In more recent times, Western retailers have resisted taking responsibility for improving working conditions in clothing factories in developing countries in large part because doing so would raise the cost of making cheap T-shirts. Some companies like Walmart have contributed only modestly to compensation funds for workers who died in fires and building collapses in factories where their clothes were made. Their lame excuse is that they did not authorize production in those specific factories and should not have to pay for the choices and mistakes of their contractors and subcontractors. It’s true, of course, that for poor Bangladeshis, Cambodians and others who make today’s clothes, these jobs offer an escape from poverty and subsistence farming. But the callous disregard that factory owners, large Western clothing companies and government officials have shown for worker safety in pursuit of profits bears more than a passing resemblance to the historic injustices committed in the name of King Cotton.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 17:46:31 +0000
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