ethical judgement to sweatshop issues

30-45 minutes to build individual research questions from existing knowledge, from handouts, and teacher-guided group discussions

• Handout #1 on doing research “Introduction to Student Researching” • Handout #2 revisiting methods for good student research

“Research Review” • Handout #3 “Looking into Sweatshops: Research Preparation”

Teachers must ‘walk’ students through these handouts, clarifying, explaining and questioning for understanding. Scientific methodology cannot be just a handout, it must be taught.

Teachers can open the handout study with questions such as:

How do we know when we have reliable knowledge? How do we identify bias in web site information?How are the interests of people in different countries the same? How are they different?


Learning Outcomes

Time Required

Materials Required

Note to Teachers


Opening Questions

Researching Sweatshops Why should students care about unfair labour practices in poor nations? Lesson 2

Lesson 2 • Researching Sweatshops

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The next step is to set the questions for research and to move from issues to guided questions. Use the following questions below:

How do participants view events?How do outsiders view the same events?

With what assumptions or ideas do we begin our study?Can we identify our biases on the topic?How will these starting points affect our research?

Why do people take differing positions on issues?How do we recognize these differing positions?How does evidence relate to differing perspectives?How do conflicting interests lead to differing positions?

Distribute the handouts “Introduction to Student Researching” (Handout #1) and “Research Review” (Handout #2).

Discuss the handouts with students and encourage them to formulate questions or research hypotheses. Suggest that they coordinate these questions together, so as to look at different aspects of the chosen area.

Students should record and write their questions on the overhead/whiteboard for all class members to see. The purpose behind this is that it allows for sharing of unusual research findings and perspectives.

Make sure to carefully monitor student progress. Expect students to be focused on sites and material that will help answer their research questions.

Distribute the “Looking into Sweatshops: Research Preparation” (Handout #3) sheet. Encourage use of the sheet to collect data and more importantly to record sites visited to maintain accurate records.

Using the data sheet have students present their findings to class. If you wish you may also decide to have students write a position paper essay using one of the sample writing topics found in the “Applications and Conclusions” (Lesson 3, Handout #2).

2Social Events

or Social Problems

Starting Points

Positions on Issues

ExpandedStudy

Researching Sweatshops Why should students care about unfair labour practices in poor nations?Lesson 2


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2Defining the range of the research

Events and Interactions

Power Questions

Starting pointsand Underlying Assumptions

Introduction to Student Researching Handout 1

As a method of learning, assignments that call for student research are often painful. For students, research assignments call for shaping and limiting the topic so results can be manageable. Furthermore, how will students shape and limit their research, when they don’t know much about the particular topic? For teachers, the problem with student research is either too much breadth (and no depth), or a focus upon the ‘less significant’ elements in the topic. Unless teachers and students can converge on defining the range of the research, the results will be unsatisfactory for all concerned.

What guidelines promote quality student research?

The research must be guided by thoughtfully posed questions. These questions ask for a defining of ‘the event’, the ‘participants and stakeholders’, the ‘interests and values’ of these participants; and finally, the meaning of these events/actions for all citizens.

In social research another element connects with and controls all the above interactions. This is the question of ‘power’.

Who has the power to influence action or outcome? Who is involved in the event, but not able to exert any power? Who has the power to define the issues or events in ways that promote their interests or outcomes?

Researchers should note starting points and underlying assumptions. For example: digital circuits with their on/off, open/closed, and yes/no quality. Research information is raw basic data. It needs to be shaped into knowledge by making relevant connections to other information. Therefore, a study of sweatshops (or child labour, terrorism, global warming, etc.) cannot be a simple narrative of another researcher’s facts and figures. This information must be made into knowledge, by relating facts and figures to ‘participants’, ‘interests’, ‘values’ and ‘power’.

There is an old saying that “information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom”. So, if we are careful about the questions that we wish to ask; and the answers that we will accept, we should have good research.

Another important awareness for student researchers is to note their own starting points and underlying assumptions. Are you beginning the research with preconceived views about the topic? For example, in


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looking at sweatshops, do we automatically assume concepts of exploitation, abuse or immature capitalism—even before we do the research? Furthermore, as we all have underlying assumptions that ‘man is good’ or ‘man is bad’ or ‘man is neutral’; we often bring these into how we look at a social event or a social problem. The solution is not to be ‘value-free’ or ‘assumption-free’ but to be honest and open with your assumptions.

Researching any topic soon results in finding competing positions. This is natural, as all information soon gets organized into the evidence for competing positions, or as arguments for pro’s and con’s. Students can best respond to this reality, by identifying the position of the source, then evaluating its supporting evidence. Another wisdom on this, is the saying that “assertion is not proof” or “saying it is so, doesn’t make it so”.

Finally, we must also talk about bias. Bias is defined here as promoting a position through a ‘selective’ use of facts. We all have seen web sites as exclusively pro or con in dealing with topics such as capital punishment, abortion, etc. They quickly remind us that good research results in view-points that are provable, fair, and ethical to the greatest number of people. Strong positions also focus evidence and answers against their critics by claiming to meet and answer all their challenges.

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Working withClashing Viewpoints

Strong Positions

Introduction to Student ResearchingHandout 1


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2Research Review Handout 2

Ask the right questions of your source. Facts and figures are a good starting point but appro-priate generalizations, ethical arguments, and positions should be examined.

After ‘asking the right questions’, form a hypothesis that can guide your research. This is the statement that will be confirmed or de-nied by a broad body of existing research.

Note your own underlying assumptions as you look at all evidence. You will read things that clash with your values.

• Do the proponents of these positions actually prove themselves?

• Are some positions held with little evidence?

• Why would they do this?

Recognize the underlying assumptions of the research studied.

• Do their positions rest upon provable data?

• Do recognized authorities agree? • Is their position supported by a consensus

of citizens?

Recognize that some positions/web sites are better than others. Well researched positions have the following qualities. Strong positions:

• Make their assumptions clear and obvious• Contain proofs that are widely agreed upon• They tend to have universal application and

cross-cultural ‘truth’• They have the largest body of supportive

research evidence• They understand that anomalies or

‘cracks’ exist in their theories These weaknesses in theory are not hidden or avoided, but recognized and considered.


Recognize bias when you see it. Here a position is being pushed without much evidence to support it, a contrary view is being discounted unfairly or competing ideas are outright lies. Consider how conspiracy theorists take a position of having ‘inside information’; while the rest of us are fools for not seeing the ‘truth’.

Collect web site data carefully. Note statements and their proofs. Are the concluding generalizations reasonable from the proofs? Have you chosen the strongest material for your notes? Have you book marked these sites for later revisit?

Social and Political Action: What should be done? While much in this list is concerned with gaining reliable information and testable knowledge, this is not the end of the research. While it is most important to be ‘armed with truth’; it is more important to act on the knowledge. If the research issue is a serious problem then what changes should people work for? Does the social problem call for activist group response? For national govern-ment legislative changes? For global systems change? Finally, what of resistance factors and vested interests—what role will they play in potential change?

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Child Labour Rights Worker ExploitationLabour Costs in Production Working Conditions Corporate Responsibility Consumer ChoicesConsumer Boycotts

Are sweatshop practices harmful, to all involved?Can consumer boycotts be effective in making positive change?Do fair labour laws exist in these places?Are codes of conduct enforceable?What can be my role in creating change?

Name the topic and its boundaries and/or parameters. What will and will not be researched?

The guiding hypothesis to be proved or disproved.

Site Visited Useful Material Found on Site

2Student name:

Sample Issues

Sample Research Questions

My Chosen Issue is:

My Research Question is:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Looking Into Sweatshops: Research Preparation SheetHandout 3


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Sector of Focus/ Sweat Study: (e.g.: Sports Clothing - Puma)

Issues/Key Terms Used: (e.g.: Fair Labour Codes)

Addresses of Sites Studied:

Collected Information

Brand or Conditions Possible ResponsesCompany of Production or Outcomes

• (e.g.: PUMA) (e.g.: Uses off-shore Production) (e.g.: Signed Fair Labour Code 2004)

•

•

•

•

2 Looking Into Sweatshops: Research Preparation Sheet Handout 3


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• To assess whether students have understood underlying assumptions andconflicting positions in the material or web sites being examined

• To increase student appreciation of research skills and their value inestablishing reliable knowledge

• To enhance computer search and retrieval skills

• Students will develop skills in identifying conflicting viewpoints• Students will develop awareness of the differing assumptions and

interests that give these conflicting perspectives• Students will use research to work through competing perspectives and

begin to develop their own perspective

1-2 hours and some school time, most web research should be out of class time, as student’s work rates, modem speeds, etc. will vary

• Handout #1 of web sites list “Sweatshops on the Net” • Student handout/data collection chart (Lesson 2, Handout #3)

“Research Preparation” sheet . Note: This worksheet will focus research on specific student generated questions and issues by requiring them to answer or test their own hypotheses.

• Handout # 2 student essay or debate topics “Applications and Conclusions”

• Handout #3 “Two Cheers for Sweatshops” by Nicholas Kristof andSheryl WuDunn, New York Times 9/24/00

• Handout #4 “Sweatshop Myth-busters” from Co-op America’s Guide toEnding Sweatshops, URL: www.sweatshops.org

The focus of this activity is to have students answer the questions using guided research on the web. Discuss the following issues in web research with the students:

• What is the main perspective or bias of the web site?• How does the site use evidence for making conclusions?• What assumptions does the site make about reality?• Does the site propose solutions?• Are the proposals for change realistic?

3 Surfing or Researching the WebAre my questions really being answered? Lesson 3

Lesson 3 • Surfing or Researching the Web

Learning Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Time Required

Materials Required


Viewpoint of Web site

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• Am I certain about what I am looking for?• Does the site answer/avoid my question?

• What do you accept as reliable evidence?• Would a majority of people accept this proof?• Is the ‘truth’ in one position, in another or between conflicting positions?

Use the two articles (Handout #3 and #4) to open the issue of conflict-ing opinions on sweatshops. Have students read each article and list the basic arguments that each article makes. Divide the class and assign these competing arguments for a class debate or have students use both articles to write a position paper. If you chose the position paper assignment then students should focus their paper on answering the question:

“To what extent should sweatshops be accepted as a stage in economic growth?”

Students should use the “Research Preparation” sheet (Lesson 2, Handout #3) to complete the research that may not yet be completed from Lesson 2. Students should be encouraged to print off select pages of key web material for debates or for composition writing. Encourage use of highlighters to accent select passages for later use in concluding the sweatshop research project.

3Lesson 3

Research Questions/Guiding Hypotheses

Proofs as Answers to Questions

ExpandedStudy


Surfing or Researching the WebAre my questions really being answered?

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www.sweatshops.org : Contains nearly 100 linked sites on corporate ac-countability, child labour, fair trade, unions, and micro-credit

www.americas.org : Contains information on clothing sweatshops,current campaigns such as “mass mobilization”. The site focuses upon North and South America

www.fairlabour.org : Based out of Washington, D.C. the site is con-cerned with codes of conduct, compliance, and certification. There is a focus on the uses of labour codes to fight sweatshops

www.nosweatshoplabel.com : An Australian site focused upon home work as a sweatshop issue ‘Outworkers’ or home labour. The site uses ‘labelling’ as tool of sweatshop struggle

www.ilo.org : The ILO is noted for much data on work issues

www.globalpolicy.org/socecon : Focuses on the question of who runs the world-nations or corporations? The site assumes corporations do

www.campuslife.utoronto.ca : Canadian site with current material. A great site for students

www.maquilasolidarity.org : Canadian site concerned with issues in Central America

www.corpwatch.org/issues : An American super-site with extensive campaign reports, updates on past campaigns, and links

http://www.unitehere.ca : Canadian perspective on the anti-sweat move-ment. Includes definitions and current campaign such as “to ensure better jobs and working conditions for everyone”

www.aworldconnected.org/category : This site attempts to avoid ideologically driven debates and look at economic challenges and opportunities. Terms like freedom, choices, and social entrepreneurs used in the site suggest an acceptance of sweatshop labour

3 Sweatshops on the Net


Sweatshops.org

Americas.org

Fair Labour Association

No Sweatshop Label

International Labour Organization

Global Policy

Students Against Sweatshops

Maquila Solidarity Network

Corpwatch: Sweatshops

Unite Canada

A World Connected

Handout 1

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“Necessary Evil? An Economic Analysis of the Impact of Sweatshops in Developing Asia” by Stephanie Luo. This 11 page research paper is not a web site, but an academic study posted on the Stanford site. It presents some challenges to the anti-sweat movementwww.stanford.edu/class/e297c/new/trade_environment/sweatshops

www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/fs14.htm :UNHCHR Fact Sheet 14: Contemporary Forms of Slavery

www.iabolish.com : I Abolish, the Anti-Slavery Portal

www.csi-int.ch/ : This group has created some controversy by meeting slavers and buying back individual slaves. This is quite different from the usual methods of legislation, enforcement, monitoring and boycotting

www.newint.org The New Internationalist exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless in both rich and poor nations

Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy.Berkley: University of California Press, 1999.

Mendelssohn, Maxine. “Clothing With a Conscience Pays Off”.Edmonton Journal, August 10, 2004.

3Handout 1Sweatshops on the Net

Necessary Evil?

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Anti-Slavery

Christian Solidarity International

New Internationalist

Print Sources


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Depending upon the class structure teachers have a number of evaluation options to choose from. The choices are designed to draw the research material together into concluding judgements and generalizations. These knowledge objectives, when satisfied, can lead to another level of objec-tives: the valuing and acting component. Here students can consider ap-propriate and inappropriate actions to respond to what they have learned about sweatshops. Even if their study does not get as far as action, it must conclude and wrap-up with ‘making meaning’ for students.

To what extent should sweatshops be controlled and regulated?

Should sweatshops be seen as a necessary stage in production, for poorer countries that are competing in the global market?

Who has the most power to make the changes:• the corporate retailer • the out-sourced subcontractor• the consumer • the worker• the boycott planners

Will ethical producers eventually push out the unethical ones?

Can workers make improvements themselves, since they are most aware of their own local conditions?

What are the limits of campaigning on others’ behalf?

What is the importance of working for others’ freedom?

Does the web site propose solutions that are universal (for all concerned) and do they suggest the importance of codes and laws as needed?

Be it resolved that sweatshops are morally wrong and should globally be declared an illegal activity.

In the NFB film series on global development called “The Population Bomb”, host Gwynne Dyer elabourates an interesting concept. In the Mexico film, he argues that the ‘evil’ working conditions of border ma-quiladoras (factories) are a temporary event for one generation. These factories provide enough income for workers children to see other

3 Applications and Conclusions


Position Paper or Diploma Essay

Questions:

Teachers and student researchers are advised to ask questions of their

web site material:

Class Debate Topic

Information Note:

Handout 2

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choices and then to escape these conditions. As literacy approaches 50% in any population, the nation must begin to become a democracy. This ‘generational improvement’ model is a ‘model of hope’ as it sees people as choosing better employment as it becomes available. From this view-point, worker exploitation is a temporary and early phase of industrial working conditions rather than a permanent quality of capitalism. As soon as they have a democratic choice, these workers will leave abusive workplaces.

This model of ‘natural’ improvement contrasts with the data found in most of the web sites. Instead, they see sweatshop conditions as always existing/growing in global production. Anti-sweatshop activists value boycotts and publicity campaigns to humiliate owners into changing con-ditions and wages. Other models of change come from the labour rights people. They see the organization of unions and the adoption of labour codes as the way to improve sweatshop conditions.


3Handout 2Applications and Conclusions

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3 Two Cheers for Sweatshops Handout 3

New York TimesSeptember 24, 2000NICHOLAS KRISTOF and SHERYL WUDUNN

They’re dirty and dangerous. They’re also a major reason Asia is back on track.

It was breakfast time, and the food stand in the village in northeastern Thailand was crowded. Maesubin Sisoipha, the middle-aged woman cooking the food, was friendly, her portions large and the price right. For the equivalent of about 5 cents, she offered a huge green mango leaf filled with rice, fish paste and fried beetles. It was a hearty breakfast, if one didn’t mind the odd antenna left sticking in one’s teeth.

One of the half-dozen men and women sitting on a bench eating was a sinewy, bare-chested labourer in his late 30’s named Mongkol Latlakorn. It was a hot, lazy day, and so we started chatting idly about the food and, eventually, our families. Mongkol mentioned that his daughter, Darin, was 15, and his voice softened as he spoke of her. She was beautiful and smart, and her father’s hopes rested on her.

“Is she in school?” we asked.

“Oh, no,” Mongkol said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “She’s working in a factory in Bangkok. She’s making clothing for export to America.” He explained that she was paid $2 a day for a nine-hour shift, six days a week.

“It’s dangerous work,” Mongkol added. “Twice the needles went right through her hands. But the managers bandaged up her hands, and both times she got better again and went back to work.”

- Another day, another dollar

“How terrible,” we murmured sympathetically.

Mongkol looked up, puzzled. “It’s good pay,” he said. “I hope she can keep that job. There’s all this talk about factories closing now, and she said there are rumors that her factory might close. I hope that doesn’t happen. I don’t know what she would do then.”

He was not, of course, indifferent to his daughter’s suffering; he simply had a different perspective from ours—not only when it came to food but also when it came to what constituted desirable work.

Nothing captures the difference in mind-set between East and West more than attitudes toward sweatshops. Nike and other American companies have been hammered in the Western press over the last decade for producing shoes, toys and other products in grim little factories with dismal conditions. Protests against sweatshops and the dark forces of globalization that they seem to represent have become common at meetings of the World Bank and the World Trade Organization and, this month,


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3Handout 3

at a World Economic Forum in Australia, livening up the scene for Olympic athletes arriving for the competition. Yet sweatshops that seem brutal from the vantage point of an American sitting in his living room can appear tantalizing to a Thai labourer getting by on beetles.

Fourteen years ago, we moved to Asia and began reporting there. Like most Westerners, we arrived in the region outraged at sweatshops. In time, though, we came to accept the view supported by most Asians: that the campaign against sweatshops risks harming the very people it is intended to help. For beneath their grime, sweatshops are a clear sign of the industrial revolution that is beginning to reshape Asia.

This is not to praise sweatshops. Some managers are brutal in the way they house workers in firetraps, expose children to dangerous chemicals, deny bathroom breaks, demand sexual favors, force people to work double shifts or dismiss anyone who tries to organize a union. Agitation for improved safety conditions can be helpful, just as it was in 19th-century Europe. But Asian workers would be aghast at the idea of American consumers boycotting certain toys or clothing in protest. The simplest way to help the poorest Asians would be to buy more from sweatshops, not less.

In our first extended trip to China, in 1987, we traveled to the Pearl River delta in the south of the country. There we visited several factories, including one in the boomtown of Dongguan, where about 100 female workers sat at workbenches stitching together bits of leather to make purses for a Hong Kong company.

We chatted with several women as their fingers flew over their work and asked about their hours.

“I start at about 6:30, after breakfast, and go until about 7 p.m.,” explained one shy teenage girl. “We break for lunch, and I take half an hour off then.”

“You do this six days a week?”

“Oh, no. Every day.”

“Seven days a week?”

“Yes.” She laughed at our surprise. “But then I take a week or two off at Chinese New Year to go back to my village.”

The others we talked to all seemed to regard it as a plus that the factory allowed them to work long hours. Indeed, some had sought out this factory precisely because it offered them the chance to earn more.

“It’s actually pretty annoying how hard they want to work,” said the factory manager, a Hong Kong man. “It means we have to worry about security and have a supervisor around almost constantly.”

It sounded pretty dreadful, and it was. We and other journalists wrote about the problems of child labour and oppressive conditions in both China and South Korea. But, looking back, our worries were excessive. Those sweatshops tended to generate the wealth to solve the problems they created. If Americans had reacted to the horror stories in the 1980’s by curbing imports of those sweatshop products, then neither southern China nor South Korea

Two Cheers for Sweatshops


24 25

3 Two Cheers for Sweatshops Handout 3

would have registered as much progress as they have today.

The truth is, those grim factories in Dongguan and the rest of southern China contributed to a remarkable explosion of wealth. In the years since our first conversations there, we’ve returned many times to Dongguan and the surrounding towns and seen the transformation. Wages have risen from about $50 a month to $250 a month or more today. Factory conditions have improved as businesses have scrambled to attract and keep the best labourers. A private housing market has emerged, and video arcades and computer schools have opened to cater to workers with rising incomes. A hint of a middle class has appeared—as has China’s closest thing to a Western-style independent newspaper, Southern Weekend.

Partly because of these tens of thousands of sweatshops, China’s economy has become one of the hottest in the world. Indeed, if China’s 30 provinces were counted as individual countries, then the 20 fastest-growing countries in the world between 1978 and 1995 would all have been Chinese. When Britain launched the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, it took 58 years for per capita output to double. In China, per capita output has been doubling every 10 years.

In fact, the most vibrant parts of Asia are nearly all in what might be called the Sweatshop Belt, from China and South Korea to Malaysia, Indonesia and even Bangladesh and India. Today these sweatshop countries control about one-quarter of the global economy. As the industrial revolution spreads through China and India, there are good

reasons to think that Asia will continue to pick up speed. Some World Bank forecasts show Asia’s share of global gross domestic product rising to 55 to 60 percent by about 2025—roughly the West’s share at its peak half a century ago. The sweatshops have helped lay the groundwork for a historic economic realignment that is putting Asia back on its feet. Countries are rebounding from the economic crisis of 1997-98 and the sweatshops—seen by Westerners as evidence of moribund economies—actually reflect an industrial revolution that is raising living standards in the East.

Of course, it may sound silly to say that sweatshops offer a route to prosperity, when wages in the poorest countries are sometimes less than $1 a day. Still, for an impoverished Indonesian or Bangladeshi woman with a handful of kids who would otherwise drop out of school and risk dying of mundane diseases like diarrhea, $1 or $2 a day can be a life-transforming wage.

This was made abundantly clear in Cambodia, when we met a 40-year-old woman named Nhem Yen, who told us why she moved to an area with particularly lethal malaria. “We needed to eat,” she said. “And here there is wood, so we thought we could cut it and sell it.”

But then Nhem Yen’s daughter and son-in-law both died of malaria, leaving her with two grandchildren and five children of her own. With just one mosquito net, she had to choose which children would sleep protected and which would sleep exposed.


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3Handout 3Two Cheers for Sweatshops

In Cambodia, a large mosquito net costs $5. If there had been a sweatshop in the area, however harsh or dangerous, Nhem Yen would have leapt at the chance to work in it, to earn enough to buy a net big enough to cover all her children.

For all the misery they can engender, sweatshops at least offer a precarious escape from the poverty that is the developing world’s greatest problem. Over the past 50 years, countries like India resisted foreign exploitation, while countries that started at a similar economic level—like Taiwan and South Korea—accepted sweatshops as the price of development. Today there can be no doubt about which approach worked better. Taiwan and South Korea are modern countries with low rates of infant mortality and high levels of education; in contrast, every year 3.1 million Indian children die before the age of 5, mostly from diseases of poverty like diarrhea.

The effect of American pressure on sweatshops is complicated. While it clearly improves conditions at factories that produce branded merchandise for companies like Nike, it also raises labour costs across the board. That encourages less well established companies to mechanize and to reduce the number of employees needed. The upshot is to help people who currently have jobs in Nike plants but to risk jobs for others. The only thing a country like Cambodia has to offer is terribly cheap wages; if companies are scolded for paying those wages, they will shift their manufacturing to marginally richer areas like Malaysia or Mexico.

Sweatshop monitors do have a useful role. They can compel factories to improve safety.

They can also call attention to the impact of sweatshops on the environment. The greatest downside of industrialization is not exploitation of workers but toxic air and water. In Asia each year, three million people die from the effects of pollution. The factories springing up throughout the region are far more likely to kill people through the chemicals they expel than through terrible working conditions.

By focusing on these issues, by working closely with organizations and news media in foreign countries, sweatshops can be improved. But refusing to buy sweatshop products risks making Americans feel good while harming those we are trying to help. As a Chinese proverb goes, “First comes the bitterness, then there is sweetness and wealth and honor for 10,000 years.”

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, who received a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China, are the authors of “Thunder From the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia” (Knopf), from which this article is adapted.


26 27

“Sweatshop Myth-busters” from Co-op America’s Guide to Ending Sweatshops

“Sweatshops are a stage in economic development that a country must go through to develop and prosper like the United States.”

False. Greed is the root of sweatshops—not economic development. By denying workers the skills and education they need to progress, as well as the wages they need to survive, companies that exploit the labour force of their suppliers stand in the way of economic development. In fact, economies that rely on sweatshops often see real wages fall and declines in consumer purchasing power—rather than the growth and prosperity some economists promise. In 1997, the UN Conference on Trade and Development reported that wages for unskilled workers had dropped by 20 to 30 percent in developing countries that had liberalized trade laws to attract manufacturing business from developed countries. These are the same countries where sweatshops are prevalent.

If sweatshops were a necessary step toward economic development, it stands to reason that they would not exist in the world’s most developed economies. But sweatshops are found in every country, regardless of its phase of economic development. For example, sweatshops exist in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Labour (DOL) estimates that more than half of the 22,000 sewing shops in the U.S. violate minimum wage and overtime laws, and other government surveys indicate that 75 percent of U.S. garment manufacturers violate safety and health laws. State and local governments, other Federal agencies, and the media have found sweatshops and worker abuse in other U.S. manufacturing and agriculture industries—from meat packing to construction to light manufacturing. Today’s sweatshop is a product of a global economy where corporations-in pursuit of profits—seek suppliers that pay rock-bottom wages in countries where governments can be pressured to act against the best interests of their citizens.

“Working in a sweatshop makes a bad life better for poor people in most developing countries.”

False. Sweatshop and child workers are trapped in a cycle of exploitation


3 Sweatshop Myth-busters Handout 4

www.sweatshops.org

MythOne

MythTwo

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3Handout 4


that rarely improves their economic situation. Since multinationals are constantly pressuring suppliers for cost-cutting measures, workers most often find conditions getting worse instead of better.

Take a look at the workers at the Megatex factory in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, who make several lines of clothing for Disney. While their daily pay is $2.15 a day, their average daily expenses are $6.12. At this wage, the workers are trapped; they will never be able to save money to improve their lives because they aren’t able to cover their family’s basic needs.

As concerned consumers, we need to make sure no child or adult worker gets thrown out of a sweatshop and onto the street after violations are uncovered. That’s why it’s important to hold companies accountable to provide an education for children and a living wage for their parents.

“Corporations are forced to exploit workers to meet consumer demands for low prices.”

False. Most consumers don’t willingly purchase goods made in sweatshops or with child labour, so it’s impossible to blame consumer demand for exploited workers. Since 1995, three separate research organizations have conducted surveys on consumer attitudes toward purchasing products made under sweatshop conditions. The surveys consistently find that the average consumer would pay up to 28 percent more for an item if she or he knew it wasn’t made in a sweatshop.

In addition, wages at sweatshops are so low that a small increase would not impact the cost of goods sold in the U.S. Dr. Robert Pollin, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, is currently conducting studies on sweatshops and has found that employers could painlessly withstand a higher wage bill.

According to Pollin’s preliminary findings, a men’s shirt retailing for $32 in the U.S. costs $4.74 to produce in the free-trade zones in Mexico, where sweatshops are prevalent. Of that amount, 52 cents goes to production workers and another 52 cents to supervisors.

“You could double the production workers’ wages, and hardly anyone but the workers would be able to tell the difference,” Pollin argues.

MythThree

Sweatshop Myth-busters

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“Because of all the middle merchants involved, corporations can’t track where their goods come from.”

False. The fact is, corporations can track where their goods come from—down to the very factory or sub-contractor. An article published on JustStyle’s web site (www.just-style.com), a resource site for the global textile and apparel industries, points out that tracking the supply chain down to the factory where a garment was made has become a fiscal “necessity” for multinationals, not an impossibility.

JustStyle explains that manufacturers have already captured the majority of cost-savings from shifting their manufacturing to facilities—including sweatshops—in developing countries. “The frontier days of finding new manufacturing countries are over,” it says. The new area of savings, JustStyle explains, is in the supply chain—managing raw materials, transportation, factories, sub-contractors, and quality control.

Around the globe, name-brand retailers are investing in new technologies—information systems, international shipping firms, quality assurance monitoring, business-to-business software, bar codes, universal numbering systems, and more—to track the supply chain and achieve the additional profits promised by JustStyle and other industry experts. This same technology can be used to track and disclose issues of human rights, labour, and environmental abuse behind the goods we buy. Using this technology, we can create a “clean supply chain,” if consumers, activists, workers, and investors demand it, and if corporations choose to make it a priority.

“The reasons why sweatshops and labour abuse exist are so complicated that there is nothing we can do.”

False. Take a look at the “Sweatshop Victories”, and you’ll soon realize that consumers, investors, religious organizations, nonprofit, and businesses around the world are seeing progress in their efforts to create a sweatshop-free world. By joining Co-op America, you can stay up-to-date on our progress and add your own efforts to the mix.


3 Sweatshop Myth-busters Handout 4

MythFour

MythFive

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• To use print media to evaluate issues of youth labour, their sectors ofemployment, and their unionization levels

• To consider the role of collective action and bargaining in improvingworkplace conditions

• To understand the situation of other low paid workers and have some acceptance and solidarity of other workers in similar circumstances

• To critically apply student life experience to larger world realities

• Students will use critical analysis (identification of viewpoint, values,and interests) on issues to arrive at a defensible position

• Students will be more aware of the connections between issues andpeople in problem solving as well as the methods of positive change

• Students will value social action on issues as a means of usingknowledge to improve their own future

Approximately 1 class period per news story. More class time may be allotted if ‘spin-off’ issues are examined

• Handout #1 selected quotes and study questions from the article titled“Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making” from Labour News

• Handout #2 on work and technology which focuses on disproving theassumption of technology as a labour saving tool. The article and studyquestions handout is called “Technology Equals More Work—Study”

• Handout #3 on Mexican workers in border maquiladoras. This articlechallenges the Dyer thesis that these jobs are one Mexican generation’s opportunity for a better future. Article and study questions in handout called “Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs”

• Handout #4 the final article “Slave Labour Still a Global Problem” isfrom Labour News and highlights the reality that slavery still exists in an era of advanced labour codes and practices. In the spectrum of labour rights, from protected to unprotected, the most unprotected must be slaves. The entire article and study questions are included as a final issue in this package

Discuss the following questions with students:

1. What difficulties do students face in non-unionized and part time jobs? 2. To what degree is globalization responsible for the decline of unions?


Learning Outcomes

Time Required

Materials Required


Sweatshops in the West. Is my McJob a sweat operation? Lesson 4

Lesson 4 • Sweatshops in the West

30 31

3. Do humans do a good job of managing technology? How and how not?4. How do sweatshop workers improve their skills but still face the

possibility of job loss? What issues are involved in moving factories/production to ‘off shore’ suppliers?

5. Are some forms of production always exploitative to their workers? Can we define them? Does a worker’s voluntary acceptance of sweatshop conditions mean the conditions are acceptable?

6. How does a moral problem like slavery have an economic cause? Will it be ended by a values change or an economics change?

Use the following case studies, articles, and their study questions to open other deeper questions about work, money, and power in our society and economy.

Youth and Unions

• Handout #1 “Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making” from Labour News and accompanying study questions

• Globalization • Union Density • Labour Markets• Union Representation • Part-time work • Quality Work• Pro-union Attitudes • Youth Unemployment • Service Jobs

Case Study 1 leads to questions about the value of entry level work and its workers.

1. How is the service sector the ‘sweatshop sector’ of North America?2. Will young people ‘graduate’ to higher paying jobs? 3. Can low paying jobs be unionized? 4. How are unions preparing their members for future changes in

work life? 5. What would a society without trade unions look like?6. Should young workers be encouraged to join unions?7. To what extent can the market provide a society with quality and

creative jobs?

4

ExpandedStudy

Case Study 1Materials Required

Issues

Questions

Sweatshops in the West. Is my McJob a sweat operation?Lesson 4


30 31Lesson 4 • Sweatshops in the West

Technology Equals More Work—Study

• Handout #2 “Technology Equals More Work—Study” and accompanying study questions

• Workload and Stress • Unpaid Overtime• Home Work • Technology Use and Productivity• Leisure Society, Balancing • 24/7 Technology and

Work and Home Life Communications Burnout

Case Study 2 considers such questions as:

1. What happens when the time available doesn’t match the workdemands and stresses mount?

2. How should we respond when some workers use technology to becomemore productive, but instead become more ‘enslaved’?

3. What is the secret of balancing work and private life? 4. Can a middle class knowledge worker (in a different way) still be a

‘sweatshop’ labourer?5. Should there be more controls on the uses of technology?6. To what extent are we ‘living to work’ rather ‘working to live’?

Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs

• Handout #3 “Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs” and accompanying study questions

• Maquiladoras and Globalization • Capital and Job Migration• Is Sweatshop Work Secure? • Salary Gaps or Wage Differentials• Growth Rates and Free Trade Zones

Case Study 3 lays out the realities of the interdependent global economy. Free Trade has meant an economic boost for nations like Mexico, but as soon as wage rates rise, business owners begin a ‘capital flight’ to even lower wage areas. This case study asks the following questions:

1. Should governments adopt protectionist policies to keep jobs? Which jobs and why?

2. To what extent does globalized free trade benefit members of society?

4Case Study 2Materials Required

Issues

Questions

Case Study 3Materials Required

Issues

Questions

Sweatshops in the West. Is my McJob a sweat operation? Lesson 4

32 33

3. To what extent should nations allow unskilled work to disappear or migrate?

Slave Labour Still a Global Problem

• Handout #4, “Slave Labour Still a Global Problem” is from Labour News and accompanying study questions

• Slavery and Morality • Slavery and Economics• Value of Slaves • Areas of Slave Labour• Slavery and the Law • Bonded Labour and the Snare of Debt

Case Study 4 focuses on slavery today and examines issues that many would assume no longer exist in our world.

1. How can one person own another? 2. How does one person gain control over another’s body, allowing

shameless exploitation? 3. What are the limitations of anti-slavery laws or even anti-sweat laws?4. To what extent does economic greed ‘trump’ human rights in

global trade?5. To what extent is poverty a cause of modern slavery?6. Should modern sweatshops be accepted in the modern

global marketplace?

4Case Study 4Materials Required

Issues

Questions

Sweatshops in the West. Is my McJob a sweat operation?Lesson 4


32 33

4Case Study 1Youth and Unions


Low value jobs and unionization drives are challenges for both youth and organized labour

• Handout #1 “Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making?” Labour News, May 2003

As many youth will acknowledge, the jobs available to them are what writer Scott Harris calls ‘bad jobs’, that is, those characterized by ‘part time hours, low pay, no benefits and low rates of unionization’. Low value jobs and unionization drives are challenges for both youth and organized labour.

• If 75% of youth work is in the service industry, can this industry be improved to give these people a better work experience?

• Would young workers join unions if they had a chance?• Why don’t unions make more effort to improve the working conditions

in these ‘bad jobs’?• If unions don’t enroll the young worker today, will unions have

adequate membership in the future?

These are significant questions, because unions have a vital role in maintaining incomes and fair working conditions for their workers. Democracies like ours in Canada promote and encourage such stakeholder organizations to debate public issues, make representations to government, and attempt to influence legislation. This participation in law making can improve society. So why is there no change in ‘dead-end jobs’ for youth?

All the case studies in this lesson focus upon some of the common qualities found in ‘bad jobs’, whether they be in technology, in Mexican maquiladoras plants or even in human slavery.

Read the article “Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making?” (Handout #1) and consider each of the following questions:

1. List all the problems faced by young people as they attempt to make aliving in the current economic climate.

Materials Required

Introduction andRationale

Activity

34 35

2. Why do you think it is that 75% of young workers are in the serviceindustry? Why are not more of these people working in other sectors of the economy?

3. What do you think are the main reasons that 65% of minimum wage earners are young workers?

4. Alberta sociologist, Graham Lowe, sees a ‘latent unionism’ amongst at least one third of recently studied school and university grads. Does this match what you hear from your friends? Consider their work experiences to test out this viewpoint.

5. Examine the following quote from the article:

“There are unions out there that represent a large number of these workers, and the labour movement as a whole needs to look at these and take lessons from them. The key is that unions need to be willing to change to fairly represent the needs and realities of young workers in order to represent them”

What do you or your friends think would be the ‘realities’ that a union could help ‘represent’ for you?

6. What explanations are offered in the article to explain why “only 13.5% of young workers are unionized”? Answer with references to both youth and unions.

4

Natasha Goudar, Canadian Labour Congress Youth V.P


Case Study 1 Youth and Unions

34 35

4Case Study 2Technology Equals More Work—Study


• Handout #2 “Technology Equals More Work—Study” by Kathryn May of Southam Newspapers. Printed in the Edmonton Journal Sept. 2, 2002

As we look at various working conditions in these case studies it is important to compare and contrast their qualities. Do service sector jobs employing youth have comparable elements to information technology jobs? Do overworked technology workers have any common comparison to Mexican border manufacturing jobs? Finally, are there similarities to workers in indentured/bonded labour (AKA slave labour)? It is a safe assumption that students will want to know about all these labour practices in order to highlight differences and to better understand their own work environment. By examining conditions, wages, rights, and powers we can see positive patterns and alternatives. Having positive choices, public opinion can now move power or political structures to implement these changes.

Examine the following statement:

• One in four Canadians is working more than 50 hours a week• Technology accounts for nearly all unpaid overtime worked at home• Technology has raised the “demands of the job for many workers

beyond what they can handle in a nine-to-five workday.”• Instant communication systems are putting work into worker

hands 24/7. i.e. professionals and managers are always ‘on call’

Is technology our slave or our master? Read the article “Technology Equals More Work—Study” (Handout #2) by Kathryn May and consider each of the following questions:

1. Why does business professor Linda Duxbury think “technology is abig piece of the longer working hours”? Why are we not working less, when using these new ‘labour-saving’ technologies?

2. Examine Health Canada survey methods. List the qualities of the survey that make its results dependable for making social policy decisions.

Materials Required


Health Canada: 2001 National Work-Life Conflict Survey Results

Activity

36 37

3. Explain the “productivity paradox”. Why have the new technologies not given Canadian workers a big boost in their levels of productivity?

4. Who are the workers who take home no “computer-supported work”, and why are they lowest in job stress and highest in job satisfaction?

5. What do you think are the pros and the cons for the “managers and professionals” who do take home “computer-supported work”? Explain why they would do it, even when they might have a choice.

6. What information in this Health Canada survey has some similarity to sweatshop conditions and/or issues?

4


Case Study 2 Technology Equals More Work—Study

36 37

4Case Study 3Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs


How Investment Can Move Easier than Labour: The Mexican Maquiladoras Story

• Handout #3, “Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs” by Mary Jordan, Washington Post, reprinted in the Edmonton Journal June 22, 2002

Case Study 3 focuses on the study of maquiladoras or cross border factories. The related article brings a powerful update to our web study of these workplaces. The main theme of this piece is “the globalized economy at work”. Our concern is to judge the impact of these shifts upon the lives of workers. Going back to the Dyer argument, that sweatshops are but a temporary pain for one generation, one perspective we can discuss is that this view is wrong. The lives of the next generation of Mexican workers can’t get better, when 250,000 jobs are being moved to Asia.

Read the article “Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs” (Handout #3) by Mary Jordan and consider the following questions:

1. Finding cheaper labour: Is this the main issue?

2. What was the wage rate in the Canon ink jet printer factory?

3. What are the wages in Vietnam and Thailand?

4. How many factories have moved? Do you think that they might return to Mexico in the future?

5. Why is China becoming an attractive place to set up a manufacturing plant?

6. Why is a healthy maquiladora industry important to Mexico?

Materials Required


Activity

38 39

7. What things are Mexicans doing to reduce this job loss? Consider Tijuana’s re-inventing itself.

8. Why can’t all these maquiladoras move to Asia?

9. What do you understand by the phrase “narrowing the wage gap”?

10. Do you think there will ever come a time when fair living wages will be paid in all countries? Why or why not?

11. The author says that the plant closures along the Mexican border are just the “globalized economy at work”. What is she saying here?

12. List 3 facts that describe the job losses of Mexican manufacturing workers.

13. What does Jordan say about the Mexican government’s response to these job losses? Are they doing enough to protect their maquiladoras/border industries; or is this issue really not such a big problem? Answer using facts and statistics.

14. How is competition (between global businesses) involved in these companies moving to low wage areas? What do you think of this process?

15. What history and geography does Mexico have to overcome these current losses?

4


Case Study 3 Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs

38 39

How Poverty Limits Choices and Creates Powerlessness: Slave Labour in the 21st Century

• Handout #4, “Slave Labour Still a Global Problem” by Scott Harris in Labour News, May 2003

• Free the Slaves web site: www.freetheslaves.net

• “21st Century Slaves” by Andrew CockburnNational Geographic Magazine, Sept. 2003 Web site connection: nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0309

Most of us are horrified to hear that there are 27 million slaves in our world. We may remember other facts such as Britain outlawing slavery in the British Empire in 1818 or U.S. President Lincoln freeing American slaves in the 1860’s. Surely this is an old problem that is already solved? Not so. According to Kevin Bales, we have more slaves today than any time in our history. A slavery case study allows us to examine what can result when we have extreme poverty and no labour protection codes.

• Does tolerance of sweatshop labour allow or encourage slave labour? • Do we need to be vigilant in protecting the rights of first world workers only?

• Could our jobs be exported to low wage countries? • Why do low wage countries also allow slavery?

Clearly the slavery issue opens up a lot of difficult questions. Read the article “Slave Labour Still a Global Problem” and consider the following questions:

1. One reason that slavery was outlawed was that it had become uneconomic—paying wages was cheaper than buying a slave. How is it different today and what are the results for this cheap and disposable ‘product’?

4Case Study 4Slave Labour Still a Global Problem


Materials Required


Activity

40 41

2. Explain the concept of ‘bonded labour’. How does it lead to slavery?

3. What does the author propose citizens do as “a concerted effort” to “eliminate slavery”?

The following questions can be answered after examining the web resources:

1. Further reading will inform students that much of modern slavery, including forced prostitution, results from economic migrants putting themselves into the hands of ‘snakes or ‘coyotes’ who smuggle them to richer countries, for a price. They are now bound to repay their travel and false documentation costs. How do you interpret the following quote from Andrew Cockburn in the September 2003 National Geographic?

“…as Adriana, a 14-year-old prostitute in a Tapachula (Mexico) bar, exclaimed when asked if she would consider going home to Honduras: “No, there you die of hunger!”

4


Case Study 4 Slave Labour Still a Global Problem

40 41

the same period, Peters says the conditions are similar and may lead to the same decline, here.

“In intent, scope, and direction over the past 10 years, the changes to labour market and welfare policy in Canada are entirely similar to those in other liberal market countries. It may be a matter of 5-10 years before Canada will see a rapid downward slide for unions.”

Since the early 1980s, corporate globalization in Canada has meant a major decline in the number of manufacturing and public sector jobs, and an increase in “bad jobs” in the retail service sector.

Characterized by part time hours, low pay, no benefits, and low rates of unionization, these jobs have overwhelmingly been filled by women and young workers, creating a two-tier labour market.

While unionization rates remain high in manufacturing, construction and the public sector, unions have not had major successes in organizing members in the growing services sector, where 75 percent of all youth work.

Labour NewsMay 2003SCOTT HARRIS, AFL, Staff

Young workers are increasingly finding themselves stuck in low-paying, deadend jobs. Will the labour movement find a way to organize these workers?

Low rates of unionization amongst young workers may lead to a crisis for Canadian unions in the coming decades unless more is done to organize youth and the sectors where they dominate.

In a recent Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report called A Fine Balance, John Peters argues that the changing reality of employment in Canada means that unions must change the way they organize if they are to maintain the level of influence they have today.

“In confronting globalization, Canadian unions will have to make significant new efforts toward renewal, if they are to avoid the fate of labour movements in Britain and the United States, where trade unions have either declined dramatically or come close to effective collapse,” Peters says.

Since 1980, union density in the United States has dropped from 23 percent to 13 percent, and in the UK union density is now at just over 25 percent, down from half of all workers twenty years ago.

While union density in Canada has not dropped as seriously, losing only about 10 percent over

4Handout 1Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making?


I'm, notluvin' it!

42 43

The impact of this is reflected in unionization rates for workers under 26, which are less than half the national average. At a mere 13.5 percent, just over one in ten young workers are represented by a union, compared to almost one in three older workers.

Across almost every category where youth are likely to be found—part-time, temporary, small workplaces in retail and food service industries —unions have been unable or unwilling to successfully organize workers on a mass scale.

In Alberta, only 3.5 percent of workers in accommodation and food services belonged to unions in 2000, but these jobs accounted for more than a 25 percent of all jobs and 75 percent of youth employment.

Because of the high concentration of youth in these sectors, and the massive changes the retiring baby-boom generation will bring to workplace demographics, organizing young workers must become more of a priority for unions in Canada.

Youth want unions. Will unions seize the opportunity? The good news for unions is that numerous studies have shown what Alberta sociologist Graham Lowe calls “latent unionism” amongst young workers. Almost a third of recent high school and university graduates who work in non-union workplaces say they would support joining a union if they were given the opportunity.

This relatively pro-union attitude amongst young workers declines as they gain more experience and undergo workplace socialization, however, underscoring the

importance of unions reaching young workers early in their careers.

Unfortunately, many of the structures of the labour movement have proven ill suited at effectively reaching youth in these workplaces.

Organizing casual, transient, part-time young workers spread out over a number of shifts in small workplaces is often difficult for a union to justify in terms of cost and return, especially when faced with powerful corporations willing to commit massive amounts of resources to fighting union drives.

“Unions need to be willing to look at new ways of organizing and new ways of empowering youth to organize their own workplaces.” says Natasha Goudar, the Canadian Labour Congress Youth Vice-President. “Old models of organizing often aren’t working for young workers in the McJobs of today.”

These barriers are made worse by the fact that many unions commit far more resources toservicing current members than to organizing the unorganized. Despite statements to thecontrary, organizing, and especially organizing youth in the service sector, has not been apriority for many unions.

“In Canada, as in all advanced industrial countries, the degree to

which unions regroup will determine their success in surviving

and growing as progressive social forces in the next century.”

John Peters, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

4


Handout 1 Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making?

42 43

unorganized workers and centres to encourage more interaction between labour and the community should also be looked at. This form of community organizing has met with great success in parts of the United States.

Within unions, a concerted effort to encourage youth participation through the creation of youth positions, offering youth programming, and the establishment of youth committees or working groups must be instituted to ensure that the next generation of labour leaders is being trained today.

“In Canada, as in all advanced industrial countries the degree to which unions regroup will determine their success in surviving and growing as progressive social forces in the next century,” says Peters.

“Regardless of globalization and neoliberal restructuring, it is still the case that what unions do and the strategies they adopt will decide their future.”

A Snapshot of Young Workers

• 75% of all youth employment is in the service sector

• 44% of all youth work in part-time jobs• 33% of all youth work in temporary jobs• From 1979 to 1999, the number of young

public sector workers dropped by over 46%• 70% of students are in debt• Youth unemployment is just under 11%, a

rate 2.5 times higher than older workers• 65% of minimum wage earners are

young workers• Only 13.5% of young workers are unionized• The unionization rate for young retail and

accommodation workers is just over 3%

Even for youth who enjoy the benefits of belonging to trade unions, many are relatively unaware of their union and do not actively participate in union structures. Different priorities and structures which often benefit older members who are represented on bargaining committees and in executive positions of locals create barriers which are hard for youth to overcome.

New challenges require new strategies. While the labour movement as a whole has not been successful at organizing in the new workplace, Goudar says that there are examples which show that youth in the service sector can be effectively organized.

“There are unions out there that represent a large number of these workers, and the labour movement as a whole needs to look at these and take lessons from them. The key is that unions need to be willing to change to fairly represent the needs and realities of young workers in order to represent them.”

As Peters points out in his report, unions need to find new ways of reaching out to youth, and must also encourage young members to active-ly participate in their unions to avoid a crisis in unionization rates in the coming decades.

A greater emphasis on organizing, including more resources dedicated to organizing new members, more coordinated organizing through central labour bodies, and information sharing and collaboration between different unions on drives must be examined.

A greater emphasis on community-based organizing through the development of worker centres which act as both advocates for

4Handout 1Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making?


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4


Handout 2 Technology Equals More Work—Study

Printed in the Edmonton JournalMonday, September 2, 2002KATHRYN MAY Southam Newspapers, OTTAWA

Employees face increased workload as computers raise demands of the job

Canada’s employers are losing the productivity gains of the past decade because of the work-load and stress that technology is piling on their workers, warns the author of a major study.

A landmark federal study of 31,500 working Canadians has found that technology is one of the key reasons that one in four Canadians is working more than 50 hours a week, and it accounts for nearly all the unpaid overtime worked at home, says Linda Duxbury, a business professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and a co-author of the study.

She said the findings suggest the conveniences of technology have backfired and raised the demands of the job for many workers beyond what they can handle in a nine-to-five workday. This is especially the case for managers and professionals in both the private and public sectors. The survey found that virtually all the unpaid overtime done at home — an average of about five hours a week — is “computer-supported” work.

“I think technology is a big piece of the longer working hours,” said Duxbury. “People can now access their work and be accessible by work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so that’s what the expectations of the job are. So

technology seems to be an added stressor, but it also seems to be an added set of tasks.”

The massive study was commissioned by Health Canada to examine the conflicting demands of work and family lives. The 2001 National Work-Life Conflict Survey, conducted by Duxbury and Chris Higgins at the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business, is based on a survey of workers in 100 major organizations in the private, public and not-for profit sectors. It is considered accurate within 1.5 percentage points, 19 out of 20 times.

The findings bury the myth of technology leading the way to a four-day workweek and a stress-free, leisure society. Duxbury argues that technology is a prime culprit in increasing stress, illness, burnout, absenteeism and all other costs eating into technology’s productivity gains.

It also suggests a critical piece to the “productivity paradox” that has confounded experts who believe that technology should have improved Canada’s productivity much more than it has.

44 45

“It’s not a straight link of more hours equals more productivity because we know that after a point if you work longer and harder you get more burned out, more stressed, make mistakes, and are more likely to be sick and absent, and that’s all showing up in the data,” said Duxbury.

‘We know the people working these long hours and using technology to support it are stressed and more likely to be burned out, so the productivity paradox can be explained by the negative side of technology taking away from the positive.”

As a result, Duxbury and Higgins conclude, employers and policy-makers have to come to grips with technology as a “negative tool”

“People can now access their work and be accessible by work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so that’s

what the expectations of the job are. So technology seems to be an added stressor, but it also seems to be an

added set of tasks.”

Linda Duxbury, study co-author

that must be managed to ensure they can mine the benefits and efficiency gains. And the first place to start is with E-mail, which has blurred the lines between “efficiency and effectiveness,” said Duxbury.

“We lose sight of the fact that it’s people who are using these technology tools, and people have limits. Just because you can reach people quicker does not mean they can perform the

task quicker. What’s happened is the ability to communicate has increased tremendously but the ability to get the job done has not gone up at the same pace.”

The majority of respondents agree that technology—computers, cell phones, the Internet and E-mail—has increased the interest in their work and improved their productivity. At the same time, almost no one said technology decreased their workload or stress on the job. About 62 percent said the conveniences of technology have not made balancing their home and work lives any easier.

But the big problems arise among the half of the 31,500 respondents who use technology to do work at home outside of regular office hours. Higgins compared workers who do three or more hours of “computer-supported” work at home with those who never do extra work at home. He found the more time spent working at home, the higher the stress, burnout and likelihood of not getting paid for it.

Those who take home no “computer-supported” work are the happiest and have the most balanced lives. They tend to be clerical, secretarial, technical and blue-collar workers who typically work less than 45 hours a week, are usually paid for their overtime and report the lowest job stress and highest job satisfaction.

At the other end is the worker who uses technology to work more than three hours a week at home. They already work the longest hours at the office more than 45 hours a week and are the most stressed.

4Handout 2Technology Equals More Work—Study


46 47

The loss of jobs here, in part, reflects the slowdown in the U.S. economy. But many of the plant closings are just the globalized economy at work. Factories came to take advantage of low wages; now that success has driven wages up, they are moving on. Mexico is left with a bittersweet legacy: higher wages, but fewer jobs.

More than 500 foreign-owned assembly-line factories in Mexico, called maquiladoras, have closed in the past two years, in part because wages have doubled in the past 10 years and are no longer considered low in the world economy. An entry-level factory worker in Tijuana earns $1.50 to $2 an hour, compared with 25 cents an hour in parts of China.

International companies once wary of China are increasingly inclined to invest there. Those include a golf club manufacturer that laid off 1,500 employees in Tijuana and an electronics factory in Guadalajara that left 4,000 workers jobless when it moved. Suddenly Mexican workers feel that China is their fiercest competitor, sucking their jobs east.

“It’s a reality of globalization,” said a Mexican economist, Rogelio Ramirez de la O. As he surveys companies in Mexico, he said, they increasingly talk of moving to China.

The factory closures are a jolt to an industry that until 2001 had never known a year in which it did not grow. Started in the mid-1960’s, the maquiladora industry had been expanding steadily, with double-digit annual growth after passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The pact meant that designer jeans could be sewn and television sets assembled here cheaply,

4


Handout 3 Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs

Reprinted in the Edmonton JournalSaturday, June 22, 2002MARY JORDAN The Washington Post TIJUANA, MEXICO

Cesiah Ruiz Brena came to Tijuana in 1989, deliriously happy to get a job at a new Japanese factory. Her work space was grand, the lights were bright and the pay was unimaginably good: $100 US a week to start.

But after 13 years during which her wage rose to $200 a week, Ruiz Brena lost her job on June 1. Her Canon ink jet printer factory shut down. She and her co-workers shared a cake, snapped photos of one another and said goodbye. The factory, they were told, was moving to Thailand and Vietnam, where wages are as low as $15 a week—less than what she earns in a day

All along the Mexican border with the United States, once-busy factories are closing. Since the end of 2000, tearful farewell parties have been held for 250,000 factory workers in Mexico. Some of the same jobs that left North Carolina textile plants and Ohio auto-parts assembly lines for Mexico in the 1980’s are now moving to Asia. The reason is the same: cheaper labour.

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then shipped tax-free to the United States, the world’s largest consumer of goods.

Shocking new reality. From 120 export factories in 1970, the industry swelled to more than 3,700 in 2000. In Tijuana, a border city of 1.5 million residents just south of San Diego, one new industrial park after another opened over the last 15 years. Today, sprawling factories making electronics, auto parts and medical supplies ring the city. The maquiladora industry produces half of Mexico’s $143 billion annual exports of manufactured goods. But in responding to the new reality of overseas competition, the industry’s trying to shift from labour-intensive assembly, in which China and other Asian countries now have the edge, toward higher-skilled, higher-tech manufacturing. As a result, the number of factories has receded to about 3,200.

“It’s similar to the reinventing that had to be done in the United States” in the 1980’s, said Ramirez de la 0.

But, he said, Mexico is ill-prepared for the transition. The government has been lax about monitoring wage increases and supporting worker education and training programs, preferring to believe that the factory problems will disappear with the US. recession.

Wages in Mexico have risen faster than inflation, and at a faster rate than those in the U.S. and Asia. Rolando Gonzalez, president of the National Maquiladora Association, said that is not all bad. Fatter salaries mean better housing and better living conditions for workers, he said, and Asian competition is forcing an improvement in workers’ skills.

It is cheaper to truck most goods from Mexico to the United States than to ship them from Asia. But the wage differential between China and Mexico is so great that the bottom line usually tips to production in China.

Still, for some large items that are the most costly to transport, such as automobiles, Mexico has an advantage. Toyota announced plans to open a new pickup truck-bed factory here.

Tijuana has a long history of reinventing itself to respond to economic changes. In the 1980’s, the city took advantage of a pre-NAFTA free trade zone to create what many called the “perfume capital of the world.” Companies imported perfumes from Europe, then took advantage of free trade benefits to sell them duty-free to large U.S. retailers.

When NAFTA provided tax-free incentives for maquiladoras, Tijuana substituted crates of electronics components for perfume and became one of the world’s leading television-set assembly sites. So many Sony, JVC, Panasonic and Hitachi sets are assembled here—more than 15 million a year that some call the city “TVjuana.”

Narrowing the salary gap between Mexico and the United States is a goal of the Mexican government. Most U.S. factory jobs pay six to 10 times more than similar jobs in Mexico. The Mexican government hopes that rising wages at home will eventually slow illegal immigration to the United States and keep more of the country’s most ambitious and entrepreneurial workers at home.

4Handout 3Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs


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Labour NewsMay 2003SCOTT HARRIS, AFL, Staff

While many people think that slavery is a thing of the past, the reality is that it is thriving worldwide. There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, more than at any time in human history.

During a recent visit to the University of Alberta, Kevin Bales, Director of the anti-slavery organization Free the Slaves, said that while the slave trade of today is different in many ways, one thing is similar.

“Slavery is about one person completely controlling another using violence and then exploiting them economically, paying them nothing. That’s what slavery has always been.” Modern slavery exists in many forms, says Bales, but there are two characteristics that distinguish most slavery today from the slavery of the past: “Slaves today are cheap and they are disposable.”

An average slave in the American South in 1850 cost the equivalent of $40,000, but today a slave costs only $90 on average. Since slaves are no longer a major investment worth maintaining, if a slave today gets ill, injured or outlives their usefulness they are dumped or executed and replaced easily with other slaves.

Over half of all slaves are bonded labourers, whose work, and often the work of their children, is held as collateral on outstanding loans. Bonded labourers are held primarily in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Brazil and the Caribbean. A study in Nepal found that 20

percent of bonded agricultural labourers had been enslaved for three generations.

Slaves are thought to generate an annual profit of $13.6 billion for slaveholders. While most slaves are used for non-technical work, such as agriculture, mining, and prostitution, some slaves are now being used to work in factories and other areas that feed directly into the global economy.

Canadians buying common items from chocolate to handmade rugs may be supporting the slave trade without knowing it. Bales says that consumers can play a role in ending slavery by buying products that are verified as being fairly traded or slave-free with labels such as Transfair or Rugmark.

Despite the scope of the problem, Bales says that a concerted effort can eliminate slavery.

“While the absolute number of slaves is high, the number of slaves relative to the global population is probably lower than it has ever been. In addition, slavery is illegal in almost every country worldwide. Laws are in place and only need to be enforced.”

For more information on Free the Slaves, visit www.freetheslaves.net.

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Handout 4 Slave Labour Still a Global Problem

But Canadian consumers can help stamp it out

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Youth and Unions: A Crisis in the Making?

1. Problems of young people:

• Globalization and reduced choice in jobs• Actual qualities of ‘bad jobs’, i.e. limited hours, low pay, no benefits, no

union protection etc.• Above conditions lead to problems in saving for training and education,

perhaps the 70% ‘students in debt’ statistic will be quoted• Youth work-place unionization is hampered by the cost (to unions) of

organizing “young workers spread out over a number of shifts in small workplaces”, it might not seem to be worth the effort

2. Why are young people concentrated in the service sector?

• Food service, retail sales, and hospitality industries represent the most widely available work for young people

• The prerequisite of experience is not usually demanded here• Other sectors of the economy often require specialized post-secondary

training—something that these people do not have• The work itself is often seen as ‘entry level’ or as ‘temporary work’ and

therefore the skills demanded and wages received are low• Some students may argue it is a result of globalization. Examples of

this may be exporting of jobs, de-skilling of jobs resulting in a docile and transient workforce, whereby young workers have more choices but within the same types of work. i.e. at ‘big-box stores’

3. Why 65% of minimum wage workers are young people?

• Young workers are hampered by lack of experience, therefore they can’t bid higher

• Young workers may have transportation and housing limitations or other conditions that keep them from pursuing better careers

• Minimum wage workers are rarely unionized; therefore they can not lobby for better wages

• The population is always producing a new crop of 16 or 18 year olds, and so this competition keeps wage levels low

• Employers will argue that this is all that these workers are worth. Employers may ask if consumers want to spend $10.00 to buy a hamburger?

4Answer KeyAnswer key for selected case study questions


Case Study 1

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4. Opinion gathering on “latent unionism”?

• Views will vary, but students should be encouraged to offer evidence for opinions taken

• Students should also be questioned, as to why this pro-union attitude “declines as they gain more experience”? This is a good moment for hypothesis building

5. Work place realities, where unions could represent youth:

• Answers will vary, but will likely include: chaotic workplace scheduling, inadequate job training/safety concerns, as well as insensitive or over-bearing managers etc.

6. Why “only 13.5% young workers are unionized”?

Answers will vary and likely include some of the following:• Unions have difficulty reaching young workers in their workplaces• The service sector may be cited as anti-union by actively

discouraging unionization• Unions are not focusing on organizing the young, but serving

current members• Contemporary values of ‘rugged individualism’ may be cited or young

workers may want to be judged mainly on individual not group efforts• Students may consider the Tommy Douglas quote on unions “we have

to hang together or we will hang separately…”

Technology Makes more Study—Work?

1. Why are we working even more time when using labour-saving technology?

• Much of the technology, like E-mail and cell phones can leave the work with workers, anytime, not just in working hours

• The technology doesn’t actually do the work, it just directs and monitors it

• Competition in the capitalist system always demands more and/or better products for cheaper prices—this pushes labour to do more for less. Management calls this efficiency and productivity improvement; but labour might call it ‘grinding the worker’ or exploitation

• Workers, especially professionals, may endure more work hours if they

4Answer Key Answer key for selected case study questions


Case Study 1Continued...

Case Study 2

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believe that the rewards, like salary and promotions, will offset the stress and burnout dangers

2. How do good survey techniques produce reliable social policy information?

• Sample/size of survey is big: 31,500 working Canadians• Survey takes in 100 major public and private organizations• Survey had clear starting hypotheses that were both confirmed and

denied by the study, e.g. Technology is not leading to a four-day work week, or extra work, that is poorly managed, leads to more stress

3. What is the “productivity paradox”?

• The technology was sold to labour and business as a means to give a competitive advantage. Therefore, using computer and communications technology should result in great gains in the product produced. The paradox is that it has not happened this way. Instead, we see extra homework, 24 hours on-call, added sets of tasks, the resultant stresses, and burnouts

4. Lowest stress levels and highest job satisfaction?

• Those with the most balanced lives are clerical, secretarial, technical, and blue-collared workers

• They are the happiest because they work less than 45 hours a week and get paid for overtime work

5. Pro’s and con’s of taking home “computer-supported work”

• Pro: you believe that you are getting ahead of the work (it would not be on your desk tomorrow)

• Pro: You may not be directly paid for this overtime, but it is important in further salary and advancements

• Con: It is time away from leisure and family, necessary time that ‘re-charges’ workers

• Con: It leads to stress and burnout • Con: It is proven in this study, that technology may be a “negative

tool” and must be better managed by organizations (especially if they want productivity increases)




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Case Study 3

6. How the survey relates to sweatshops?

• The survey confirms that job satisfaction and low stress is related to working less than 45 hours a week. Sweatshop labour grinds workers for more hours than this

• How much choice is allowed to workers? Do higher paid workers (managers and professionals) really have a choice in doing/not doing homework? Do sweatshops give workers such choices? Could management or executive people ever be considered as ‘working in sweatshop conditions’?

• Workers, who ‘have a say’ and are consulted by managers, tend to be workers who are more engaged in their work thus happier. They do not display what social scientists call ‘alienation’ or the separation from your work, from your family or even from the products of your labour. Alienation or apathy in the workplace can be found in all types of industries or economic exchanges, but it is usually reduced by good communication and consultation. Also, some Canadian workplaces do not consult, they coerce; and in this, they are like foreign sweatshops

Mexican Workers Pay for Success with Their Jobs

1. What is the globalized economy at work?

• Answers should reflect basic awareness of corporate competition and profit taking that result in pressures to keep wages down. If these wages have risen, as in Mexico, then capital and industry may migrate to areas of even lower wages. This process is called ‘capital migration’ by some and a ‘race to the bottom’ for lowest wages, by other commentators.

• Other answers may refer to the aspects of globalization that include reduced powers for governments and communities and more power and decision-making for un-elected and unaccountable corporation presidents

2. What are 3 facts about Mexican job losses?

• When maquiladoras were opened, pay was higher than Mexican standards: $100.00 per week to start

• Since 2000, 250,000 jobs have left Mexico• More than 500 ‘foreign-owned assembly-line factories in Mexico’ have

closed and moved. This is out of a total of 3,700 industries

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• Wages have doubled in the last 10 years• Entry-level jobs in Tijuana are $1.50-$2.00 an hour; while they are only

$0.25/hour in China• The maquiladora industry had double-digit growth in supplying the U.S.

with cheaply assembled goods under the NAFTA free trade agreement• The maquiladora industry produces one half of Mexico’s $143 billion in

manufactured goods exported• Numerous other facts are presented

3. Is the Mexican government doing enough to protect their industries?

• Mexicans recognize the ‘new reality of overseas competition’• Mexicans are trying to create higher skilled, higher-tech manufacturing.

This would make their workers more competitive than the lower-skilled and lower-valued Asian workers

• Some Mexican authorities are ‘avoiding the issue’, assuming the end to the U.S. recession will solve their problems with factory closures

• Mexicans will adapt to these new conditions such as in the case of Tijuana. “Tijuana has a long history of re-inventing itself”

4. How competition is involved in companies moving out:

• Companies argue that Mexican wages have risen faster than inflation and faster than those in the U.S. or in Asia

• Companies argue that they can not pay these wages and still compete so they must relocate to low-wage areas like China

• Opponents of globalization (and the migration of capital) will say that corporate competition is not the big factor, but corporate greed is the irresponsible rush to maximize profits. This viewpoint says that companies have a continuing responsibility to their workers (who have created much of the company wealth in the first place)

• Other aspects of the issue may be considered and discussed in class for validity

5. What history and geography that must be overcome?

• The history of U.S./Mexican relations have seen Mexico ignored until they appeared in business circles as a ‘cheap labour’ source that drew these American companies to set up on the border

• If Mexican wages rise too much (to what Canadians might call a living wage); then Mexico may be ignored once again




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• Mexican authorities wish to reduce the wage gap between the U.S. and Mexico, so as to keep their workers at home. This history of 10:1 in U.S.:Mexican wages explains a past historical process whereby Mexico sent its cheap labour to the U.S. and workers sent their pay home

• In terms of geography, Mexico has advantages being on the U.S. border. Industries that produce large expensive-to-ship goods will not re-locate to Asia. For example, auto/transport products, “It is cheaper to truck most goods from Mexico to the United States than to ship them from Asia”

• Other answers may include geographic proximity of Mexico and the U.S. and NAFTA as possibly making trade relations more equitable between these quite unequal nations. But the jury is still out on whether fair labour and environmental standards are really codified and protected by these free trade treaties. If there is equality between Mexico and the U.S. on trade power; it would be a new relationship and would go against a history of unequal U.S./Mexican relations

Slave Labour a Global Problem

1. How slavery is different today and the results?

• The numbers now are larger than ever, “relative to global population”• Mandate for and support of slavery is now low, “slavery is illegal in

almost every country worldwide”• Slaves are now cheap: $90.00 today vs. $40,000 in 1850• This cheap valuing of slaves means they are now more “disposable”,

“no longer a major investment worth maintaining…”, and “dumped or executed and replaced easily with other slaves.”

2. How does bonded labour lead to slavery?

• Fact: one half of slaves are bonded workers• Moneylenders, “snakes” and “coyotes”, will advance money to poor

people for a variety of reasons—big weddings, dowries, or escape to richer nations—and they must pay this off with their ‘sweat and labour’. To repay this mountain of debt, bonded workers will need to work forever, therefore they are slaves

• In this shady world of commerce, debts and loans can even be sold or traded to other parties, and the slave will then enter a new round of coercion, abuse and violence, with another owner. This is especially true with economic migrants trapped in the sex trade




Case Study 4

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• Children of bonded workers, or slaves may be expected to work the debts of their parents

3. Why a need to have a concerted effort to eliminate slavery?

• Slavery is beyond all codes of human conduct and must be fought• Slaves generate about $13.6 billion in wealth; income they can’t spend

supporting themselves and their communities• Where these slaves contribute to the global economy, they begin to

connect to us, especially if we are buying slave made products. We can assist in boycotts and adherence to slave-free product tags

1. Why a 14 year old prostitute in Mexico migrated from Honduras?

• Answers will vary, but likely relate to her comments that she was starving in Honduras, and the causes and remedies for poverty in general

• Some students will consider the ‘you-have-a-choice’ argument and suggest that people can avoid being ensnared into debt. This answer is weak and would need a long argument suggesting that poor people have as much choice as rich people—theoretically yes, practically no

• Many of the stories coming out about modern slavery note how ‘invisible’ it is as it is right around us. This shows the need for transparent and public labour relationships. It also shows the need for public support of labour codes and laws and to protect the weakest members of society




Web Resource Question response

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• Alberta and Northwest Territories Regional Council of Carpenters and Allied Workers

• Alberta Federation of Labour• Alberta Firefighters’ Association (AFFA)• Alberta Teachers’ Association• Alberta Union of Provincial Employees,

Provincial Council• Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Local 43• Athabasca University Faculty Association• Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco & Grain Millers

International Union Local 252• Communications, Energy and

Paperworkers Union Local 501A• Communications, Energy and

Paperworkers Union Local 707• Communications, Energy and


Paperworkers Union Local 777 (Celanese)• Communications, Energy and

Paperworkers Union Local 777 (EMCO)• Communications, Energy and

Paperworkers Union Local 777 (IOL, Strathcona)• Communications, Energy and


Paperworkers Union, Western Region Office• Canadian Union of Public Employees, Alberta• Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 30• Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 38• Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 520• Canadian Union of Public Employees Local1031• Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1445• Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 76• Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local, Calgary• Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local, Edmonton• Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 752• Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 770• Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 7761• Edmonton and District Labour Council• Fort McMurray and District Labour Council

Acknowledgement of Support


• Health Sciences Association of Alberta• International Association of Heat and

Frost and Asbestos Workers Local 110• International Association of Machinists and

Aerospace Workers Local 99• International Association of Machinists and

Aerospace Workers 1722• IATSE Local 210• International Brotherhood of

Boilermakers Local D331• International Brotherhood of Electrical

Workers Local 348• International Brotherhood of Electrical

Workers Local 424• International Association of Ironworkers Local 720• Medicine Hat and District Labour Council• OPEIU Local 379• Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 488• Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 488

Political Action Committee• Public Service Alliance of Canada,

Edmonton Area Council• Public Service Alliance of Canada,

(UNDE) Local 30905• Telecommunications Workers Union Local 201• Telecommunications Workers Union Local 202• Telecommunications Workers Union Local 206• Telecommunications Workers Union Local 208• Telecommunications Workers Union Local 211• United Brotherhood of Carpenters and

Joiners of America Local 1325• United Food and Commercial Workers Local 194D• United Food and Commercial Workers Local 373A• United Food and Commercial Workers,

Provincial Council• United Nurses of Alberta, Provincial Council• United Nurses of Alberta Local 301• United Steel Workers of America Local 7226• United Transportation Union

Aspen Foundation for Labour Education September 2004...Bazaar and across the country and is exported...

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