I’m currently reading The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Dr. Pietra Rivoli. I’m about half-way through and the author just discussed her trip to Shanghai and her visits to various mills where cotton thread and fabric are produced. Growing up I remember the scandal with the sub-par conditions in mills that got tied to Nike and the public outrage that ensued. Everyone is familiar with the stories of mills outside U.S. borders where OSHA and minimum wage laws aren’t present. Men, women, and children work 12-14 hour days for cents on the hour in unsanitary conditions. By our standards it’s disgraceful.
The book quotes a young woman working in one of the mills and, surprisingly she says “it’s not that bad” and “it beats the hell out of life on the farm”.
In a lot of my classes, and surely at dinner tables around the world, the topic of third world factory life comes up. The conversation usually includes descriptions (not first-hand, of course) of how hard third world factory life is. We hear about 12 year old boys working 12 hour days with only 1 meal break, and being paid only 10 cents at the end of the day. The obvious conclusion is always “we need to shut down those factories—they’re not humane!”
I wouldn’t argue that we should allow children to work such hours without breaks, but I also would not argue that we take their job away from them. It’s all a matter of perspective. It would be unheard of for a 12 year old boy to work that type of job in America. A 12 year old boy here should be in school during the day and going to baseball practice after school—not working to support his family at the factory. However, in many other countries, there isn’t mandatory schooling (or even the option of public schooling), so when the opportunity to work to support your family arises, the best choice may be to take it—besides, what’s the alternative? Being able to work gives people a bit of autonomy and the ability to not only help their families—but they can help themselves. In the book, one girl leaves her family farm to work in a cotton factory so that she can gain some freedom. Despite the sub-par conditions of the mill, she is able to earn a steady income every month and purchase things that she wants like a variety of food, clothes, movie tickets, etc. She was even able to pay back her family for the money they gave to her (arranged marriage) husband so that he would agree to wed her. Now she gets to date who she wants, and she can even afford to spend a night on the town with the girls—which she could not do when she worked on the farm. Even though the factory life, by Western standards, is unacceptable it was able to give this woman, and many others, autonomy she had never dreamed of. Had someone gone in to shutdown her factory in the name of humanity, she would have lost her job and likely would have had to go back to the farm where there was no autonomy, and less (if any) pay. What I’m saying is—although the factory isn’t great, the alternatives are worse.
Next time this factory life conversation comes up I think it would be smart to remember that we need to examine the situation from the perspective of the person who is in the factory—not from our own. We ought to take into account cultural norms, as well as what alternatives for income exist for people in factories. Obviously some situations are not acceptable—there are child labor laws, etc. But I think we need to not be so quick to criticize the hardships that people are willing to endure to gain a little freedom.
What do you think?
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