Dirty fingers of US textile labor unions
In a recent interview with NBC’s Dateline, Kathy Lee Gifford explained that her goal is to have “clean and fair” apparel production for workers no matter where they may be.
Ms. Gifford explained that she somehow found herself fighting with the US textile labor unions who are out on a totally unrealistic agenda to unionize the apparel industry in sovereign countries.
She related her experience in El Salvador where apparel workers make $.60 an hour and was told by an industry representative of the reality that exist in that country, i.e., that workers are more than happy to be earning $.60 an hour. It’s what the industry can reasonably afford that still allows workers to bring home the bacon.
Ms. Gifford also related that if apparel manufacturing for a blouse that cost $14.98 at Wal-Mart is produced in the US at $5.15 an hour, then American consumers would be buying the same product for not less than $60. She said that American consumers definitely want the greatest mileage out of their hard-earned nickels and dimes.
Labor union can’t dictate policy in sovereign countries. In fact, it’s stupid to arbitrarily impose a standard so foreign to workers outside the US.
Consumers don’t look for Made in the USA labels. It’s the strength of their pocketbooks that is important on any shopping trip. It’s getting the most for their money that matters to them in buying relatively inexpensive but quality products. I recall buying a nice tiny US flag in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to Abe
Lincoln’s house in 1976. I bought it because of the historical significance of the venue. I was very disappointed that it was made in Taiwan!
It’s wrong to impose standards that eventually displace young kids whose jobs in foreign factories help bring home the bacon. Reason it’s wrong because after their displacement (joblessness), none of the human rights preachers are around to assist them find other means to feed, shelter and cloth their families. In other words, bully pulpit approaches are far from dealing with the reality of poverty among the innocent children in third world countries. And unless moralist can substitute what they’d be supplanting, not only must they wake up, but shot up too!
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It’s sad that we often don’t practice what we preach only to be slammed by foreign governments about our very historical negligence, i.e., slavery, discrimination, injustices or health experiments against people of color. Closest to home is the atomic bomb experiment in the Republic of the Marshalls. Then there’s the PCB in
Tanapag village which raises suspicion whether it isn’t another experiment to determine if it causes various internal cancer.
I’m somewhat convinced that even if the villagers litigate this case, the court ruling would be the same as recent acknowledgment that there in fact was discrimination in the former TTG pay scale, but no compensation came out of it. The federal government is notorious on foot dragging and at best, many of the villagers would never be around to find out if justice had been rendered their planned case. More people will get sick and eventually die over the first quarter of the next millennium before the case is heard in federal court.
In the Marshalls, the effects of radiation in affected outer islands is stunning. It changed a simple island lifestyle into reliance on interest earned from compensation given by the federal government. No wonder such atomic experiment was never carried out in the deserts of Nevada, Arizona or California. It had to be experimented on others situated away from the contiguous land mass of the US. What’s interesting though is the obvious miscalculations on the colossal consequence of radiation. Hope that when this century ends, the doors to nuclear weapons experimentation also closes with it.
