Global Responsibilities

We're still agonizing. Not that it's wrong that we do this, we should. That well over 400 people, impoverished garment workers in Bangladesh have lost their lives as a result of miserable cupidity and an absolute lack of interest in the welfare of others' well-being deserves an agony of sadness. Introspection of a very personal kind also followed, and while that's not entirely misplaced, it's not all that useful, either.

Except, in a very real sense, to draw sharp comparisons between rules and regulations, justice and security obtainable and reliable in socially, culturally, technologically advantaged and economically advanced countries of the world for whom an obligation to their citizenry is close to absolute, should governing bodies anticipate the goal of re-election in their democracies.

So, what motivates the garment industry to look outside its own countries for the inexpensive production of goods for sale at the lowest possible price while still guaranteeing profit? A single word will suffice: profit. But there are those in the industry, particularly those in Canada who articulate a second motivation, one of moral responsibility, to advance the prospects of those living in third-world countries.

A contention that cannot be entirely dismissed out of hand. North American garment manufactories were once very similar to their Asian counterparts; goods were produced cheaply because wages were kept low, and people worked in Canada and the United States in sometimes dangerous conditions, and they had no rights under inadequate and sometimes absent laws that then prevailed with respect to decent working conditions.

There are still manufacturers of wearing apparel in North America; they pay their workers fair wages and safe and decent working conditions are mandated by law. Needless to say, what they produce is more costly both to produce and to purchase by the consumer. But not always, since there is a considerable mark-up in goods produced in Asia when their labels happen to be elite brand-names.

That said, it isn't entirely correct to believe that companies that contract-out to Asian manufacturers are complicit with the corrupt practises of low-wage, high-incident of human rights abuses that are all too common in third-world countries where the employed have little recourse to the adjudication of fairness and justice in working conditions.

First-world buyers of third-world products, fully aware of scandals that can erupt from time to time, have an eye to foisting their own standards on those who would do business with them, and they do make demands that workers be treated fairly, in relation to standards prevalent in the country in which they toil. Which is why, we are informed, garment-factory work is considered preferable than other work available in those countries.

Where work is often scarce, and wages are rock-bottom, enabling workers to just get by, with little to no fall-back on slim social welfare available through government auspices, because there is none. The presence of foreign companies with their industrial consciences, also empowers poor workers. And, apart from refusing to do business altogether with manufacturers in third-world countries like Bangladesh, there is often little that can be done about the prevalence of corruption.

Where government bodies tasked to ensure that minimum standards in workplace conditions, let alone engineering, architecture and building materials meet other, necessary standards to ensure maximum reliability and minimum episodes of catastrophic collapse, fail. Because government oversight bodies and their bureaucracies fail to exercise due diligence when bribes are expected and are given.

Doing business in far-off countries whose standards do not meet the more stringent ones of well-managed economies is an option that has its advantages, clearly. And while there are companies that don't really care about outcomes and conscientious standards, because their bottom line is the end of the line as far as they're concerned, there are also counterparts for whom this is not true, who insist on operating to a standard of honourable decency.

Operation of manufacturing facilities, inclusive of wages is significantly less than elsewhere, because these are poverty-stricken countries, whose population just manage to keep their heads above water. There is a stark divide in privilege, with those in power and the cultural elite can amass wealth, while the great majority flounder in a never-ending cycle of endurance.

But those same people who work for what seems to western sensibilities a pittance, have few other alternatives other than to work at anything they can find which will offer a remuneration even more slight than at garment factories. Boycotting the wares produced do no one any good, factories will close and people will be without the opportunity to manage altogether, to feed themselves and their families.

But the constant pressure that is exerted by the outside, more privileged world, on country elites eager to see their export opportunities grow, enabling them to become wealthy, has its effect on the disentitled as well. At one time China was in that unfavoured position; it has since become a powerful producer of all manner of goods, exporting their products world-wide, and as a result a large middle-class has emerged.