THE DIARY OF

A POLIT-ECO TOURIST

Slaves of "Free" Trade:

By

Kashyapa A. S. Yapa

Two Nicaraguan women, demonstrating at Kohl’s department store in New Harrisburg, PA, had lost their jobs for demanding just 8 more pennies for sewing the $30 Kohl’s jeans in its offshore factory: if granted, their wages would have increased by a hefty 40%! (The Patriot News, Aug 19, 2000)

Then, the compensation kept the enslaved indigenous or African workers barely surviving.  The work had no limits, no fixed hours: one worked to satisfy the demands of the mayordomo.  The whip-bearer always reminded the workers how grateful they should be to have a job contributing to the well being of the empire, instead of being a burden on it.

The industrial revolution seems to have come a full circle.  Let us analyze its current act: the new conquerors, their weapons, the mayordomos, the slaves and also where the modern loot is headed.

Bobbin, an apparel industry magazine, recently declared that (Desmarteau, 1999) the top 40 companies “have begun to streamline the supply chains,” meaning that everyone is turning towards cheap labor pools for manufacturing.  Not just apparels, but every type of manufacturing that involves extensive labor use, from Disney toys to Reebok shoes, Gap fashion to Wal-Mart discount clothing, is running away from tightly-organized, high-wage, factory floors.

What made this mass scale cross-border transfer of production possible?  Until recently, labyrinthine rules and walls of tariffs, that supposedly protected local production, or at least the national pride, had kept the international trade a bureaucratic nightmare.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sole remaining powerhouse, the capitalistic nation-corporations, could pry open the closed borders with just the stick, the carrot no longer needed.  On top of their perennial economic pressure tools, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, they added the United Nations also as a part of their arsenal, applying trade or military embargoes, if a government stops to think twice.  Almost overnight, the whole world fell under the spell of the capitalistic empire.  Ironically, it coerces the economically weak nations to sign “Free” Trade pacts.  Yet, hordes of quotas, anti-dumping or “green” rules, enforced by “the emperor’s courts,” await whoever tries to trade the wrong way.  

This modern conquest differs from the past in another way: the industrial flotilla does not display the flag of the emperor.  Only a few multinational corporations bother to open factories under their names.  Instead, to do the dirty work, they have fostered a group of intermediaries from the second-tier capitalist nations, the so-called “Asian Tigers.”  These modern mayordomos, together with corrupt political regimes, have created an impenetrable mafia. 

In many poor countries, the traditional industrial plants, run by locals or foreigners settled down for the long haul, produced goods to substitute expensive imports.  After decades of struggle, the organized work force there learned to flex its muscles and reap reasonable monetary and workplace benefits, since the employers also have a vested interest in keeping their employees satisfied.

The new arrivals, the multinational companies and their subcontractors, however, have very short-term economic interests linked to a particular location, usually only till they would exhaust the local tax shelters or export quotas.  Their political interests closely entwine those of corrupt local politicians, whose vision rarely extends beyond the next election and mission stops at pleasing the lenders by earning as much foreign exchange as quickly as possible.

Thus sprang up modern slave camps, protected under special legislation that circumvents whatever labor laws that exist in the host country and policed by special militia that curtails whatever labor discontent from spreading.  They aim to attract the most docile labor: the unskilled, rural, unmarried women and wherever possible, the minors.  These workers, shunned by traditional employers and kept occupied previously by cottage industries, flock to the new labor camps enticed by the pay packet, barely at the official minimum level, yet much more than they would ever earn working at homes.  

Once at the work floor, the glimmer fades: they work 12-14 hour-days, 7 days a week, doing boring, repetitive work, without so much as a decent break to use the toilet, because the whip-bearers strictly control every second the workers takes the eyes off the production line.  The supervisors have devised a mechanism of ever-increasing targets to obtain the maximum production while paying the minimum, and those who fall behind should work longer hours simply to meet the day’s target.  The long work hours, the militia vigilance and corrupt politicians prevent them from taking any organized action to improve the working conditions or the salaries.

Then, where does the loot go?
Have you, the consumer, seen benefits from these massive cost cuts; a reduction in prices?  In the US, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for apparels has rather increased, albeit at half the rate of the overall CPI (BW, May 3, 1999).