Low Pay, High Profile: The Global Push for Fair Labor

Citation

Roberts, J. (2005), "Low Pay, High Profile: The Global Push for Fair Labor", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 285-287. https://doi.org/10.1108/17422040510629755

1 Fair labor is possible

Since the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999, the anti‐globalization movement has been a regular presence at global economic and political meetings. A great deal of media coverage focuses on the disruptive elements of the movement and its failure to have any core objectives beyond resistance to globalization. Recently, such demonstrations have developed a more focused approach. For instance, in July 2005, the G8 summit, at Gleneagles in Scotland attracted anti‐globalization demonstrations, encouraged by the Live 8 campaign, calling for world leaders to “Make Poverty History”. Andrew Ross' Low Pay, High Profile: The Global Push for Fair Labor is an important book for critics of globalization, seeking to address the worldwide inequality stemming from the neo‐liberal economic regime that has come to dominate the global business environment.

Andrew Ross, Professor of American Studies at New York University, centers his analysis on the anti‐sweatshop pressure group, an important element in the anti‐globalization movement. In so doing, he demonstrates the impact of the anti‐sweatshop movement on the business environment and how companies have responded to the criticism of activists. Chapters 1 to 4 are devoted to the garment industry, a sector that has attracted detailed analysis and direct action from anti‐sweatshop activists and scholars, such as Naomi Klein and David Boje. As a result of this attention, Ross argues, greater ethical awareness on the part of business has developed, including the adoption of corporate policies by branded corporations like Nike, to protect against the negative impact associated with sweated labor. Ross also explores the impact of the anti‐sweatshop movement on the US garment industry, giving American Apparel, a commercially successful producer of t‐shirts and underwear, as an example of an alternative to sweatshop production. Located in down town Los Angeles, American Apparel pays all of its workers at a rate above the city's living wage.

Such positive results from the anti‐sweatshop movement's activities are encouraging. Nevertheless, as Ross elaborates, the abuses of the capitalist production system continue. His exploration of labor practices takes the reader across the globe from the US and UK to Italy and China. While sweatshop labor conditions are usually associated with developing countries and, in particular, export processing zones; locations established by governments to attract foreign direct investment through the establishment of tax‐free deregulated environments; Ross shows how such labor conditions are very much a part of capitalist production in the developed economies in North America and Europe. For example, he states that:

Los Angeles has acquired a reputation as “the sweatshop capital of the world” with over 140,000 immigrant garment workers, almost all of them non‐unionized, and most of them employed in substandard conditions, toiling from 12 to 15 hours a day, at wages that annually average $7,200 (p. 2).

At the same time, garment production in Europe benefits from the underground economy, including people smuggling. As Ross reveals, indentured Chinese migrants in towns and cities across Italy are “forced to work in near‐slavery in garment, textile, and leather factories for little or no pay in order to remit the smuggling debts owed to their traffickers” (p. 64).

The growing synergy between sport and fashion is explored by Ross, through the case of Manchester United football club and its relation with producers of sports apparel. This synergy is considered to be a natural outcome of the sympathy between fitness and beauty, and one that increases profits by injecting glamour into active wear with the use of celebrity athletes, like the footballer David Beckham. But, as Ross notes, one result is the raised visibility of apparel produced by low cost labor. Hence, while profits are higher on sports apparel, the risk of exposure and public criticism are also greater.

Ross's discussions of fair labor go beyond the garment industry. Low Pay, High Profile, for example, includes chapter 5 on electronic assembly and microchip manufacture, high‐tech sectors which are already following the global spread of the garment industry's trade and labor practices. Ross uncovers the physical harm and environmental devastation visited upon the host country by semiconductor plants, which use more highly toxic gases and chemicals than any other industry. The ecological impact of microchip factories is staggering, with the waste produced in the production of a single six‐inch wafer including “25 pounds of sodium hydroxide, 2,840 gallons of waste water, and 7 pounds of miscellaneous hazardous wastes” (p. 168). The migration of these factories from Silicon Valley in the US to South and Eastern China has occurred for environmental, as well as cost reasons.

Later chapters turn to labor conflicts in the US. In chapter 6, the actions used by the garment union, UNITE, to bring the attention of the public to the plight of New York department store workers, following a bankruptcy dispute that left them without employment contracts, are detailed. Workers successfully brought their demands to public attention by staging a spoof fashion show. Ross also explores the degradation of white‐collar professionals in developed economies. For instance, in the final chapter, the work of artists and educators is examined. Ross shows how such work has become routine and standardized and, in the era of the knowledge‐based economy, it is very much subjected to the demands of the market. Through a review of the restructuring of the American higher education system, Ross draws attention to the deprofessionalization and casualization of the academic worker.

This is a highly readable book that sheds new light on labor conditions across the globe. Fair labor is not just about pay, but also working conditions, including health and safety and the wider long‐term environmental impact. Issues concerning fair labor are not confined to the developing world, but are faced by workers of all kinds in all parts of the world. In today's global economy no one commands a privileged position. From South East Asian garment workers to western academics, the issue of fair labor is as relevant. Ross successfully links fair labor to the wider economic and geopolitical environment. At a global level, his analysis includes the impact of the World Trade Organization and other international organizations, as well as the post‐cold war environment and global activists. At a domestic level, labor movements, trade unions, government policies and local campaigners are considered. Ross's analysis includes important insights into the exploitation of human trafficking and illegal immigration by the capitalist system. Additionally, he considers alternative business organizations that can succeed without redress to the exploitation of labor.

While the book gives credibility to the anti‐globalization movement's claim that “another world is possible”, it is clear that it is only possible if enough people in the privileged position of having a comfortable lifestyle are willing to sacrifice the benefits that they receive from the inequality and poverty that currently scar the globe. While Ross shows that the present situation is not inevitable he fails to provide a clear guide of how change can be achieved – this we must work out for ourselves. Even so, by documenting global labor conditions at the beginning of the twenty‐first century, Ross provides information and analysis upon which we should all reflect in our daily lives as consumers for, as he demonstrates, it is possible for consumers to influence the labor policies of business organizations. Ross's book is, then, grounds for encouragement and, in that sense, it is a highly valuable contribution to the literature on fair labor.